Ahhh! Still throwing belts!!!!!

[BennyM]

I posted not too long ago about my car shredding a few belts within a short amount of time. Well, I put on an expensive dealer belt and it lasted a little while longer and then it too died. And yes, I routed it properly. Since then, I determined that the belt tensioner and water pump had a little play and could be replaced. Many hours and much money later, I had a new Goodyear belt, a fresh hydraulic tensioner, a new water pump, and all new coolant. And wouldn't you know it, one day after that, I drive about 45 miles, reach my destination, pop the hood and see a belt about 1/3 off of the pulleys....just waiting for a few more turns of the engine to pop it off completely. This is the case even though no component that touches the belt has any wobble or mis-alignment (as far as I can see) So, WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MY CAR??

Additionally, while working on the tensioner, I noticed that my power steering pump had a loose bolt. I pulled it out with next to no effort and noticed that the threaded tip was broken! I have no idea how or why, but this is my next suspect. The pump doesn't seem to be out of position. It's not loose. But it now haunts my thoughts when I'm driving. What do you guys make of that? How do I get the broken tip out. I assume I have to drill/tap into it, but what a tough angle!

Thanks in advance for any input.

BennyM

[632 Regal]

Yes I think the broken bolt is causing all these problems. Either the pump is at an angle or bends to an angle under load.

[SRR2]

Is this http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=HD53&mospid=47404&btnr=32_0024&hg=32&fg=15 what it looks like? Which bolt? Appears that the bracket is a separate part and shouldn't be too hard to replace. If it's #10 OTOH, that's going to take some doing.

[BennyM]

Is this http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=HD53&mospid=47404&btnr=32_0024&hg=32&fg=15 what it looks like? Which bolt? Appears that the bracket is a separate part and shouldn't be too hard to replace. If it's #10 OTOH, that's going to take some doing.


Actually, it looks more like this one:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=HD53&mospid=47404&btnr=32_0025&hg=32&fg=15
And the bolt represented by #6 in my figure is the one that broke...that same side of the bracket too. Now I'm just trying to figure out what that bracket attaches to and how to get out the inch of threaded bolt still stuck in there. I'm pretty sure the bracket is fine. It'd be too easy if I had to replace that. The bolt has a very clean break, which leads me to believe that it was snapped by over-torqueing (though that bolt has probably never been touched). This does not look like fun.

BennyM

[Mendozart]

Actually, it looks more like this one:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=HD53&mospid=47404&btnr=32_0025&hg=32&fg=15
And the bolt represented by #6 in my figure is the one that broke...that same side of the bracket too. Now I'm just trying to figure out what that bracket attaches to and how to get out the inch of threaded bolt still stuck in there. I'm pretty sure the bracket is fine. It'd be too easy if I had to replace that. The bolt has a very clean break, which leads me to believe that it was snapped by over-torqueing (though that bolt has probably never been touched). This does not look like fun.

BennyM
I would definately make sure all pulleys are lined up with each other. Since you found this loose bolt, this leads me to suspect that might be the problem.

[smcgowan]

Wednesday my 525 ate it's Belt. You stated that the bolt was loose. My Indy discovered that one bolt was missing and the other two were loose. 175K BTW. He replaced the bolt and tighten the others. Also he he replaced the pulley which was bent when the belt was thrown. This I guess is a warning to everyone to check the Power Steer Pump bolts...