More help: 89 240 engine belt sizing, plse

It is the stock 4 cyl. engine. The car as I got it had a belt that goes
from middle groove of crankshaft pulley to the alternator ONLY.. Autozone
gave me a 13AV0980 (Goodyear Gatorback 17386). The belts' OD is 98 CM.
However, even with the Alternator slid toward the crank pulley as far as it
will go, it wont work, is too small! I checked the Gatorback belt site, and
looked up my car on it, and it listed the same 17386 belt, so Autozone gave
me the right belt...and that 980 P/N is on the belt itself. I don't have
the original belt, it got trashed or lost somehow (big mistake).
So I adjusted the alt. back to about a mid-position, locked it down there,
and then got a piece of 22 ga electrical wire, and ran it around the two
pulleys. This should give me the inner circumference of the needed belt. It
measured 94 CM. I found a v-belt size calculator on-line, and plugged in 1
cm as the cross-section (the depth of the "teeth"). (ALL the belts apprear
to be 1 cm belts) I plugged in 94 cm as the inner diameter, and it says I
need a belt of 100 cm OD.
Unfortunately, the gatorback site doesn't list the PNs in order of size,
so I had no way to determine what the Gatorback number is for a "1000"
(presumable what the 100 cm belt would be) instead of a "980". The guy at
the Autozone store would not be of any help I am pretty sure.
It might be that my replacement crankshaft pulley has a larger diameter than
the original one....that would sure account for all the trouble I am having
fitting belts on, but I haven't checked that.
Thanks, Jim

 

I've replaced Volvo 240 alternators and/or belts several times - my
family ase driven 400,000 miles in these cars and I do as much of the
work as possible.

I've always had to partially dismount the alternator itself to be able
to change the belt. I'm sure there's a "right" way to change the belt
without detaching the alternator at its mount, but I haven't found it
yet. Even after loosening the alternator mount, I've had to fight with
the belts to get them onto the pulleys. I usually do some swearing.

Speaking of those belts - all 3 of our 240's ('83, '86 and '89) use two
belts side-by-side for the alternator. I imagine yours is the same.

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