Diagram For Routing Serpentine Belt

Diagram For Routing Serpentine Belt

Serpentine Belt Diagrams - Helping the Everyday Man Fix a Complex Problem
By Robby Morton - Ezinearticles

So, you're driving down the road in your car that's only a few years old, enjoying the scenery. Your trip is going fine, but suddenly you hear a loud noise, and a few minutes later you realize that your air conditioner is no longer working.

Awhile later you arrive home and open the hood. You see a rubber belt cut in half mounted on the top of your engine block. That rubber belt is a serpentine belt, and having one break in your engine block is one of the most annoying things that can happen in a vehicle.

Serpentine belts are used in various systems under the car's hood. The alternator, water pump, air conditioning compressor, and power steering pump, as well as other systems, all use this kind of belt. When the belt snaps, those systems become useless because kinetic energy needed to operate them cannot be transferred from one location to another.

Usually, replacing a serpentine belt can be a hassle. Despite them being so small, they wreak havoc when broken because the systems they affect, like the alternator and power steering, are needed to drive the vehicle to the garage. This drives the price of repair up because a tow is required.

Those who attempt to save the cost of a tow and a mechanic may attempt to buy a new belt and try replacing the old one on their own in their driveway, but there is a problem with this: Serpentine belts have to go over so many different wheels and pulleys that properly setting one up without having a reference is impossible to do.

The solution to this problem is serpentine belt diagrams.

These belt diagrams show exactly where on the automotive parts that the belt must go over. If there are five different pulleys in a system, the serpentine belt diagram will show you exactly which order to run the belt over the pulleys, and where all of the pulleys are located. These diagrams enable the everyday man who may not be a mechanic to still have the ability to repair his own car even in complicated situations.

So where can you get serpentine belt diagrams?

There are a few places. Sometimes, the car may come with the diagrams in the glove compartment. If not, the Internet and automotive shops are good places to start. If you cannot find the diagram necessary for your vehicle in these places, check out the owner's manual for your car and call up the factory to find out where to find a diagram.

Rest assured that once you find the belt diagrams for your car and understand them, you will save thousands of dollars in labor costs over your lifetime by never having to have this service done by a mechanic again.

Diagram For Routing Serpentine Belt