With the recent heatwave I noticed my air-conditioning appeared to be struggling. It must have been over a year since I last stuck it on full snowflake mode and I know these things fade-off, but it had been working fine, so before I shelled out the £40 or so to get the system re-charged with gas, I figured I'd check the pipes and filters to make sure nothing was clogged up, as everything else had been round MOT time. Apart from a few errant sycamore seeds the system beneath the filters was like new, so a quick peer down the front of the engine showed the real culprit - the drive-belt had snapped and was wrapped like a snake, almost out of view, around a radiator hose.
I was surprised there is no warning-light on the dashboard or the climate-control unit for this, as there is with the alternator-belt, the air-con simply stops and the system functions like a normal blower/heater. With British summers being the way they've been, the belt may have been snapped a year or two ago and I've been totally unaware. It took our recent heatwave, and this is the first time it's been anywhere near 30 degrees for 5 or 6 years, to decide something was actually wrong. I think the most likely cause is all the time I spent running the car with the compressor turned fully off while the battery was in poor health, the constant resistance snapping the belt.
Naturally I would have gone straight to BMW for an OEM belt, but it was 2.30 on Saturday afternoon and they'd closed for the weekend, so I hit up Euro Car Parts, who had the right belt in stock at their new branch which is less than 2 miles from my house. It's an OEM quality part, made by Continental and came to £9.84, so I can't really complain!
PROCESS:
I fitted the belt in about 30 minutes, without raising the car, removing the fan or even moving it onto the drive, using a quick and dirty method, which is fine for the air-con belt, but wouldn't work for the main drive-belt covered in this post.
1. Remove the front-piece of the engine cover [the slim one covering the PAS-fluid filler] by undoing the two bolts on top and one down the left-hand side using an M4 allen-key.
2. Undo the six fastening lugs for the front engine-undertray using a crosshead screwdriver, bend the tray back, free the leading edge from the front-bumper and lower it out of the way.
3. Place the new drive-belt over the two main pulleys from above and wedge the belt over the tensioning-pulley so it doesn't slip off and can be accessed from beneath the car.
4. From below the engine, hold the belt in place at the tensioning pulley and use a 16mm ring-spanner to rotate the tensioning-pulley downwards on its spring-bracket. [An open-end spanner will slip off easily and there isn't quite room for a ratchet-handle without removing the fan.]
5. Push the belt over the tensioning-pulley so it forms a 'pair-of-glasses' shape, as shown on this page of RealOEM.com. Ensure the belt is still in place over the two main pulleys, it may take quite a bit of rotating the tensioner to achieve this, and release the tensioning-pulley.
6. Refit the engine-cover and undertray - you're done, cold air!
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Showing posts with label aux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aux. Show all posts
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Monday, 26 September 2011
E39 530d: Drive-Belt Bracket snapped!!
How very unfortunate - the bracket holding the guide-pulley for the auxiliary drive-belt has sheared clean in two and rendered the car undriveable!
As I started the car on Friday afternoon there was a crunch from the engine. It started up OK, but the battery warning-light came on and I lost power-steering. Assuming the drive-belt had snapped I ordered a new one and started to take the broken one out, which turned out to be involved in itself as you need to remove the fan-cowl for access, and the fan with it! Once I got to the belt I noticed it hadn't snapped after all, but it would not sit tight around the pulleys.
That's when I noticed a pulley was missing and sure enough there it was lying in the floorpan with the bolt still through it, attached to a torn piece of metal. Worrying that the chunk was part of the block itself I continued to dismantle the front of the engine until I found the culprit. Luckily its a metal dog-leg bracket that bolts on to the engine-block to hold the pulley in place and it unbolted easily enough. I guess the shock of another cold diesel startup made it give way, or the PAS-pump struggled to right the wheels on the gravel I was parked in and put too much strain on the belt.
Either way, it appears to be a common enough fault that new brackets aren't hard to come by - the cheapest and easiest place in this case is, surprisingly, the BMW dealerships themselves. I rang BMW WIlliams in Liverpool this morning, giving the part number (7 in the below diagram) and they said it would need ordering but will arrive this afternoon so fingers crossed as the car is off the road.
I'll get back with the results and a full How-To guide soon!
As I started the car on Friday afternoon there was a crunch from the engine. It started up OK, but the battery warning-light came on and I lost power-steering. Assuming the drive-belt had snapped I ordered a new one and started to take the broken one out, which turned out to be involved in itself as you need to remove the fan-cowl for access, and the fan with it! Once I got to the belt I noticed it hadn't snapped after all, but it would not sit tight around the pulleys.
That's when I noticed a pulley was missing and sure enough there it was lying in the floorpan with the bolt still through it, attached to a torn piece of metal. Worrying that the chunk was part of the block itself I continued to dismantle the front of the engine until I found the culprit. Luckily its a metal dog-leg bracket that bolts on to the engine-block to hold the pulley in place and it unbolted easily enough. I guess the shock of another cold diesel startup made it give way, or the PAS-pump struggled to right the wheels on the gravel I was parked in and put too much strain on the belt.
Either way, it appears to be a common enough fault that new brackets aren't hard to come by - the cheapest and easiest place in this case is, surprisingly, the BMW dealerships themselves. I rang BMW WIlliams in Liverpool this morning, giving the part number (7 in the below diagram) and they said it would need ordering but will arrive this afternoon so fingers crossed as the car is off the road.
I'll get back with the results and a full How-To guide soon!
| No. | Description | Supplement | Qty | From | Up To | Part Number | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | RIBBED V-BELT | 5 PK X 2063 | 1 | 11287787369 | ||||
| 02 | Belt tensioner | 1 | 11282354130 | |||||
| 03 | Torx screw with collar | M7X38 | 2 | 11517789351 | ||||
| 04 | Adjusting pulley with lever | 1 | 11282354131 | |||||
| 05 | sealing | 1 | 11282247187 | |||||
| 06 | Flange nut | M6 | 1 | 13537801713 | ||||
| 07 | Bracket | 1 | 11282248561 | |||||
| 08 | Hex bolt with washer | M10X70 ZNS3 | 1 | 07119903817 | ||||
| 09 | Hex bolt | M10X125 | 1 | 07119900630 | ||||
| 10 | Roll pin | 2 | 11282247435 | |||||
| 11 | Fillister-head screw | M8X35 ZNS | 2 | 07119901027 |
Diagram and info from realOEM.com [http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=DL82&mospid=47545&btnr=11_2318&hg=11&fg=18]
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