Howdy all.
Well, it finally happened to me yesterday. In spades.
My Neon's power steering belt flew off while on an autocross course. At
first I thought I'd run over a cone and it was REALLY wedged up there and
making the car hard to steer, but noooooo. And just that morning I'd been
foolish enough to spout off about it having never happened to me yet. Oh
well.
Anyway, here's the strange part. After struggling around the rest of the
course with no power steering (it went only a few seconds past the start
line) I get back to grid and inspect the damage not to mention the
now-sucking time slip for that last run. :^(
Yup, sure enough the power steering/AC belt was MIA. But wait, so was the
ribbed alternator belt. My PS belt was returned to me intact by a course
worker (the starter as a matter of fact) except for a few nicks and cuts but
the alternator belt managed to shred itself into hundreds of spaghetti-like
strings (which managed to wrap themselves around everything on that side of
the engine) with the largest piece being about the size of a fettuccini
noodle.
I have no idea what happened. The engine wasn't any where near redline as I
had just short shifted into 2nd gear and was mid-corner when this all
happened. Did the PS belt fly off and shred the alternator belt or did the
shredding alternator belt make the PS belt fly? Who knows. Anybody else
ever lose their Neon's alternator belt? Any idea why it would leave this
world in such a horrible manner?
Tomorrow morning the car goes to the dealership to get fixed under warranty
so no biggie, but it's still weird. Oh well, at least now I know how to
change (or replace as the case may be) the PS belt. We looked, and the
alternator belt looked darn near impossible to get at and replace from the
top. We managed to get the old, damaged PS belt back on for the 30 mile
drive home after the race but I had no alternator the whole way so the
factory battery (now 2 years old) may well have a shortened life expectancy.
Thank GOD that the water pump is driven by the timing belt since that's the
only one that was left.
Eric Linnhoff in KC
#69DS TLS #13
'98 Neon R/T
<eric10mm@qni.com>
Education is neither intelligence nor wisdom. An educated
fool can always find a philosophy to justify his folly.
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I have no idea who originally said this. But I like it.
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