Write-Up: Replacing Belts and Pulleys

So, the smaller spacer of these two in the picture goes to the 15mm bolt/stud that's normally blocked by the power steering pulley? The left most spacer in the picture? That's what I think I'm missing.

Yup

Abaddon wrote:

Yup

Alright, hopefully I can find it.

I want to drive it soooo bad. It's been five days so far.

Wow! This write-up makes it seem a lot easier than this is...or It's just me. For some reason, the bracket keeps rubbing up against the new pulley. I have the longer black spacer and bolt in its spot. I also have the bracket bolt and spacer that goes near the power steering pump in its spot. Whenever I tighten them, they immediately pull the bracket against the pulley.

KnottyEagle wrote:

Wow! This write-up makes it seem a lot easier than this is...or It's just me. For some reason, the bracket keeps rubbing up against the new pulley. I have the longer black spacer and bolt in its spot. I also have the bracket bolt and spacer that goes near the power steering pump in its spot. Whenever I tighten them, they immediately pull the bracket against the pulley.

...you might have a weak motor or transmission mount.

Albertj

albertj wrote:

KnottyEagle wrote:

Wow! This write-up makes it seem a lot easier than this is...or It's just me. For some reason, the bracket keeps rubbing up against the new pulley. I have the longer black spacer and bolt in its spot. I also have the bracket bolt and spacer that goes near the power steering pump in its spot. Whenever I tighten them, they immediately pull the bracket against the pulley.

...you might have a weak motor or transmission mount.

Albertj

Mount or bracket? I'm tightening the bracket up without the mount and that's when it goes up against the new pulley.

Put the old pulley back in and see if it does the same thing. If so, you've got a spacer in the wrong place. if not, you don't have the right new pulley!

deekster_caddy wrote:

Put the old pulley back in and see if it does the same thing. If so, you've got a spacer in the wrong place. if not, you don't have the right new pulley!

I don't think It's the new pulley. It's got the same dimensions as the old one. I made sure I tightened it too.

I still feel like I must be missing a spacer. There's the one near the power steering pump (15mm), and there's the one underneath everything (18mm). I have both spacers in between the engine itself and the bracket with the bolt going through the bracket, spacer, and finally threading into the engine.

If those are the only two spacers, and my pulley is an exact replacement, something isn't right, and I can't figure it out. One possibility I had is maybe I'm not putting the spacers in the right spot. I know the larger spacer goes with the 18mm bolt and the shorter spacer goes near the power steering pump with the 15mm bolt. Could I be mixing up the order between if the bolt or spacer goes first?

I agree, I'm thinking there is supposed to be another spacer in there. Maybe a short one up by the coil packs? If it's fallen down it might be behind the water pump or crank pulley.

If you just tighten the two that do have spacers (bottom and PS), does it rub the pulley? If yes, what if you move the PS spacer over to the coilpack-ish stud instead?

I can't recall all the spacers, I don't know when I'll be able to get under the hood of mine. According to the diagram on p20 there isn't another, but...

deekster_caddy wrote:

I agree, I'm thinking there is supposed to be another spacer in there. Maybe a short one up by the coil packs? If it's fallen down it might be behind the water pump or crank pulley.

If you just tighten the two that do have spacers (bottom and PS), does it rub the pulley? If yes, what if you move the PS spacer over to the coilpack-ish stud instead?

I can't recall all the spacers, I don't know when I'll be able to get under the hood of mine. According to the diagram on p20 there isn't another, but...

If there's another spacer, chances are I didn't see it either. I didn't see the first two. I'll look around again today.

If I just tighten the PS and bottom bolt, the bracket does rub. I was wondering the same thing. If I move the PS spacer to the coil pack bolt, maybe it won't rub the pulley. I could try that.

Yeah, the diagram doesn't really parallel what I've been running into. So confusing.

So the other day both my belts came off which are pretty much brand new.

What I'm thinking is that my supercharger belt came off first because the play in my pulley on the supercharger snout felt like it was between 8mm and 10mm of play between the points it wiggled rotating the SC pulley.

