El Guapo

My serpentine balt snapped today as I was driving to the BART station. This is the second one about 2 months. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this or is it just dumb luck? I live about 5-10 minutes away from the BART station, I hope I have enough juice in the battery to get me home. It was reading 12 volts when I got to the BART station.

vettes

My 92 had this problem,it went throug two belts in a few weeks.It turned out to be a pully not in line.

Rich_01659

sounds like you are planning to drive with out the belt. i would say that is a very bad idea. Your water pump will not be working. could cause more harm. Its not worth the risk.
Rich

JasonL

Rich, LT1 => cam-driven water pump

olephart

Any of the above and any other accessory that is frozen/hard to turn. A/C clutch is a worthy suspect.

chaos on wheels

If you replaced any accessories recently, start looking there first. Since the belt is already off try spinning the pulleys. I know that alt. and idler pulleys spin free, not sure about p/s.

BTW - if you can spin the crank pulley, you are more man than I!!

El Guapo

When I replaced the belt the first time I went ahead and bought a second one and left it in the car. I tried to replace it really quick in the parking lot and all of the pulleys except the AC and crank spin freely. Lately when I have turned the AC on I have heard a loud whoosh sound like pressure being released. I don't know if this could be the cause. If it is, is it possible to bypass the AC pulley for a while until I can get it fixed?

Thud

The LT1's water pump isn't belt driven-- it's driven by the camshaft.

chaos on wheels

If the A/C pulley doesn't spin at all with the A/C off, that is probably your problem. I don't know if there is any alternate belt routing for LT1's. It might almost be worth it to install the spare belt, even though it WILL BREAK, just to have alt. and p/s until you get to a shop (assuming it lasts that long!). I'm in Fremont, if you need a hand, email me at chaos_on_wheels@yahoo.com. Good luck.

-Jason.

El Guapo

oops, I just realized a mistake in my post. I didn't mean to say that the AC pulley doesn't spin at all just that when I try to spin it by hand it has a lot more resistance than the other pulleys. I will be back at the BART station at about 7, hopefully there will be enough light for me to throw it on.

olephart

Looks like you have narrowed down the problem. The A/C pulley is part of an electric clutch. When the A/C is not on, it should spin freely. When the A/C is on, the clutch energizes and couples the pulley to the compressor.

If it is the clutch, it will be hard to turn all of the time and could cause the belt to fail.

The clutch could be OK - you could have a bad bearing in the compressor that only causes the problem when the A/C is on.

Watch the belt while someone turns the A/C on and off. You can usually (feel lucky?)look at the belt and see by the way it is tracking if the problem is the clutch or the compressor.

Tom Mieczkowski

Does anyone know, offhand, what the appropriate tension should be on an LT1 belt? I know you can measure it with a strain gauge, but I have not been able to find the factory value.

BBA

The tensioner has a range of travel that is safe, indicated by a tick mark on the moving part and a scale type marking on the mounted part. If the pointer is not near the marks, there is insufficient tension and it's time to replace the belt.