02 P5 Belts - Serious problem

[6speed]

I am highly suspicious of criminal vandalism as the cause of this but:

One of my two belts completely shredded, almost completely knocking the other one off, and I am obviously going to have to get it fixed, and can't/won't be able to spend the money to have a shop do it.

How easy is this to do? Special tools?
What are the names of the belts for locating a replacement?
How much might it run me in parts cost?

Damage in detail:
I am going to refer to them as the inner and outter belts. The inner belt is physically closer to the engine block than the outter belt. The inner belt runs between 2 (i think) pulleys, the rear pulley looks to be the alternator. The outter belt runs between three pulleys.

The inner belt is completely off the pulleys, and I can see the shredded pieces of it it laying in the back of the splash-pan. The outter belt has 'jumped' over on the pulley grooves, only hold on with 2 out of 5 grooves. The belt is still incredibly taunt, and shows no sign of damage, cracks, or wear. I had loaned the car out to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for 2 days, and neither of them could tell me of any strange noise etc... I realized the problem as I was leaving home, and saw the battery light was on. A short distance after that I noticed that the temp gauge needle was ABOVE the highest mark on the temp gauge. I pulled into a parking lot to find out what was going on, and discovered, first, that the coolant hose that comes out of the top of the radiator just under the cap was off and the hose clamp was missing, coolant spewed all over the engine bay. I hooked it back up and put a new clamp on, and let the car cool down while I tried to figure out what happened. Then I noticed the one belt had shifted, and then that the other was missing. Seems that the coolant pump is something that was driven by the missing belt, though I have nothing to back that up other than the fact that the engine is overheating like crazy and won't cool down.

Questions for more detail are welcome, and any help is deeply appreciated.

 

[6speed]

Thanks for the replies

Well, I figured out how to do it, and thankfully the belts were cheap. I might do a DIY for you all if there isn't one (which I didn't see one). Only problem left now is getting the hinge bolt on the alternator for the inner belt belt-tensioner to actually relax enough to get the belt over. The hinge bolt is tight enough that the alternator won't rotate forward, and I am having a #$%& of a time working on it, since I don't have enough clearance with my long-handled breaker bar, and both of my ratchets are too small to get the proper leverage force. Letting Liquid wrench sit on it now to see if that will help enough.

 

[Lord_Zath]

get some wd40 in there or other stuff that'll help the bolt break loose.

As long as it's just a missing belt, you should be ok.

 

[6speed]

Took me about 5 hours and a big burley friend's help, but as it turns out, when the one belt threw, it momentarily got caught in the other belt, not only causing the other belt to jump 2 ribes to the side, but caused the alternator to crank to the side from torque, exactly in the direction needed to further tighten the hinge bolt. We ended up using a short breaker bar (short because of the clearance) and setting a hydraulic jack under the end, then lowering the car to use the car's weight to turn the bolt. It still barely turned it, and actually lifted the engine to the highest points of the flexible motor mounts before the rest of the car's weight started pushing on it too, but then it still only turned just enough so that my friend could rotate the alternator forward. Even then, he could rotate it only to the point that we were about 1/16th of an inch short, so we angled it, and my friend turned the engine over by hand to roll it onto the threads slowly. From there it was quick and easy to clean up, and not much farther to tighten the belts to specs.

 

[Lord_Zath]

interesting