Toothed belt kits......

[JMC 0]

Just a word of caution for anyone using a toothed belt system on their G60 - if you haven't already got one, get a spare belt and leave it in the car.

 

My belt failed on me last night (after only 6 months or so of use), on the South Circular at about 7PM. Not fun, and apologies to anyone (i.e. most of London) who I held up while I got the car off the road.

 

Thankfully I had a spare in the car and the nice AA man was able to fit it for me.

 

Has anyone else had problems with really short lifespans for these belts??

[G60SC_Stoney 0]

now i feel like i jinxed you somehow after i asked you on saturday....

[JMC 0]

Nah, don't worry about it mate. Suppose it serves me right for letting the gf drive the car. It was absolutely typical timing as well - the car was full to the brim with stuff we were taking to her new flat. Doh. Still at least it got fixed quickly.

[Supercharged 2]

Has anyone else had problems with really short lifespans for these belts??

 

I think it's just the nature of the system - yeah, always carry a spare!

[catch_twotwo 0]

What is it with moving..... on Monday my Heater Matrix went in the middle of helping my friend move.

 

Always hire a van.... more room and less chance of a failure ;)

[MurphG60 0]

Thanks for the advice i as going to buy one ill get a spare belt.... :)

[HVB G60 0]

I had my belt fail on me two years ago, after only 5000km's of use. It's a set from SLS, where the pulleys are made of steel. Basicly this isn't a bad thing, as aluminium pulleys will wear rather quickly and will potentially cause problems in the future. The real issue is weight, as they didn't remove much of the unneeded material on the pulleys, because of which they are unnecessary heavy.

 

After I took the engine out and had it tuned, the shop where I took my engine also redesigned the pulleys so that hopefully the belt won't break as easily. First of all, they lightened them a fair bit, by removing material where it isn't needed. I can't remember how much they removed exactly, but it was more than 2,5kg's! I have it written down somewhere at home. Besides the fact that it speeds up the pick-up of the engine, it also reduces the stress on the belt when you shift.

 

I don't know what set you're driving. But always replace the damper that attaches to the triangle with the plastic wheel (I don't know what to call it in English :)) by a fixed one. Otherwise the belt will be stressed very much when you release the throttle.

 

On the SLS-set they use a timing belt wheel to guide the belt. This is a bad idea, as the belt wasn't designed to be guided by that type of sidewall and will get damaged. I had a custom wheel made, without sidewalls. In my case the belt gets guided by the pulleys from the g-lader and dynamo, the sidewalls of those pulleys are suitable to guide the belt without causing excessive wear.

 

The last thing is to make sure you've got all the pulleys alligned, so that the belt stays in one place all the time.

 

Up until now the belt is holding up very well. But I'm still in the process of breaking in my new engine. But still, with the old setup, damage to the belt was already visible. With 500km's on the new belt, it still looks like new.