Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[3xpendable]

Ok so not a classic, but my daily driver (1993 BMW 325i) started making a slight knocking noise from the front of the engine a few months ago and when I went home last weekend I took a look and diagnosed it as a fanbelt fault. Here's what it looked like when I took it off and i'm damned lucky it didn't fail as it runs the alternator, waterpump, PAS etc etc!



You cant see it in the picture but the ribbed section was beginning to delaminate from the belt too. I'm also confused as to how it happened, all I can think of is road debris but just thought i'd share this pic with you.
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2013 Dodge Durango R/T Hemi
1965 Ford Anglia 106e Estate (LHD)
1964 Ford Anglia 105E 1500 GT (Dad)
1980 Porsche 911 SC Targa (Uncle)
1971 MGB GT (V8 project) -SOLD 2016
2005 MINI Cooper S JCW - SOLD 2016

[Peter_L]

Hi Welshie.

Since moving to Canada, I haven't let any of our ribbed "serpentine" fan belts go longer than 60k kms. Once the summer comes, we travel to the US quite often and those belts are all but impossible to change on the side of the road. Besides that who wants to be doing that while keeping an eye out for 'gators, rattlers or whatever / whoever.

With temps here moving between -35C and +35C plus the dust and grit thrown up from gravel roads, I think they take quite a beating.

We often get a "squeek" --- "squeek" ---- "squeek" from the belts if they pick up very small "less than 1/2 mm" bits of stone.

A liberal application of baby powder to the belt will silence it for several days.

I could never get a nylon stocking to hold around V pulleys, the flat pulleys would be out of the question and besides that, you ever seen the state of the stockings after they have been tied around the pulleys ?

[Churchill Johnson]

These days mate i don't even see a pair in a pair of stockings!