I was sitting at a stop light on my way back from lunch. Heard a pop and the battery light came on - I didn't have far to go to get to the parking lot so I drove there and parked, but by they time I got there the temp gauge was very high. No coolant was dripping. I went back to work and talked about it with a co-worker - he thought it was my serpentine belt. We went out and popped the hood and sure enough there was no belt. Researched a place to source the part.
After work my co-worker took me to Autozone and we picked up the Continental belt for my car. Went back to the parking lot and used the hand jack to take the front passenger tire off and raise the car. We used a flathead screwdriver to remove the splash guard. After struggling to try and get it on we saw a video on Youtube of some redneck using a zip tie to hold the belt on the crank pulley while he walked the belt on by starting the car. We weren't that brave but we did go back in to work and got a zip tie and then used an adjustable wrench to turn the crank and the flathead to occasionally adjust the belt on the water pump pulley. It worked like a charm.
I verified the belt on all the pulleys by sight and feel that it was in the groove and snipped the zip tie. Started the engine and it ran great no battery light and no creeping temperature. Shut it off and installed the splash guard and tire. We had minimal tools 6" adjustable wrench, medium flathead screwdriver, and sourced a zip tie. Took about an hour and a half on a 90+ degree afternoon in a parking lot. Not ideal but was able to get back on the road.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
I was sitting at a stop light on my way back from lunch. Heard a pop and the battery light came on - I didn't have far to go to get to the parking lot so I drove there and parked, but by they time I got there the temp gauge was very high. No coolant was dripping. I went back to work and talked about it with a co-worker - he thought it was my serpentine belt. We went out and popped the hood and sure enough there was no belt. Researched a place to source the part.
After work my co-worker took me to Autozone and we picked up the Continental belt for my car. Went back to the parking lot and used the hand jack to take the front passenger tire off and raise the car. We used a flathead screwdriver to remove the splash guard. After struggling to try and get it on we saw a video on Youtube of some redneck using a zip tie to hold the belt on the crank pulley while he walked the belt on by starting the car. We weren't that brave but we did go back in to work and got a zip tie and then used an adjustable wrench to turn the crank and the flathead to occasionally adjust the belt on the water pump pulley. It worked like a charm.
I verified the belt on all the pulleys by sight and feel that it was in the groove and snipped the zip tie. Started the engine and it ran great no battery light and no creeping temperature. Shut it off and installed the splash guard and tire. We had minimal tools 6" adjustable wrench, medium flathead screwdriver, and sourced a zip tie. Took about an hour and a half on a 90+ degree afternoon in a parking lot. Not ideal but was able to get back on the road.
- James R., Moline, IL, US