Background: I picked up an abused but very strong running and rust-free '03 Blue Slicktop P5 to make into a daily driver. Have a white P5 that my wife and I bought brand new in 2002, recently downgraded to Parts Car due to inoperable rust.
I won't bore you with the details of this unexpectedly long journey, suffice to say that my nickname for the '03 is The Blue Lemon.
After I swapped a nearly-new A/C compressor to the '03 from the '02 parts car (with the correct belt for the diameter of the A/C pulley, as per old pro at the Mazda parts counter looking up the '02 VIN and getting me the right belt... no squealing!), I immediately had smoking belt because the power steering pump was locking up.
This was solved by swapping the power steering pump from the '02, a nice reman I had personally put on our old '02 a few years back.
During this, I found that the '03 car's P/S pump tensioner bracket was bent, probably as a result of the hard front-end hit it took at some point in it's checkered past. Fun trivia: some a-holes "fixed" the front smash with a Protege sedan bumper and headlights... with wood screws FML. Swapping the white bumper on improved the Blue Lemon 200%.
So, the tensioner bracket from the '02 parts car was also swapped to the '03 along with the pump and brand new crush washers.
Short test drive = fine.
20 miles on freeway to work = the belt rides halfway off the P/S pulley, giving me heart attack.
Belt is carefully re-tensioned.
Short test drive = fine.
20 miles on freeway to work = the belt rides halfway off the P/S pulley again!
As shown here, I shimmed the P/S pump outwards with 4 washers: two on inner bracket-to-pumpbody, rusty one on swing point, and one between tensioner bracket and pump's arm that bolts to tensioner.
Short test drive = fine.
20 miles on freeway to work = fine.
1 full week of 40 miles per day on freeway = dammit the belt is gradually riding up again!
Don't mind the broken motor mount, it's the wrong part from a manual trans car. I filled my original auto-trans-spec one off the '02 with silicone construction adhesive, it will go on when I do timing belt & waterpump.
The '02 pump and it's attached upper brackets are visually identical to the dead one off the '03.
The tensioner bracket off the '02 is visually undamaged, the one off the '03 is badly bent inwards, so I am certainly not putting it back on:
-----> So, why does my P/S & A/C belt want to climb outwards? <-----
Thanks in advance for any helpful ideas.
I'm holding off on doing complete timing belt & waterpump service until I get this belt locked down. Then it's Plasti-Dip time!
I won't bore you with the details of this unexpectedly long journey, suffice to say that my nickname for the '03 is The Blue Lemon.
After I swapped a nearly-new A/C compressor to the '03 from the '02 parts car (with the correct belt for the diameter of the A/C pulley, as per old pro at the Mazda parts counter looking up the '02 VIN and getting me the right belt... no squealing!), I immediately had smoking belt because the power steering pump was locking up.
This was solved by swapping the power steering pump from the '02, a nice reman I had personally put on our old '02 a few years back.
During this, I found that the '03 car's P/S pump tensioner bracket was bent, probably as a result of the hard front-end hit it took at some point in it's checkered past. Fun trivia: some a-holes "fixed" the front smash with a Protege sedan bumper and headlights... with wood screws FML. Swapping the white bumper on improved the Blue Lemon 200%.
So, the tensioner bracket from the '02 parts car was also swapped to the '03 along with the pump and brand new crush washers.
Short test drive = fine.
20 miles on freeway to work = the belt rides halfway off the P/S pulley, giving me heart attack.
Belt is carefully re-tensioned.
Short test drive = fine.
20 miles on freeway to work = the belt rides halfway off the P/S pulley again!
As shown here, I shimmed the P/S pump outwards with 4 washers: two on inner bracket-to-pumpbody, rusty one on swing point, and one between tensioner bracket and pump's arm that bolts to tensioner.
Short test drive = fine.
20 miles on freeway to work = fine.
1 full week of 40 miles per day on freeway = dammit the belt is gradually riding up again!
Don't mind the broken motor mount, it's the wrong part from a manual trans car. I filled my original auto-trans-spec one off the '02 with silicone construction adhesive, it will go on when I do timing belt & waterpump.
The '02 pump and it's attached upper brackets are visually identical to the dead one off the '03.
The tensioner bracket off the '02 is visually undamaged, the one off the '03 is badly bent inwards, so I am certainly not putting it back on:
-----> So, why does my P/S & A/C belt want to climb outwards? <-----
Thanks in advance for any helpful ideas.
I'm holding off on doing complete timing belt & waterpump service until I get this belt locked down. Then it's Plasti-Dip time!