Drive belt came off!!

[MPETT]

Having recently put my car back together having done a body off, I fitted a new drive belt (pre serpentine) to my car, seeing as the old one was slipping and appread to be thinner. The new belt, from TVR Racing Green, seem to sit better and I tighten everything up realy good.

As I was accelerating yesterday, I hit the rev limiter, which surprised me a bit, as I've never done this before! a mile or two later I started hearing a hissing noise which sounded like the expansion cap depressurising. Upon lifting the bonnet I discovered the belt has jumped off the pully and to my luck was still in the engine bay. It now appears to be slightly warped (kink in its length. This could have been the exhaust or maybe its a fault in the construction and it was this that caused it to pig off under high engine revs (hence the hitting of the limiter as it span off). I was lucky that I didn't drive it too far as the water pump is turned over by this belt and the engine was rather warm!!

Your thoughts??

[Seasider]

check the pulley alignment ....

[spend]

Sure you got the tension right.... It needs a big lever under the alt to get the belt tight enough (never had a problem getting it too tight - you would need to be a real gorilla to achieve that I reckon).

[MPETT]

I did use a lever and had it prety tight. There was only 15mm of deflection on the longest length of belt! Is there a danger of damaging the bearings if you over tighten the belt??

I'll have a look at the alignment tonight!

[jimothy]

Mine came off repeatedly - until RG realligned my pulleys. Been spot on ever since.

[PRTVR]

Is there anything near the belt that could knock it off ?
thinking along the lines of some movement in the engine, moving the belt onto
something that knocked it off.


Phil

[jhbarford]

Try contacting Adrian Venn of Exactly TVR. He has a mod that stops the belt whipping and jumping off the pulleys. Had it fitted to mine, never had a problem since.

[MPETT]

Ive put some washers behind the water pump pulley as this looked out of line with the others. What does the pully modification entail??