g'day all, had abit of a problem with my 01 AU on my way to work thismorning, i've only had her for 3 weeks now,

car started up fine thismorning, was low on fuel so stopped at the servo and fuelled up, she's never done this before but after fuelling up i went to start it and it took quite a while for her to crank over and start, once it did start firing it was missing horribly for a good second or two then started idling normally

didn't think to much of it at the time, i drove another 5-6 k's went around a corner and the steering felt horribly light, knew something wasn't quite right so i put my window down and heard a ticking noise coming from the engine, pulled over immediatley and popped the hood, the drive belt/serpentine belt on one of the back ribs had started coming off and was flapping around, suspected it must of happened at the petrol station when she missed and carried on upon startup,

i had no tools at all on me i tried to pull the bit that was hanging off the belt off only to pull it back further, got my lighter and melted it until it finally snapped , the belt itself is still intact but the back rib is shredded

started her up again and headed on to work couple of k's later i could smell oil burning, i pulled over again and had a look around the power steering, part of the belt has wrapped around the inside of the power steering part (sorry not sure of the exact word for it) and i'm assuming has worn out the gasket as power steering fluid is leaking from there and when the car is running just spraying it all around the engine,

thought bugger this can't risk any more damage to my car, called the boss and took today off, I'm just waiting for supercheap to open to chase down another belt, and just curious as to what could of caused this?

have been doing abit of reading and watching some tutorials on how to change the belt, looks abit complicated so i was hoping someone could give me a few tips to have a go at it, not sure whether you loosen the pulley up the top of the motor or down below, i did read one post where some guy managed to change his without any tools at all?

would appreciate any help advice given to me at the moment, don't really have the cash at the moment to take her to a mechanic after rego last week , thanks again





you can see she's just sprayed power steering fluid everywhere:(

Hmmm, well for a start you'd better check all the idler pullys, make sure they are turning freely with no noise. Also check the tensioner, make sure it is not sloppy(side to side movement or twist).
I'm pretty sure you use a 3/8" ratchet (there is a square cutout in the tensioner arm) and a small piece of pipe to release the tension off the belt. Draw yourself a diagram first though!

As for the leaking pump seal, the normal thing to do is just put on a new exchange pump, but you can probably just buy a seal somewhere which would fix it.

Good luck!

Cheers Mick

Check the tensioner assembly to make sure it hasn't worn and gone skewif, which makes the edge of the belt rub on the moveable leg part of the belt tensioner assembly.

cheers guys, ended up getting a new drive belt from repco, took me a good hour and the missus heard me cursing and carrying on ( i couldnt figure out how to get it around the tensioner pully ) , but then she had a go and ended up getting the bugger on! hahaha womans touch hey.....

anyway she got it on for me in the end, went to kick her in the guts...nothing dead battery ( was blasting the radio for about an hour and a halfish ...all doors wide open, disconnected the battery and put the battery in from my eb, started fine, just wondering now though i have a spanner icon lit up on my digital dash?

took her for abit of a drive, the steering is still really really light? no obvious signs of a power steering leak now (managed to unravel pieces of the old belt that were wrapped around it) running like a bag of sh** atm but thinking maybe the ecu is adjusting itself....

inspected all the pullys, they look ok and turned fine, one thing though when idling, the tensioner pully jumps up and down a little bit, when under abit of revs, nothing id doesn't jump around at all,

really confused what's up with the steering however, it's so light atm it's abit scary to drive like that, cheers all

To be rid of the service indicator spanner, key is off, hold finger on the reset button, turn key on and wait for spanner to go out, then key off.