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Topic: Drive belt tensioner & fun on the M1 (Read 597 times) |
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Baw_Flinger
Full Member
Ex 2.3 owner..... Snif
Posts: 438
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Drive belt tensioner & fun on the M1
« on: Mar 20th, 2006, 12:21pm » |
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Just a bit of advice really and sorry if this has been covered before.
Been looking for a new drive belt tensioner for a couple of weeks now as I was getting a lot of noise at the front and a sort of whistle noise when on the move. My ex-ford guy had a look at it last weekend (belt off, short run and checked all wheels for sticky bearings) and the drive belt tensioner bearing was at fault. I was advised to get a replacement as it would not be pretty when it would eventually seize up.
Well, last night on the M1 at 90mph coming back from a 500m round trip, it did. 
First thing I noticed was the acrid burning smell and I clicked right away that it was probably my old friend at the front running the belt. Stuck my hazards on and looked in my rear view mirror to get across to the hard shoulder. Trailing behind me was a lovely cloud of black smoke. I pulled into the hard shoulder and just as I was pulling to a stop, I heard a snapping noise from the front so I turned off the engine immediately. As soon as I looked under the bonnet, it was easy to see what was wrong as the drive belt was in bits and the tensioner was fused solid (burned finger trying to move  ).
Now, from burnt smell to full stop was maybe 15-20 seconds because I was quick to act and the road was clear, so I could get across and stop in no time. Bottom line was I was lucky, If the belt had just snapped while moving at full speed with no burning smell, it could have been messy. No power steering at 90mph is a bit off but I could have over heated as well, not much fun.
Today, I found a unit at my local scrappy with a rather crappy looking belt (New belt on order) and put it all in to test that the motor running pending decent belt. Runs fine and even started first time, which is quite good considering it has not cold started in ages, could the bad tensioner have inhibited start up??….
I would suggest that anybody that has not checked their drive belt ever, do so and check all wheels for noise or stickiness (apart from the main drive wheel of coarse).
If this is ‘trying to teach your granny to suck eggs’, then I apologise. 
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mr._floppy
Junior Member
Posts: 100
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Re: Drive belt tensioner & fun on the M1
« Reply #1 on: Mar 20th, 2006, 12:41pm » |
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Had this happen to me too, except the tensioner fell off !,
the single bolt just sheared. I was only doing about 50mph though.
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