safulop

OK so, this year's road trip is not so smooth as last year's. I am now stranded in the backwoods of HWY 95, my car ate its alternator belt for supper on the highway and I don't know why. Possibly there was a frayed edge which caught under the pulley somehow. The broken belt caught the rad fan wires and shredded those in the bargain.

I spoke with the local mechanic here in Jordan Valley, Oregon, which is almost big enough to see on a map. He is willing to try to help me tomorrow. The least things needed will be a new belt and somehow jerry-rigging some spliced wires for the fans. Any advice on this last part? I'm hoping to get out of here next week sometime, we'll see. Do I need new wiring harness?

The good news is she drove me here for 20 miles with no alternator, then shut her off and started up again to get to service station. Also did not overheat, although was pushing to the red here before I shut her off.

Hope you all have a better day,

Sean

Podguy

A NAPA parts store should be able to get a belt to you over night. Just get some crimps and extra wire for the harness and some electrical tape and make a temporary harness

the car should not be over heating without an alternator. The water pump is driven by T-Belt. Just make should to get the alternator belt tight. It is supposed to be twice as tight as the T-Belt.

safulop

Well, I think it was overheating because of no rad fans, it's wearing a bra which makes it run warmer than normal, I was hill-climbing with AC on, not realizing I had no alternator. I think the cooling system is still good, other than the fans.

Thanks for advice; which harness are you referring to? I've got both rad fan wires torn to shreds here, plugs hanging down and possibly broken. I'm not sure where the rad fan wires originate? That's the harness I was worried about. I'll see more details tomorrow, the engine bay is filled with wire shreds at the moment.

Cheers,

Sean

GregBBRD

The fan wires originate at the top, over by the right hand side....they run just above the upper radiator hose. From there, they drop down the right fan and then split off to the left fan. Should be a fairly easy re-wiring task, as it is doubtful that the wires will be damaged at the top. If the connectors into the fans got destroyed, the hardest part will be making sure the polarity is correct and the fans spin in the correct direction.

Those fan wires get uber close to the alternator belt and drive pulley. They are normally tie wrapped back right by the drive pulley. Very possible that the fan wires took out the alternator belt...not the other way around.

Podguy

Until you get it home just hot wire your fan wiring to the jumper point and use a toggle switch. Switch it on when you start and turn them off when you stop. A little extra air for a short trip will not harm things.

SteveG

You were hill climbing with A/C on? I guess you didn't need that 2-5% HP that the compressor removes from your engine.

You really only need fans when 1) A/C is on and 2) if you are in slow traffic. If your gauge works at all, it can be, well, your gauge. I commuted in a Civic for years with a manual toggle; it became second nature for me to glance at the gauge if I wasn't moving.

dr bob

Sean--

The cars shipped with spare alternator belt in the spare tire well. It's quite possible yours is still there. Worth a look. It will get you to civilization at least, where new belts will be available.

The belt tension is critical, and tigher than most will adjust by hand. The "rule of thumb" applies here in the most literal sense. At mid-span, a hard (north of 'firm') thumb press should deflect the belt one belt thickness.

I don't think I've ever seen a ribbed belt scatter from misalignment, and generally they slip long before looseness alone will toss one off the pulleys. Slippage while loose will damage the belt, and that damage will show up as cracking/glazing/etc when severe. Once the core fibers are weakened the belt will come apart.


Message to others: We too often take the accessory drive belts for granted. It's a good idea to replace them with the timing belt. Then verify tension on them at the same time that t-belt tension is verified. For Sean and others with the Porken tensioner, you still want to use at least the thumb test once in a while.

safulop

How stiff is the alternator pulley, to hand-turn? Mechanic here is concerned about it being too stiff. But there was no slippage before the catastrophe. A likely scenario (see Greg's post above) is that a zip-tie holding radiator fan wires broke, allowing the wires to fall and get caught up with the belt.

We are working on it now.

Cheers,

Sean

Leon Speed

Alternator pulley should turn freely, not stiff, but with the feel of the mass of the internals (hence moderately heavy, not light. But smooth.

dr bob

Sean--

Alternator on 928 spins the same as an alternator on a Chevy. If your mechanic thinks it's dragging on something, it's worth checking. The alternator comes apart pretty easily. Pulley comes off with an impact gun. Four nuts on the rear shroud expose the rear and the wiring connections. Four screws hold the two halves of the alternator together. Two hold the regulator/brush holder on the rear. The front bearing ia a common POLAPS 203SS IIRC, if that's what's dragging. The rear is along for the ride generally. Anything else dragging is catastrophic.

safulop

As Sam Gamgee said, "well, I'm back."

We put 'er together like a jalopy, me and Larry the Cable Guy (not kidding). He slapped a belt on the alternator that sort of fits (right length but one rib too narrow) and hot-wired the fans to the starter jumpers. I used my battery main switch (aftermarket installed) to kill everything when I shut off the car. I drove the 634 miles to Fresno today without incident, recording a personal best mileage of 22.9 mpg along the way. Glad to be back! My local shop will no doubt be horrified and have to undo what was done to properly fix her up.

My main lesson here is that I got complacent. I've been driving back and forth to Calgary for many years mostly in my old 944. I had to baby that car because it used oil and liked to run hot, so I was always under the hood. The 928 uses no oil and had no problems, so I stopped opening the hood on road trips. Bad idea! I probably would have noticed if the rad fan wires had dropped down because of a broken zip tie, if I had bothered to check under the hood that morning.

Thanks to all for the valuable advice. The alternator bearing seems OK, the stiffness was likely due to wires and crud bound up in the pulley. Once we got it cleaned up it runs fine.

Cheers,

Sean

safulop

Just a quick update,

all has been fixed properly. I had to wait a while for shop time, but it was done about 2 weeks ago. Got my new alternator belt, rewired fans, and also an air pump to correct a previous disaster on the way to Calgary. She runs like a dream now, better than ever since I had the shop check out some vacuum lines to the firewall. There was a tiny bit of kicking and shuddering at idle previously, all is quiet now like a brand new car. Maybe had slight vacuum leak?

Noticed that Dan the Pod Guy was the first to reply when I got in trouble.

RIP Dan.