So last night I arrived at a friend's house, and noticed a squealing whenever i turn the wheel... power steering belt/pulley was loose, no big deal. (I drive a '92 civic dx by the way) Drank a few, hung out, and headed home.. heard a weird knocking/rattling noise (not steady enough or the right sound to be a lifter or anything like that). I only made it about a mile and the car suddenly died. Had it towed home, looked at it today. The alternator belt is completely chewed up, the a/c belt is off the pulley as well. Car won't start.. engine turns over, valves move up and down, can hear it making a soft thumping noise out the exhaust from the valves opening and closing.. the engine still has compression but won't start up. The timing belt is still on all the pulleys as well.

First thought was maybe the battery didn't have enough juice to fire the plugs, but it still cranks over pretty quickly..

Anybody got any ideas?

 

Hmm.. on 2nd thought, the knocking/rattling noise was probably from the strip of belt that was loose and flailing around; I wonder if it hit a wire and broke it somewhere..

 

Do the alternator pulley, idler pulley, PS pump pulley, and A/C compressor pulley turn freely? If so, install new belts and then check for spark and whether the fuel pump primes. Is the CEL ON?

 

Yeah, all the pulleys I can get at turn freely, couldnt get at the a/c pulley as we haven't taken anything apart yet. The CEL never came on either, otherwise I woulda pulled the code and started there.

I haven't checked for one yet, but i'm fairly sure it's not getting a spark. Haven't tested the battery voltage yet either, but it's enough to crank the engine up without any problems.

Don't see any wire harnesses in that general area either, there is a black plastic covered tube running through that area that may have wires in it, but it doesn't seem to be damaged. I saw a post on another site from someone with a kia, they said when their alternator belt broke it caused the timing belt to skip a few teeth. That's a new one to me, although we never put the lower timing belt cover back on last month when we did the piston rings so...

 

Do you hear the fuel pump prime?

It's also pretty easy to check for spark. Click here.

 

Could it have jumped time? Is there spark and fuel?

 

Yeah, the fuel pump primes ok..

Gonna put a new alternator belt on today, check for spark and if the timing has jumped..

 

This prolly is not the problem but, make sure you didnt spin the key-way on the cam and/or crank.

 

I'm not sure if I'm understanding what happened. Did your P/S pulley fall off? did your tensioner fail? What caused the belt to get chewed up, or has it been looking bad for a while?

 

Frankly i'm not really sure how the hell it happened myself. The alternator belt was only about a year and a half old. All the pulleys are still on, the alternator belt wasn't even broken... it's mangled and twisted, but still one piece and was wrapped up around behind the pulley. The a/c belt was off the pulley, but not damaged.

That said, problem solved. Somehow the alternator belt came off the pulley, and yanked it so hard, the timing belt jumped a few teeth. It damaged a few other things when it jerked.. the little rectangular key on the driveshaft pulley is useable but no longer rectangular, there's a chip in the driveshaft, and the threads on that main bolt are a little funky.

Hopefully once it's all put back together there aren't any other unforseen problems....

 

Update for the hell of it: year and 2 months later, my crank pulley bolt came loose, ground up the key and my pulley ended up free-spinning on the crank lol. Replaced a bunch of stuff, running an aluminum underdrive pulley now.. amazing how much removing a/c and power steering, with a lightweight pulley and underdriving the alternator boosts yours throttle response.. at least on my heap lol

Moral of the story, you get what you pay for, and ghetto-rigging is bad. lol