ColinB

I started the car some 260km from home and 3 minutes later the slack T-belt warning came on. I cancelled it and had driven gingerly for over an hour assuming it to be a false alarm when it came on again. Scared the sh** out of me. Cancelled it a second time and it came on again in about 10 minutes on a bumpy section of road. 3 times false alarm? Unlikely. I had to believe it this time so I stopped at a restaurant, opened the bonnet to let it cool and went for lunch resisting the temptation to drown my worries.

By great good fortune I had with me a good toolbox including some sawn-off spanners which fit the belt tension adjuster with a litle fiddling. After lunch I tightened it just 3 flats, started up and drove carefully 100 kms home without another warning. Now 2 days and 200 more kms later and still no red lights.

I had not checked the tension in over 10 000km. My assumption is that the belt had just exceeded the limit of stretch and triggered the alarm as it should. I'm going to check the tension properly this weekend but for anyone in the same situation this seems like a useful get-you-home trick.

Colin. 89GT

Gretch

Maybe, unless the reason is one of several not actually related to the tensioner setting itself....IE bad H2O pump bearing, bad tensioner rollers, a bent tensioner bolt, shreaded belt, loose cam sprocket bolt...I could go on, but you get the picture I suspect.......

You take a real chance on trashing your motor when you ignore the warnings....sometimes lady luck shows you some mercy, sometimes not......Ask Big Dave if you need a war story....

Jim bailey - 928 International

Colin you have thus far been LUCKY but making an assumption that the belt is simply loose is really not something to recommend that other people should try. Plus you still do not KNOW what if any problem you might be having. One of the problems we see often is overly tight belts with resultant wear on the gears, water pump and occasional broken cam shafts. It is good you made it home but why are you still driving it ? The mentality of "trying to make it home" has cost many people far too much. Betting a $200 tow bill against a $5,000 valve job ; right now you are up about $400 and still rolling the dice. This is a really bad idea.

heinrich

Colin, they are 100% right.

There is a reason the belt was suddenly loose after so many thousands of k's .... that reason is not that the belt stretched. I can attest to that first-hand in many different ways. See my Euro '85 thread for a nice pic of the belt .....

How long has it been since your last confession? .... I mean, your last tbelt/wpump job?

heinrich

My mom and her hubby drove from OVS (afr) to Kaapstad recently. Well ... they were on the way that is ... in their brand spanking new Mitsu full-sized bakkie. Somewhere under the starry sky, you know the type of place .... it's 11pm; you're in put-sonder-waterfontein .... and the red lights come on ... (of course they deny this) .... but they have to get her home. So, they drive on, and I can imagine him: "Come on Baby, just get us to the nearest garage" ..... when, no surprise to a fellow like me, but a major surprise to an older couple like them .... "BAM!!!!!!"

13 thousand bucks later .....

heinrich

US bucks too

Gretch

Yep, try it with an Audi engine and you'll get no second chance with that one either.......The 928 engine is actually very forgiving, but when she has had enough.......she can be a VERY high maintenance girl..........

SteveG

I only turned mine 2 flats and no worries, 10000 km later. NOT! WTF!! OK, I know we're not the only English speakers, but care to let us in on the jargon, what "flat" refers to in wrench language we all understand. Would that be 3 sides of a hex head -- equals 1/2 turn??

Lastly, it could be a short you're having (can't imagine what that translates to in your jargon) but like Jim said, you can either go to the casino 'cause you're on a roll or more likely , stay away, 'cause you have used up your luck, it's your choice.

heinrich

Gretch

Steve, I can help you....He said he did something he considered "constructive" to an unnamed part in the engine bay, to make the warnings he doesn't understand the cause of, go away....what he did was not complete, nor conventional nor even ill advised. In addition he administered the cure without bothering to determine the disease, and rather than taking the oportunity to find out what was ailing his shark, he let it go, since the old girl stopped her bitching.....

AND FER GOD'S SAKE, HE DID IT TO AN 89GT!!!!!!!!! CRIMINAL man.......

Colin, check yer **** for a horse shoe.......

Big Dave

I had a loose belt warning. I tightened the belt. I got another one a few weeks later. I tightened a little more. Then disaster struck.

Find out why it's becoming loose. NOW.

heinrich

Damn you guys are harsh. Colin did what everyone else used to do. Tension wanring? Check and re-tension.

Of course it's wrong but still ...

Red UFO

Where is the sensor that triggers the warning light?

heinrich

We won't tell you

docmirror

Now that's cold.....