Anyway my car is currently jacked up, there's a bottle jack suspending my engine, my engine mount is off, my power steering pump is dangling and the engine bracket cradle thing that mounts to the engine mount is unbolted and it's loose.

Me and my dad were trying to figure out the belt routing in a mock up before we bolt everything back together and the supercharger belt is really confusing us.

What I wanna know is if I get the serpentine belt back on and bolt everything back up like normal so I can drive it.. can I install the supercharger belt without taking out the engine mount and the engine bracket power steering pump and all that? like can the supercharger belt come in and out of the car without any jacks or all that hassle? knowing that would make this a lot easier in the long run so I can at least drive the car until I figure out the supercharger belt because it seems like it's rubbing on something no matter how we rout it.

Tried following the diagram but the belt was rubbing on itself

The answer is NO. The engine needs to be lowered to get either belt out. All you have to do is remove the lower right-hand spacer to get the belts out. No sense in removing the entire bracket assembly. But, the bolt that holds that spacer in is long and hits the chassis, which is why the engine requires lowering.

Too late for that. The car is already on two jacks and I can barely lower the bottle jack and I can't even try to adjust it like you said without a third jack and I already took the engine mount out. Took the water pump off the engine and it's dangling. I took the bracket off as much as I could too.

So I have to put the supercharger belt on first? Cause if I bolt the water pump back in then I can't undo the engine bracket in.

Or should I put the serpentine belt on, bolt everything up, get a third jack, readjust the engine and take the spacer out to put the supercharger belt in last?

Serp belt goes on first. It rides on the inner most "ring" of the Crank Pulley.

Okay good to know but should I have both belts in before I Bolt the bracket and waterpump back in or should I do the serpentine belt then bolt everything back in and then try to put the SC belt on.

basically I'm asking if I have just my main serpentine belt on and bolt everything back up, can I put the supercharger belt on and take it off freely without having to mess with engine brackets?

No. Both belts run through that bracket. You'd have to remove it for either belt, or just remove that spacer that's mentioned in this thread. But, you've already stated that you're well beyond that point.

IIRC, it won't work that way. You'll have to put the serpentine belt on first, then route the supercharger belt, and bolt up the engine bracket afterwards. After the engine bracket is in place, finish routing the serpentine and supercharger belts.

My brother liked to do his long highway trips without the supercharger belt so he could run on cheap gas. I think he was wasting his time, but I digress. The point is that he would disconnect the supercharger belt bring all of the slack up away from the main belt, bundle it up and zip tie it to the STB with a needle-nose vice grip holding the folds of belt together. I'm sure you could find something else to tie it off to if you wanted to.

My point is just that yes it is possible to run with the supercharger belt pulled to the side, but I don't recommend it, and if you do try this be very secure with the excess belt (without damaging it!)

deekster_caddy wrote:

My brother liked to do his long highway trips without the supercharger belt so he could run on cheap gas. I think he was wasting his time, but I digress. The point is that he would disconnect the supercharger belt bring all of the slack up away from the main belt, bundle it up and zip tie it to the STB with a needle-nose vice grip holding the folds of belt together. I'm sure you could find something else to tie it off to if you wanted to.

My point is just that yes it is possible to run with the supercharger belt pulled to the side, but I don't recommend it, and if you do try this be very secure with the excess belt (without damaging it!)

This might be the most useful post iv'e seen on this entire thread lol.

Mostly because it made me think to myself that if I notice the supercharger belt come off again, now I have my socket wrench set in the car at all times to put the belt back on before it goes through the main engine belt again.

Anyway I got it all done a few days ago and it was pure hell because of my dyslexia. I mean in shop class it took me 7 minutes when my teacher threw all the parts on the floor of rear drum brakes for an S10 pickup..but engine belts have always screwed with my head. It took me a few days to do it because I didn't wanna keep unbolting the bracket on and off, I was unsure about how to route the supercharger belt, and I was waiting on the shop manuals to be sent to me from my step dad which never got here lol.

