How to Check Your Drive Belt

Publisher's Note: Welcome to our eleventh edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "How to Check Your Drive Belt".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "Tuesday Tech Tips" to see everything published to-date.

How to Check Your Drive Belt

John Gardner: Ben Franklin once said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip. It's all about preventative maintenance. Here at Motohead Garage, we are all about it. You see our maintenance schedule? Well, if you go all the way to the bottom down there, it talks about accessory belt drives, or accessory belt drive systems. It's truly a system. It's driving every component on your car. We're talking about air conditioning—that's pretty rough in the Florida sun if that's not working. But even worse, catastrophic damage if your water pump's not working.

And, Len, man, when it comes to belt technology, cars have evolved. Used to have this old neoprene belt, and you bend it and look at it, see the cracks, looking for the cracks.

Len Groom: Yeah, to tell if it's uh, to tell if it's shot.

John Gardner: yeah. And that's what we did. We just bent it and looked like that. Now, the new vehicles use new technology, and this is EPDM material, a little bit different than that neoprene. You really can't tell by looking at it, but which one do you think's the new belt?

Len Groom: Well, I'm going to pick this one.

John Gardner: Exactly, and that's actually the old belt. I picked the same one. So, what's going on here is like a tire wears on the top, it starts to wear down. These ones are wearing in the grooves, and as it wears in the grooves, it starts to introduce heat into the components, and that's a problem. So, there's also a new way to check them. You can get any one of these little dial gauges here that kind of check it. This one, you put in and you feel it; it's poking up. This one, not so much, and this one, it's actually protruding in there. I like this one here 'cause you can put it in there, you can see that on the camera, it's really not wiggling at all. This one, well, it's starting to get sloppy, and this one here, it's all the way down in the bottom of the grooves, and I can move it to the left or to the right. So, that belt's worn out. A lot different technology. Paints well came the same way. We're talking about clear coats, base coats, all kinds of things. Len, I'm afraid to even put anything on my paint today. I don't want swirls or damage. What do you guys have for us?

Len Groom: Well, just like those belts that we were talking about, paint has come around just as you said. And for that, we've got our waterless polish and wax called Miracle Wash. It's not too tough. It's designed to work with all of those different types of new and high-tech paints. Simply make sure it's clean, get yourself a lint-free rag, spray it on wherever it is that you want to polish up, and wipe it clean.

John Gardner: And just that easy, make sure your engine's in good shape and your paint as well. Pick up the Miracle Wash.