FTO AUSTRALIA

Hi everyone, just thought I would let eveyone know about a few issues I have had over the last year or so.

To start I shredded a belt taking the alternator belt with it. This was due to the Air-con belt's pulley failing. The bearing was stuffed. Joe and Rik fitted a new pulley that was ordered and I was sent back on the road.

Since then I have shredded another 4 belts. It looks like we have finally find a fix though.

The new pulley I got put on has a slightly different part number to other pulleys they had at Joe and Riks. It had a 2 at the end where as older pulleys did not have this, they were a digit short. Could someone please post up the part number, I think it starts with PX?!

After further checking the differences between these pulleys it was found the new pulley had a smaller running surface area and the bearing sticks further out, causing the pulley to be further out from the block. This in turn was causing the belt to catch on the edge of the pulley which was dragging the belt to the left, making it jump over the ribs in the pulleys and shredding it on the stell edges of the pulleys.

I now have an older pulley on that Joe and Rik had there. I will be keeping an eye on this over the next few months to make sure we have fixed it. Rik did say he was going to maching a bit of the bearing to correct this. Mine was the first one he had put on with the part number difference. Has anybody else seen something like this?

The correct part number for the A/C & ps tensioner pulley is MD366344.

I've just been down this road. There were 2 different types made because of the 2 different pulley setups. 1 for cars with air con, 1 for cars without (yes they did make them without!)

Thanks Ben.

I'll post up the part number when I'm under the car again later in the week or next.

OK, that was a little more that a than a week but this are the numbers stamped on the pulleys.

The one I was having issues with was PU351128Y2

The older pulley I've got on at the moment is PU351128Y.

I understand what you are saying Ben but am a little dubious as to if this is the problem. Mainly because I can't figure out in my head how a pulley for no power steering would be different. I'm thinking it wouldn't be that the edge of the pulley was further from the block, this is what my problem was I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

if the pullies are not aligned this will happen. seen it happen a number of times on different cars - first thing I check. In some cases you can fix it as described. they need to be aligned.

See that part marked 37-110... When you go into the parts breakdown the pulleys are completely different.

We did check the alignment on numerous occasions but couldn't find anything out of wack.

The two pulleys I have had where the same except for the fact that the running surface (or the surface of the pulley the belt runs over) on the one coded PU 351128Y2 was not as wide and the bearing sat out a little further than the one I currenlt have on the car which is PU351128Y.

Although I am thinking now I may have had a dodgy when because when we did change it the other pulley was very pitted. I'd never seen a pulley do that before. You could sort of see on the side of it where the belt was catching.

In any case all looks good for now, if it re-occurs be sure I'll be asking for more help

One of my belts let go and took the other one with it a few months ago. I had to replace the power steering, alternator and aircon belts (2 belts in total) No the alternator belt screams when it’s cold. The volts drop from 14v to 12v for a few seconds while it makes the noise and then goes back up. The dash lights also dim a little. What can I do? I hate sitting at the lights while the engine screams like a little pig. Thanks for any help/advice.

Not sure AJ but in my experience a screaming noise can mean a belt that is too tight or maybe a pulley that has failed.

Through all my issues I was told by a few people that if the alternator belt is too tight it can cause the alternator pully to fail (the bearing). Although I've never heard of that happening.

AJ wrote:One of my belts let go and took the other one with it a few months ago. I had to replace the power steering, alternator and aircon belts (2 belts in total) No the alternator belt screams when it’s cold. The volts drop from 14v to 12v for a few seconds while it makes the noise and then goes back up. The dash lights also dim a little. What can I do? I hate sitting at the lights while the engine screams like a little pig. Thanks for any help/advice.

My alternator pully screamed when I changed my alt belt, you need to change the pully.

Short term fix, take the pully out and put a bit of engine oil on your finger and work it into the pully. My pully haven't been making any noise for a while but I'll be ordering a pully from the UK soon.