Fan Belt

peter212693 · 26 Mar 2006 at 16:20

Hi all

the other night I posted about my RPM dropping when I have my electrics on Lights, radio, heated screen and blower enough to make the car shake a little. So i took it to a garage I know and they tested the battery from idle, 2000Rpm with electrics on etc and it was OK so he said the fan belt needed changing as it was quite old and slipping a little.

Now I have changed it and around 3000Rpm there is quite a loud whistling sound can anyone tell me what that is?

Also it hasn’t seemed to sort the RPM dropping problem out any other suggestions?

Thanks

Zip · 26 Mar 2006 at 16:22

The Air con might be doing it. In our car as soon as the air con is on you almost have to get out and push it when your going up hills and it loses heaps of power

Firestar_3x · 26 Mar 2006 at 16:25

Zip said:
The Air con might be doing it. In our car as soon as the air con is on you almost have to get out and push it when your going up hills and it loses heaps of power

Either you have a 600cc car that has problems going up hills in the first place or something is very wrong with your car.

Zip · 26 Mar 2006 at 16:29

Firestar_3x said:
Either you have a 600cc car that has problems going up hills in the first place or something is very wrong with your car.

It has problems going up hills in the first place

It will drop from 120kph down to 80kph by the time i reach the top of one of the hills around here.
The A/C hits it bad as well.
The hills around where i live are probably bigger then where you live.

tb2000 · 26 Mar 2006 at 16:31

Still sounds to me like the battery is no good or the alternator is on it's last legs and isn't charging the battery. If the battery's not a sealed for life type, take the screw plugs out and see if you can get someone to drop-test it for you. If you see any of the cells fizzing or the voltage drops too low when it's drop-tested then it's new battery time. Also, to test the alternator, you could get a multimeter, put one probe on the volts output of the alternator and one on a grounding point. It should be at least 12v on tickover and should rise to 13ish volts when everything is switched on. If the voltage drops on the alternator output then you might be looking at a new brushpack (cheaper than an alternator complete)

peter212693 · 26 Mar 2006 at 16:53

tb2000 said:
Still sounds to me like the battery is no good or the alternator is on it's last legs and isn't charging the battery. If the battery's not a sealed for life type, take the screw plugs out and see if you can get someone to drop-test it for you. If you see any of the cells fizzing or the voltage drops too low when it's drop-tested then it's new battery time. Also, to test the alternator, you could get a multimeter, put one probe on the volts output of the alternator and one on a grounding point. It should be at least 12v on tickover and should rise to 13ish volts when everything is switched on. If the voltage drops on the alternator output then you might be looking at a new brushpack (cheaper than an alternator complete)

I had the battery tested today and was perfect 13.5v when off and about 14v when engine running the guy said the battery was fine. The car is nearly 10 years old now could be the alternator

tb2000 · 26 Mar 2006 at 17:12

peter212693 said:
I had the battery tested today and was perfect 13.5v when off and about 14v when engine running the guy said the battery was fine. The car is nearly 10 years old now could be the alternator

If that is indeed the case then yep it sounds like the alternator, as you say.

peter212693 · 26 Mar 2006 at 17:54

tb2000 said:
If that is indeed the case then yep it sounds like the alternator, as you say.

How tight does the belt have to be on the alternator and any idea what the whistling sounds is it makes?

tb2000 · 26 Mar 2006 at 17:59

peter212693 said:
How tight does the belt have to be on the alternator and any idea what the whistling sounds is it makes?

Not so it's like a bow string, but also no so you can move the belt up and down. It's a bit gard to describe with words really! The whistling might be one of the bearing in the alternator. Sounds like it might be the case if it's now got a new belt the alternators probably spinning faster than before.