General belts question

[ohgrfreak]

My belts have gone bad and need to be changed before the winter hits. My question is, what kind of money am I looking at to get these changed? I just need the front two, they are cracking badly, the a/c or whatever is behind the front two is fine for now. Should I take it to a dealer? No other place around here seems to know what on earth they are doing with a Mitsubishi, but again, I don't want to get raped ya know. I would get an estimate, but Mitsubishi won't even look at my car without a fee first, and the local places like Tuffy won't get back to me with their estimates. I just started getting my first paychecks from my new job and I'm trying to get caught up on my bills ya know, the whole normal I'm broke kinda deal, I'm hoping I can get this done for under 100 bucks tops. I would do it myself because I'm pretty confident in my tinkering skills, but my huge hands cannot physically squeeze into that space.

Any advice would be appreciated :)

[seth98esT]

Do it yourself. Only requires a 12mm socket and/or a 12mm open end wrench. Its not hard and shouldnt take you more then an hour.

[ohgrfreak]

I don't think I have that great of access, my hands do need to be down there at some point. I can't even physically change out my own front turn signals because my hands just won't fit.

I did see a step-by-step on this site somewhere, I might glance over it again if I can find it.

[ohgrfreak]

One last bump here.

Does anyone know what the item numbers are for the two belts towards the front of the car? I don't need to replace the A/C belt until next year for obvious reasons. Or at least, what are the two belts called? One powers the power steering I assume, and the other is the alternator belt? I haven't really took a long look under the hood just because it's freezing outside (almost). I'm going to attempt to do this myself this weekend, and if I can't get it done (I should be able to) I'll limp it to my fav independent shop and they can probably throw em on for next to nothing.

Also, I can only assume that the 8G tutorial listed on this site somewhere else is fairly accurate if I just access the same belts, but only on the driver's side instead of the pass side wheel well? Is that correct?

Mucho thanks guys!

[silver_beast98]

dont know the numbers but any parts store should be able to tell you. do yourself a favor and do the ac belt too because if i remember correctly its the inside belt and there's no way to put it on later without first removing the alternator belt. the alternator belt is the one coming off the motor and going forward. be sure u get some good leverage on it when you tighten it down because it turns both the alternator and the belt going to the ps pump. the ac tensioner is pretty easy to understant, just turn the bolt farther in to tighten the belt. its all easy so grab the belts and a heater and get after it!

[ohgrfreak]

Thanks, I'm going to grab the belts over next weekend, if I can't find any replacements in stock at the local car parts places, I have a Mistubishi dealer not to far away.

I did some research, and I beleive that the PS and the Alt belts are seperate, there are three drive belts. I think the Aly belt also powers the water pump though.

[ohgrfreak]

Good lord, that's a tough bolt. I spent 2 hours trying to get it off, most of the time was running around from autoparts store to store to look for a longer wrench so I might be able to actually apply some leverage. No, no one has a 12mm within 5 miles from me that has a long shaft. So, what's next, breaker bar right? Yup, I was about to rent one, the long thin ones with the shallow socket, autozone and oreiliys sets both start at 13mm and go up, no deal. Vice grips won't fit, my sockets won't fit, cresent won't fit. So I went to the local hardware store as a last resort, I bought a 2 foot long section of steel tubing.

Long story short, that was the majority of my day, I had other things to do, so this 10 minute job did not get finished. At least someone had my belts in stock, I got dayco, they sounded better than the generics and were the only other choice they had.

So, I guess it'll get done on the weekend. Anyone have other ideas on how to get this alternator bolt loose? I'm not thinking the breaker bar will work that well (slop and play between the bar and the wrench might cause the wrench to just slip off at an angle rounding the bolt in the process).

[ohgrfreak]

The tensioner/adjusting bolt will not move the alternator close enough for me to put the new belt on. I got the old one off, and I replaced the p/s belt already, but I cannot get the alternator loose enough to put the new belt on. The car is on jacks in my dad's garage and he wants it gone "now" towed or limped to a tuffy's, I do not have 100 bucks they want to slap the belt on though :(

The 7G tutorial said to disconnect the bolts that hold the alternator on altogether, but um, how do you get it back on with the tension from the belt.

The 8G tutorial helps me none.

[silver_beast98]

just look at it close and figure it out man... there's a bolt that it should be pivoting off of, i haven't looked at it in forever but i think its the bottom one... dont take that one out, just loosen it so that the alt can pivot but doesnt fall off.... put the new belt on and use that cheater pipe u bought or anything you can to get some leverage on the alt and keep the leverage as you tighten the bolts back up...

[seth98esT]

The front to belts are the power steering belt and the alternator belt. I have ginormous hands too man, but as long as you can get a wrench down there, you are good to go.

For the power steering belt, there are two bolts through the pulley, then 3 bolts on the otherside you need to loosen, then the power steering pump should slide freely on its bracket.

For the alternator belt, there is a tensioner towards the top of the alternator, its a 12mm bolt and I can only access it with 12mm open end wrench. If you loosen that, then the bolt for the tensioner can slide up, and now the alternator can pivot on it main bolt(which you shouldnt loosen).

Install of the new belts is just reverse order. Pick yourself up a Haynes or Chilton manual, it explains this and everything else in detail with pictures :)

[ohgrfreak]

Phew, since loosening all bolts to the alternator wouldn't give it enough slack, it did give me just enough that I could take a torque wrench and turn the belt via turning the crank. So, it's all done, thank gosh, but now there's a new problem that arose, the squealing is now 20 times worse, higher pitched and louder.

Once I get up to a good speed and floor the accelerator, the noise does go away, but I've driven it around a few times already and every time it's the same: Turn on car, go deaf from noise, rev the car to 3000, noise goes away entirely, then the noise comes back next time I start the car. Everything is taught, bolts are all tightened well, I have no idea why the squeal is now worse, also, I have no idea why it goes away. Before I changed the belts, the squeal, although quieter, would not go away no matter what I did or how I drove.

P.S. Thanks for the tip silver_beast98, it did give my alt a little more slack, but not a lot.

[seth98esT]

Your belts are either too loose or too tight. Just move them up/down with your hands, if they are loose, tighten them, if they are deafly tight and you get no deflection, loosen them a little bit. New belts shouldnt squeak and shouldnt need belt soap or anything, they just need to be at the right tension to not squeak.

[silver_beast98]

im not sure if it is a possibility the way the pulleys are set up, but also be sure the belts are aligned right on the pulleys...

[seth98esT]

The belts cant be out of alignment on the pulleys, they can only be too tight or too loose. Of course you could have a pulley that is warped and doesnt spin true.

[ohgrfreak]

Well, I think I'm going to leave it as is, after a few start ups with the noise, I took a break and went home, took the highway roughly 7 miles, parked the car for 45 minutes, and came back to my dad's house for a late lunch, and aside from the second to last startup for the trip home, after that and the last startup the car was dead silent, not a squeak at all. Can I just chock this up to it being 40 degrees outside and just having new belts? I have no idea if there's a break-in schedule, I couldn't think that there would be.

Oh, also I noticed that the Dayco belts are OEM, I didn't even realize that until I yanked the old ones out to take a real look at them. The alternator belt was almost gone and was starting to shred, and had considerable chunking (roughly 50% of the belt didn't even have any teeth/ridges left), the p/s belt was just cracking a little bit.

All in all, I learned a little bit today and I saved a butt load of money too, so I'm happy.

[seth98esT]

Sounds good. They may be perfeclty fine, but if it keeps squealing, then you just either need to tighten or loosen them both or just one.