Also, if the nut on the big bolt with the e10 external torx bolt wasn't seized, I'd have never gotten the bolt out and I realized it's nearly impossible to do without that stud out of the bottom bolt.

Something I noticed was that the guide doesn't really cover how to take the engine mount off very well even though it is extremely easy, it's something Iv'e never done before and I didn't realize it slides in and out so easily, and didn't know it had two bolts holding it. Problem is you can't see the bolts very well especially in a dark muddy driveway, and my dad was like yeah go use a piece of wood and pry it out.

Ended up snapping a two by four trying to wriggle it free and bent the mount a little. Guess I didn't know my own strength because I thought the mount would be a lot stronger. After that, I was like okay time to use a military grade flashlight and I found the outher bolt and realized how it works. Luckily the engine mount was barely bent but I was concerned for a while, and I had to hammer it back in with a sledgehammer.. I guess more tension holding everything in place doesn't hurt and ironically the bump I get in reverse isn't quite as bad. Maybe not the worse thing that happened. My dad's mechanic friend sent us some pics from his shop with good diagrams.







I found that these diagrams helped me the best.

Secondly, the belt diagrams are all over the place and there is no such thing as a camshaft pulley. I know it sounds stupid to say that but for some reason when I know exactly what every pulley does, it helped me a lot routing it.

I'm actually a little sad that I didn't have more downtime and I was missing class because I would have made video logs to make it easier to do to help anyone.

Also there's two spacers not one, hopefully I didn't miss one and there's a third but I think there's only two. I found a random spacer in leaves under my car and was like WHAAT ITS NOT THE RIGHT SIZE TO BE THE BIG BOLT

then realized it went best fit into the middle bolt behind the waterpump behind the bracket.

I wish I had a jigsaw honestly to cut the big spacer in half then I'd make a castle shaped ridge system to lock them together if I had the right tools. Maybe I can custom order something if this ever happens again but I'm low on money and supplies.

one thing that I found made it so much easier is when the bracket is off, figure out the belt routings first, make mockups of both belt routings and using a construct in your mind, you have to imagine where the waterpump goes and just fight it into place as best as you can through the bracket, and what I did was actually install the supercharger pulley first to make sure it doesn't rub on anything like the bracket because it's actually pretty easy to install wrong. Me and my dad found like 3 different ways to install the supercharger belt and it was rubbing no matter what unless it was snaked through the bracket perfectly but it's almost impossible to do unless the bottom stud comes out, in my opinion. Make sure the supercharger belt fits though the idler pulley nooked in the engine cradle that bolts to the engine mount, and I would actually push up the bracket hard against the block to make sure tolerance are good before you decide it's good. It's a really tight fit.

After that I'd recommend zip tieing it like the other guy said if you have a SBT (Strut Brace Tower), if not then use your imagination. I used a screw driver and belt tension on the supercharger belt almost fully installed by putting the screwdriver through two holes and it wasn't going anywhere. You could also probably get away with duct taping it very securely to the radiator frame thing. After you think you have the belts mocked up perfectly and know it's not going anywhere then bolt everything back up. Put the studs back into the block through the big cradle thing with the reverse torx bits, then bolt the bolts on. Remember the bottom stud is bigger and uses an 18mm bolt. I used a small socket wrench with an adapter to bolt it back up. if it's hard to get the ratchet to click well due to inconsistencies in how freely it turns due to corrosion then I'd recommend trying to hold tension on the socket downward.

The waterpump is really a bitch to get back on. The best way I found to not wrestle with it for half an hour is to lay on top of the engine on my stomach, looking down at the waterpump, using one hand to steady the 13mm socket on the top bolt, feel where the thread is with the other hand, then holding tension on both the pullie so it won't move and turning the socket, try to imagine where the thread goes in your mind and keep turning and place it to where the thread is with the other hand. after I got the hang of it since I had to take the waterpump off a few times, I could get it back on within a couple of minutes instead of wrestling with it, and getting mad at it, and it's a lot less fatiguing in that position, and depth perception works much better to imagine where the thread is. I wish they designed it to fit on top of a shelf block thing so you know when you have the right placement. That's why it's not easy to put back on in an awkward position.

