Alternator Belt Problem
 

I'm having a problem with the alternator belt. I have replaced the belt two times and will have to replace it again. I replace the alternator 500 miles ago with a rebuilt that came with a pulley. I did not think to remove the old pulley from the original alternator. If the pulley on the replacement alternator were not the correct size, would this cause the alternator belt to heat up, become brittle then break?

The car is an 83 944 with 114,000 miles. I checked the alternator without the belt on and it spins with not problem. I also thought it might have been the A/C, but the A/C spins freely with no belt on also.

I contacted the alternator rebuild company and they are sending out a replacement pulley just in case. I have had the alternator in the car for a year, but have only put 500 miles on the car while I replace parts and get all things working.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Pulleys may be misaligned..raises hell with belts.

Too much tension on the belt. Easy to do with the turnbuckle/adjusting strut.

Well I think I solved the problem. Removed the alternator and realized the pulley is the wrong one. New pulley came in from the alternator rebuild shop. I replaced the pulley and will reinstall the alternator. The pulley was not wide enough for the belt causing the belt to heat up and melt.

Will post final results after installation of alternator and new belt.

how difficult ws it remove the alternator/

Removal and replacement is not difficult. The procedure is straight forward. You need to remove the negative battery cable before you do anything. Then remove the air box. This is not hard, just time consuming. Once the air box is removed, you can remove the two cables on the alternator. Then you need to raise the car and loosen the alternator belt. I replaced both power steering and alternator belts at this time.

Loosen the two bots that hold the alternator to the car. The top one is fairly easy. The bottom bolt connects the alternator to the A/C compressor. It is a tight fit, but you need to loosen this bolt.

If you are not replacing the belts, you need to loosen the A/C-Alternator belt. To do this, loosen the two nuts that hold the A/C-Alternator turnbuckles to the car. If you don’t loosen them, when you adjust the turnbuckle to remove or loosen the belt, these bolts can break.

Once the turnbuckle is loose, you can push the A/C compressor toward the center of the car and can get the belt off the pulley.

Remove the bottom alternator bolt first, then the top bolt. You can now remove the alternator.

Hope this helps.

thanks for the play by play.