Xantia slipping belt

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Richard Gallagher
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Xantia slipping belt

Post by Richard Gallagher »

I recently bought a 1994 Xantia TD VSX with the Hydractive 2 suspension, no anti sink and air conditioning. It has done a genuine 110,000 miles with full main dealer service history (very expensive!).
Every time I start it from cold the alternator belt slips and squeals, I've narrowed the noise down to coming from the crankshaft pulley. When the engine warms up there is no slippage.
The really confusing bit for me is that I have replaced all spheres, the belt, automatic tensioner and now the HP pump, however the blasted squeal still persists! I have tensioned the belt as per the instructions (tension the belt to allow the pin to slip out of the hole in the tensioner) and even increased the tension further, to no avail. I'm now at a loss as to what to try next. Any suggestions as to what to try next would be gratefully received before I pull out what is left of my hair and continue to wake up the neighbours!
jeremy
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Post by jeremy »

Probably worth a new belt. Unless there is some grease on the crankshaft pulley it sounds as though the pulley itself if a bit worn and does not grip the multigrooves properly. The slipping will have accelerated the wear on the 'Vs' of your belt and may also have burned and polished it a bit as well.
Jeremy
Richard Gallagher
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Post by Richard Gallagher »

Thanks for the suggestion jeremy, it sounds quite feasible, I'll see if I can get hold of a new/decent pulley.
alan s
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Post by alan s »

My 16V BX does exactly the same thing.
When I did some maintenance on it a while back, I discovered that the original belt size was no longer available, hence I had to fit a smaller one & dispense with the jockey wheel, so effectively the belt sits in a triangle shape. I have also since reconnected my car alarm which I find is a bit heavy on the battery if left armed. On a cold start up it screams like a banshee under normal conditions, however, if I put the battery on the charger, it doesn't showing that the load causing the problem in my case is the alternator; full battery no squeal; battery partially down; the amount of squeal dependent on the degree of charge required.
Thought I'd toss it into the ring as another alternative worthy of thought.
Alan S
jeremy
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Post by jeremy »

Get the belt first and try it - you'll need it with the new pulley anyway.
When the 'V' s wear the belt decends into the pulley and the top of the grooves touches the belt backing - reducing the contact pressure between the sides of the V. So any wear in the belt will cause problems.
jeremy
mark_sp
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Post by mark_sp »

Of course if you fit a new belt it will need retensioning after a week or so.
my experience with my old bx 19 petrol was that tensioning the belt according to the manual was no use and to stop the belt slipping/squeeling it had to be tensioned as tight as humanly possible. The tools I used to achieve this were a lump hammer and a length of 2x1 hardwood. In theory this should have caused failure of bearings and or belt but it didn't in 9 years of ownership. I'm not recommending you adopt this method of adjustment though.
mark_sp
Richard Gallagher
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Post by Richard Gallagher »

I fitted a replacement pulley and another new belt yesterday and am now pleased to report that the slipping has now stopped. Thanks for the suggestion Jeremy.
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