Lastly one huge thing that helped me was I noticed the belt kept slipping off the power steering pump when it was time to swing the tensioner pulley to get it on. Something that solved this for me was securely duct taping the belt to the power steering pump pulley so it won't slip off, then getting the belt on, and removing the duct tape after the job is done.

after everything is bolted and the serpentine belt is on, then simply take tension off the supercharger belt out of the way then slip it on the last two pullies and it's easier that way.

I wish I had more help for people this happens to but what can I say I was on a clock lol.

if it happens again, ill make a video log of how I do stuff and I hope that helps.


By the way would a bad coupler cause the supercharger pulley to come off? My dad things the mechanic shop that worked on my car for 41 days got lazy and didn't install the supercharger pulley right and just decided to go with it rubbing on the bracket. The engine does sound healthier now, and it shifts better into second, and the backup bump isn't quiet as bad but sometimes that bump hits harder and sometimes it's a smooth bump so I don't get that.

maybe if I have time in the summer I'll dedicate time and replace the belts again cause they're a little marred from the tangle they were in.

Normally I'd be a lot more worried about my supercharger belt on knowing it slipped off twice so far, but now that I know how it all works and the routing and whatnot, I can just slip it back on on the fly with a 15mm socket if it happens again, and I immediately can tall by the sound of the engine when the SC belt comes off whether or not I drive it hard.


Also one more big thing. I can't find anyone to pull the 3.4 inch pulley off my snout and put the 3.8 inch one on. is there any cheap tool on amazon that would work even for a one time use? I'm thinking I'll just put a modular pulley system on some time soon.

Also what does physical damage to the coupler look like? The one I bought off craigslist I'm suspicious off because it was $20 lol. I mean I couldn't see any damage on it, and it looked like a re manned unit from ZZP because a lot of paint was polished off but I could see where enamel used to be. I don't know of anyone else that sells remanned units like that and I hope it is because I think they use better quality components in the coupler and whatnot, but I could hear some bearing noise when I tried to spin the pulley on the snout I bought. It wasn't loud. it was really soft and dull but I wonder if anything is wrong with it.

Alright guys, ever since I bought my Riv, I've been getting an intermittent high pitched hissing type noise coming from around the S/C tensioner and idler pullies. I've replaced both belts, and all the tensioner and idler pullies. The noise is still there. It seems to happen more when the weather is cold. It's dipped under 30°F the last couple nights.

Here's a video I took trying to capture the sound: https://youtu.be/BOKLnTtPjSE

You can really distinguish the sound from the normal engine noise towards the end of the video. It's that hissing noise.

Corey see if you can find a Grand Prix club active near you, someone will have a pulley tool for the 3800 that can help you swap. One of the reasons many of us recommend using an MPS is so that you can bolt on different pullies.

So how exactly does one swap the belts by just removing the spacer? My belt was just toasted and now its time for a new belt.

Had the pleasure of doing my belts today.  I elected to cut the spacer in half in case I ever have to do this again.  That worked out fine, everything went back together and it will be easier next time.

The accessory belt went on fine, the supercharger belt was a pain.  Even with my original tensioner cranked all the way, I still had to pry it on. Anybody else have that experience? They were Delco belts.  We will see if it stretches out a bit.

Never heard of this before, but if it works you might never change your Riv's belts again.

Larry, is there a trick to cutting the spacer?  I thought about it when I was still down in Marin, but my perfectionist brain was complaining that if it didn't mesh again perfectly there would be sideways torque on the bolt, possibly bending or breaking it.

On the other hand, when my last blower-belt went bad prematurely (the one with only one pump to run!) I had a shop here in Salem do them.  I PRINTED OUT THE FRICKIN' MANUAL FOR THEM, yet it wasn't ready when I returned and the idiot was mopping up coolant from the bolt that he did pull...