Belt wear LS7 motor
05-22-2018, 02:49 PM
#1
Advanced
Thread Starter
Belt wear LS7 motor
An independent mechanic told me that the belt is wearing and the harmonic balancer may be out of balance and need replacement. Is this accurate? See photos above.
05-22-2018, 03:01 PM
#2
Supporting Vendor
To find out if it's truly out of balance why not just start the car and look to see if it's spinning smoothly? When these start to go they're usually pretty obvious.
05-23-2018, 07:53 AM
#3
Team Owner
Yes that is adnormal wear. Yes it is common for balancers to go out, but like Subfloor said, just fire it up and look. Easy to tell.
If balancer looks good, I would just swap a new belt on. I've seen that wear before from cars that are raced and spend a lot of time at high RPM. The tensioner can't keep up and belt flops around. If it is a car that will live at high RPM, the katech tensioner seems to help.
If balancer looks good, I would just swap a new belt on. I've seen that wear before from cars that are raced and spend a lot of time at high RPM. The tensioner can't keep up and belt flops around. If it is a car that will live at high RPM, the katech tensioner seems to help.
05-23-2018, 11:33 AM
#4
Being that the back the belt only rides against the water pump and idler pulleys, would pull the belt to check these two pulleys to make sure they are still smooth/nothing has embedded into them, since they are the only two pulleys that do make contact to the outside of the belt.
From there, would start the motor with the belt back on, and watch the belt adjuster pulley next.
Hence if you have a bearing going out in the one of the pulley's, or the HB balance is wobbling badly, your going to see the belt adjuster pulley bouncing a lot; instead of holding fast in a stationary type position isntead.
Lastly, with the higher reving of the LS7, this can cause a lot of belt slack/slap at high rev's, even the belt tensioner spring on the newer stronger side and still not able to keep up with the needed belt tension.
So if needed, you replace the spring tension belt tensioner with a billet type tensioner that you set the belt tension via adjustments and lock it in place isntead. The down side, you need to check the belt tension and adjust the fixed tensioner as needed isntead. The fact that you mention a independent mechanic, tells me that you are not wrenching on the car yourself, and this fixed tensioner may be a worse option for you (can not serviced enough for it to be adjusted as needed enough instead).
From there, would start the motor with the belt back on, and watch the belt adjuster pulley next.
Hence if you have a bearing going out in the one of the pulley's, or the HB balance is wobbling badly, your going to see the belt adjuster pulley bouncing a lot; instead of holding fast in a stationary type position isntead.
Lastly, with the higher reving of the LS7, this can cause a lot of belt slack/slap at high rev's, even the belt tensioner spring on the newer stronger side and still not able to keep up with the needed belt tension.
So if needed, you replace the spring tension belt tensioner with a billet type tensioner that you set the belt tension via adjustments and lock it in place isntead. The down side, you need to check the belt tension and adjust the fixed tensioner as needed isntead. The fact that you mention a independent mechanic, tells me that you are not wrenching on the car yourself, and this fixed tensioner may be a worse option for you (can not serviced enough for it to be adjusted as needed enough instead).
Last edited by Dano523; 05-23-2018 at 11:37 AM.