Melted aux belt ‘

[mrporsche]

Evening

Snapped and melted belt !

Fiat 1.4 engine.
The car hasn’t been used all week and it was freezing.
Started the car and there was an odd noise and then smoke from the engine bay.

Upon inspection the belt had snapped and looks to have melted on the alternator pulley.

The belt runs crank alternator and air conditioning:

The heating fan was on so the air con pump would have been engaged.

All bearings felt smooth and spun easily.

What has happened ?

Thanks

[selym]

There will be (or was) a tensioner or pulley that has seized. It happened to me with my Impreza years ago, and I had to peel bits of melted belt off the front of the engine. It needed a replacement tensioner.

[Chris32345]

One of the pulleys on the tensioner is be ducked just have to find which one

[InitialDave]

Probably the tensioner, I had similar on the same engine last month, but in my case it was a seized alternator that got it (I caught it before it snapped, but it certainly smoked a good deal).

Does the tensioner pulley feel ok? Spins smoothly?

[E-bmw]

Either the above, or the engine coolant had frozen in the water pump.

[InitialDave]

E-bmw said:

Either the above, or the engine coolant had frozen in the water pump.

The water pump is driven off the cambelt not the accessory belt.

[mrporsche]

Thank you for your replies.

All bearings spun freely ??

One to watch to see if it happens again, alternator, tensioner and air con seem reasonably easy to get.

[selym]

mrporsche said:

Thank you for your replies.

All bearings spun freely ??

One to watch to see if it happens again, alternator, tensioner and air con seem reasonably easy to get.

Belt jumped off and got trapped behind the tensioner or pulley then.

[InitialDave]

Which car is it in? While access isn't awful overall, the top bolt on the alternator is an utter swine to get at as it's hidden below the AC compressor.