Emergency serpentine belt fix in Denny's parking lot

[hollis]

Not sure if this is "badass" more like just making do with the situation.   My Serpentine belt broke on the highway I was able to get off at the next exit before I was stuck on the sholder.   It was a semi-rural location but, my fiance picked me up since she was in the area.   We stopped and picked up the belt at autozone for $16.  Took a little but of work to get it on but a few hours later my car with 214,000mi was good to roll on down the road. 

The old belt had been squealing the past 3 weeks.  The badass thing would have fixed it before but, it did feel good to get the car working again without a tow or auto mechanic bill.

[Syonyk]

Nice!  As long as you don't have to go through heroics to replace the belt, they're usually not that bad if you've got the breaker bar for the tensioner handy.

[Gibbelstein]

Congrats on pulling it off under pressure and away from home! 

THE FOLLOWING ONLY APPLIES IF YOUR BELT DOES NOT TURN YOUR WATER PUMP:
If Denny's hadn't been so friendly about you doing the work in their lot, another option (depending on how far from home you were) would have been to charge the battery up as much as possible from your fiance's car and live without power steering and A/C until you got home, even if it took multiple stops to charge on the way home.  Your way is definitely preferable, but sometimes you're not as welcome. =)

(PS- I didn't add this to be the "typical internet know it all" and I apologize if it comes across that way.  I have had a car shred multiple belts in short succession before I figured out that my tensioner was the underlying cause.  I just wanted to share in case this happens again.)

[WSUCoug1994]

For future reference.....if you lose a serpentine belt.....panty hose works like a charm....

[Syonyk]

If Denny's hadn't been so friendly about you doing the work in their lot, another option (depending on how far from home you were) would have been to charge the battery up as much as possible from your fiance's car and live without power steering and A/C until you got home, even if it took multiple stops to charge on the way home.  Your way is definitely preferable, but sometimes you're not as welcome. =)

That depends on what turns your water pump.  If you don't have a water pump and try this, you stand a very good chance of frying your head gaskets, which can be very expensive to replace if you warp the head in the process of overheating your engine.

[Gibbelstein]

That is a great point, Syonyk.  Thanks.
I was mistaken in thinking that the accessory belt driven water pump had fallen out of favor.  And even then, there are still lots of older ones on the road.

[Syonyk]

That is a great point, Syonyk.  Thanks.
I was mistaken in thinking that the accessory belt driven water pump had fallen out of favor.  And even then, there are still lots of older ones on the road.

What turns your water pumps?

I've seen oil pumps driven off the timing belt (a nice feature, especially on a non-interference engine), but I don't think I've ever seen a water pump not driven by accessory belts.  Sometimes it's redundant (my old Subarus had two V-belts, both of which turned the alternator and water pump if you didn't have AC), but usually it's just a path on the serpentine path.

I know you can go to an electric water pump, but I didn't think that was terribly common.

[FreeAsADragon]

What turns your water pumps?

I've seen oil pumps driven off the timing belt (a nice feature, especially on a non-interference engine), but I don't think I've ever seen a water pump not driven by accessory belts.  Sometimes it's redundant (my old Subarus had two V-belts, both of which turned the alternator and water pump if you didn't have AC), but usually it's just a path on the serpentine path.

I know you can go to an electric water pump, but I didn't think that was terribly common.

Many older cars at least had their water pumps driven by their timing belts. Accords, for instance.

[Syonyk]

Ah, ok. Haven't run into one of those.

[Gibbelstein]

Yeah, although I tend to think of them as 'newer' cars.  The older cars I'm used to (from the 60's & 70's) were belt driven, but all of the more modern ones (90's and 00's) that I have dealt with have been driven by the timing belt.  And if that belt was gone, I had bigger problems. =)

I tried to do a bit of searching yesterday after you refreshed my memory, but there is no easy way to find out how common they are. 

[eostache]

Several years ago we were driving on I-70 in Utah outside of Green River. A remote section of highway. We saw a Subaru Outback pulled over, the sun was almost set. We stopped to make sure they were ok. Serpentine belt broke. They didn't have a spare so they had to get a tow to Green River, Moab, or Grand Junction to get a new belt and replace it.

After that I made sure to keep a spare set of belts in my Subaru. Even if my bf or I can't fix it on the side of the road, I have the parts and someone in town can.

My bf had a 1994 Toyota truck. We took a trip to Arizona with it. Before the trip he replaced belts and a bearing/pully. On the way back to CO, driving through the middle of UT the bearing seized and he had to cut the power steering belt off. Drove it the rest of the way home with no power steering. Thankfully the highways were mostly straight. He took the defective bearing and broken belt back to NAPA (with receipt). The manager there immediately refunded his money, gave him a new belt and overnighted a new bearing. (I think they had sold him the wrong bearing in the first place.)

[Syonyk]

After that I made sure to keep a spare set of belts in my Subaru. Even if my bf or I can't fix it on the side of the road, I have the parts and someone in town can.

I generally put old-but-good parts in the back of my vehicles.  For a long time, I did any highway travel with a toolbox.  But an old, intact belt is better than a broken one.

I've only had to use a spare part from the back once.  I had a fairly new distributor cap literally come apart - the button in the center just fell out while I was going down the highway, and my ignition went to hell in a handbasket in a hurry.  I had some friends with, and they were more than a bit concerned.  I pulled over, grabbed a screwdriver, took the cap off (since I'd recently replaced it, it was suspect), observed that it was broken, put the old one back on, and away we went.  I did get a replacement the next day - the guy at the parts store looked at it, asked, "Didn't you just buy that?" and went to get a replacement.

[worms]

  I had a fairly new distributor cap literally come apart - the button in the center just fell out while I was going down the highway, and my ignition went to hell in a handbasket in a hurry.

I once had that happen in a remote location in Africa - roadside bush mechanic replaced the button using nothing more than a machete and the carbon core from an old 1.5 volt battery!

[Alternatepriorities]

  I had a fairly new distributor cap literally come apart - the button in the center just fell out while I was going down the highway, and my ignition went to hell in a handbasket in a hurry.

I once had that happen in a remote location in Africa - roadside bush mechanic replaced the button using nothing more than a machete and the carbon core from an old 1.5 volt battery!

That's awesome! People are capable of amazing on the spot engineering when the right part isn't available.

Nice work on the repair Hollis. A good topic for the share your badassity thread to. I've never had to do a belt but I did replace the front brake calipers of a ford ranger in a parking lot when one side ceased up 600 miles into a 2000 mile drive to Prudhoe Bay. It only took a couple hours and saved me about $400 that the local shop quoted me. I knew it couldn't be that much work. I'm glad it didn't cease up a few hundred miles later... There was a nearly 500 mile section of that trip with one service station and no parts...