Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Drive Belt

Hi all,
I've been lurking in here off and on for a few months and would appreciate your help. The wife (who drives a '97 2.0L automatic Contour) told me that she lost the power steering on the way home today and the battery light is on. I checked it out and found that the serpentine belt is all chewed up. She drove it home 13 miles without the belt driving the accesories. Luckily, she didn;t over heat. My question: is there any possible damage that could have resulted from driving the car without the belt driving the accessories?? I charged the battery back up and plan on getting a new belt to install tomorrow morning. Any tricks to installing the belt? Everything is packed in there pretty tight, but it doesn't look too difficult to replace the belt. The Hanes manual said something about taking off the front wheel to access a removable panel. This is my first front wheel drive car and I'm finding maintenace a little difficult lol. Belts are a lot easier to change on my mustang.

thanks in advance for any help,

WES

Smell the oil to see if it was burnt. If so change it now.

The cover comes out easy and then just rotate the tensioner to make room for the belt. Spin the tensioner pulley first to make sure it's not bad. It should turn s-m-o-o-t-h. If it hangs it will eat the belt. It's only held on by two bolts so it's easy to change too.

first thing you should do is find out why the belt broke.
was it showing sign's of age by crackes,? or was there any sign of something rubbing against it. or maybe one of the accesories seized up. stopped turning and burnt the belt off .Good luck

Thanks for the replies.
Why would the engine oil be burnt?? We've only had the contour about 3 months and the belt looked fine when I bought the car and the Ford dealer supposedly did a thourough inspection of the car when I took it in to have the cats replaced under warranty because they tripped the CEL. The belt was absolutely ripped to shreds when I looked at it this evening.....never saw a belt do that before. usually they've just snapped. I'm hoping something didn't seize up.

Thanks again,
WES

If the engine got too hot inside because there was no coolant circulation (I believe the 97 water pump is driven by the accesory belt) the oil may have gotten too hot.

The tensioner pulley often hangs up but turn everything by hand to make sure nothing siezed.