Took the GTU out yesterday for some exercise (and grins). On the way home, about 20 miles or so left to go, I noticed the steering was suddenly quite heavy -I was traveling at ~45 with gentle curves, so not a huge deal, but... Why? Yep, voltage-gauge was showing low too, about two bars (digi-dash car
) below normal. Okay, I lost the accessory belt. No problem, the battery can get me home, and I don't need power steer... PROBLEM! This ISN'T a Quad 4 car or our Toyota! I just lost my water-pump too...
The 3800 is a dinosaur iron-head engine, about as tough as they come in a GM, but I didn't want to hurt it trying to make that distance with no water-pump. I made it a little further to a safe turn-off and popped the hood. The old belt was fine -the tensioner-pulley had disintegrated... "Huh," I thought, "I didn't think I had any plastic pulleys left on this engine, I thought I got RID of them all..." Apparently not -actually I am thinking now that I had to swap one back IN due to a bad bearing on the steel one I put in there, but I don't recall for sure...
Well, there I am on the side of the road, but I have tools... I was able to swap-out the Supercharger tensioner-pulley in a few minutes, and was back on the road to home, sans Supercharger though. Definitely noticed a difference in response, even though I was driving very carefully. At one point, the engine did hiccup too, I didn't like that at all. The GTU runs flawlessly normally, so that stutter was definitely caused by the lack of SC belt. The one big problem is that I had re-routed the belts, eliminating two idler-pulleys, their friction, and potential failure, and getting shorter belts in the bargain. BUT, while the accessory-drive belt tensioner pulley is smooth, the SC belt tensioner pulley is grooved, so I had to run a grooved pulley on the smooth back of the accessory belt, not really good for it. But, the belt is quite old (about ten years old), so should be replaced anyway.
Overall, I could have done without the disruption in my pleasure-drive, but it was a nice day out, I got the problem fixed with a little Macgyvering, and that felt good, and my car got me home again. Today? I get to go spelunking through my box-o-pulleys to find a decent STEEL pulley...