duowing

Alright I'm having this loud horrible noise after I started my car. I dropped a socket into the car that I couldn't find, and I forgot about it. I finally started up the car after putting everything back together. Everything fired up (5 300ZX injectors and 1 280zx injector). It sounded perfect for a second then all of a sudden I heard this loud horrible noise like a grinding noise or something. I stopped the car and looked under it, I noticed that socket I lost was now laying on the ground. It smelled like a slight burning scent, not like gasoline, but a smell more from friction of rubbing. Anyway one of my belts on the pulley under the power steering pump is for some reason coming off the pulley and going across a piece of metal on the car. I'm not sure if this is the problem itself, but I know it's a problem. Can a socket between belts cause a belt to actually jump and possibly twist around something else?

Now what is the best way to get to these belts? Take the hood off and remove the fan clutch? Does the bumper require removal or not really? Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

Dorifto

Just take a knife and cut the belts, then simply pull them out. Might as well get new belts anyway.

I'm surprised that socket didn't break a pulley or mount ... if your belts are as tight as I think they are [average tightness], it would should have broken something. You're lucky.

I've actually had a belt pop on my old Grand Am rally car, and in the process of flailing around in my engine bay, it caught a fuel and brake line, and ripped them to shreds, and dinged up my harmonic balancer .

duowing

Well at least at the moment, I don't think it broke a mount. Would I definitely know if it did? As for changing the belts what's the best way to get at them, are the tensioners easy enough to get at with the hood and fan in?

Dorifto

The tensioners should be all you need to adjust to get at the belts, everything else should be enough out of the way for you to maneuver.

Trust me, you'd know if you broke something.

FubarI33t

yeh, them tensioner's are nice on older car's. except in my case where the bolt broke on my tensinoer. i sware i break on bolt a day on this car.

duowing

what belt do I get for the fan/water-pump belt? Is that just a V-belt, or a Serpentine belt or whatever. I've never actually known the name of those belts.

jfairladyz

Depending on the size of your hands it might be easier to remove the fan clutch. I never have. With a little finesse you can work the belts over the fan a blade or so at a time until it's all the way on there. For getting em off take D's advice and cut those SOB's Oh and by no means should the hood have to be removed. The only engine compartment work requiring removal of the hood would be pulling the engine itself up and out.

91Zman

yeah your pretty lucky
My step dad was teaching me how to drop the clutch and keep control of the car so i dont fish tail it and wreck it a while back after the car had been sitting for a while, the pelt popped because of the sudden power rush and hit a radiator hose, split it, and hit 2 other hoses along with that and just destroyed all 3 of them. Had to get 2 belts and 3 hoses replaced.

RodMoyes

Run Forrest!!!!!

duowing

Well I got my new belt. I'm gonna put it on tomorrow. Anyway, when I cut off the old one I noticed the metal the belt was actually going over was the fan blade that sits right behind the alternator pulley. I guess the socket got stuck near that area and screwed up the fan blades and that's what caused all my problem. The only thing I'm wondering, would the bent fan blades spinning around and causing the belt to be all out of alignment and everything be enough to make a real loud noise?

NismoPick

Do you see metal shavings all over? If it was off balance, it would shorten your alternator life quite a bit.

duowing

I don't notice metal shavings, just a bunch of rubber shavings everywhere. Anyway, I'm trying to get the belts on. I've got the other two belts off and the tensioners are easy to work with, but the alternator is a pain. I loosened the adjusting bolt on the top of the alternator. I loosened the bolt on the bottom front of the alternator, there's one more bolt on the back of the alternator that is really hard to get to. I don't know if this needs to be loosened or not. As is I can't get the damn alternator to move.

NismoPick

Both bottom ones & the top bracket one should be loosened. It makes it a lot easier to move when all the bolts are loose.

duowing

Well guys thanks for all the help through injectors and even this. Everything is back together. I cranked it real quick a few times to make sure the alternator would spin without catching the belt. Then the moment of truth. My hand was shaking as I went and cranked it all the way over, but she fired up for the first time in a week. No loud horrible sound, she idled smooth, I'm so glad this all finally worked out. Thanks for the support guys.

jfairladyz

That's good to hear

WildmaN

Way to go man, glad to hear you got it all worked out.