Anyone have any experience with Eclipses? ('99 GS-X)

[raaksha]

After getting home late in the first place, after 30 minutes of sleeping a friend of mine called me up because her car was making a horrible noise and was really hard to steer. When I got there (430 in the morning, raining really hard), i had her pop her hood and could see her power steering belt was off, as well as her alternator belt. I convinced her I could get her car the couple of miles it took to get it home ( was really hard to see, even drove on the wrong side of the highway right as I pulled out, lights were so dim, windows foggy, and due to know alternator her compressor didn't work to defrost, no cars were out though and it was about 20 feet of median before I could get back on the correct side) and had her drive my car right behind me. The engine bay in that car is so damned crammed, its amazing, but if anyone can point me out to a good forum to get advice, or offer advice on how to get the belts back on, it would be great. I'll be able to figure it out later when I can actually see, but anything to speed up the process would be great since having to get up and help her has made it so I'll miss out on any sleep tonight, as I have to be at work at 8 I wouldn't leave her out where she was at that time in the morning for the 3 hours it was goin to take the tow truck to get there, plus shes a close friend, and damned hot too

[raaksha]

Reading about the belt, I'm seein now its a serpentine belt, that also drives the water pump and I feel like a real idiot for putting her car at that risk. I swear I saw seperate belts, I wouldn't have driven it home if I had seen the water pump without a belt, it looked like the belt was on from what I could see. Engine never got that hot at least as it was running for no more than 5 minutes. Still, I would have felt really horrible for blowin her engine. Ah well, will fix her belt and change her oil tomorrow, hopefully, though I'm reading the pulleys sometime go bad or something, hope its not the case.

[The 240 kid]

You post this in the general chat at the top of all the forums, that defiantely gets more views.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

I got your back man, I used to own a Galant and am very familiar with all things DSM. if the belt came off you're in for a real treat, it took me and another guy to replace my belts in my Galant a good 3 hours of prying and cussing until we finally got it on.

http://www.vfaq.com/index-main.html

Thats a list of the whole knowledge base on DSMs. if you can't find the answer there then you either aren't looking or it's not a real problem. If the belt came off then you may need to take it to a shop and have the Harmonic balancer damper. It's about 300-400 dollars, otherwise you'll just keep eating the belts. Mitsubishi engineers and mechanics must have tiny hands because you have about 3 inches of clearance and the belts that are replacements look like they don''t fit but they do just really really tight, we had to use a broom handle to pry the belt onto the alternator flywheel. Serpentine belt systems suck, but they are a necessary evil.

[raaksha]

Thanks, I did mean to post it in general chat, just no sleep and stressin over work and I got lost. Yeah, I'm dreading working on this thing, the amount of room they leave to work in there is rediculous. I've only driven this car once and I hate it already, damned mitsubishis. I almost had a 2001, decided after one day it wasn't worth the cost (payments and insurance), liking my decision more and more as I go. I hope it'll last for a bit once I get it back on, as she did just have her belts done. She's in school and won't have 300 or 400 bucks. One thing is for sure, she better put on a damned bikini or less while I'm workin on this stupid car, I'm gonna need something pleasant to look at damnit!

[Chaotic_Warlord]

You'll be to busy trying to figure out how the eff both belts go on, the too busy trying to get them on to even look to see what going on around you. if she just had the belts done then it definately sounds like the dampener is shot, you can out a belt on but it'll eat it in under a week. You didnt notice it over heating cause you didnt have the car running long enough, you'll see it start to rise quickly after about 15 to 20 minutes or until you reach highway speeds for 10 minutes. Thats how mine was, could be different since she's got a turbo on her car. Fortunately Mitsu's have awesome cooling components. Don't bash Mitsu's man, they're awesome cars and have gobs of potential, especially the GSX's. The 3rd Gen Eclipses are crap, but the 2G eclipses rock, you need to actually put it under stress to see it's true grace.

[TurboSilvia7587]

it is still a mitsubishi......

[TheOne]

why does it seem so hard to change the belts?i used to own a 95 eclipse RS that one day my accesory belt snapped because my tensioner pulley needed a change, i was lucky i was near a O'reilly auto parts store, went in bought a new belt, called my brother and he installed it in like 15 mins(NOT KIDDING), but then he works at a toyota dealer.(couple of weeks later i went to a mitsu dealer and bought the new tensioner pulley)those cars can be good cept mitsubishi had to go the cheap route even on their DSM's.

btw the timing belt runs the water pump, not the acesory belt, that 1 runs the PS, AC, alternator, thats why i was able to get to o'reilly before it would have overheated.(i was near, but not that near)

[raaksha]

Its actually pretty easy if you come at it from the bottom and not the stop. Unfortunately she needs a new pulley though. I wasn't hating on Mitsubishi's, only at how cramped that engine bay is, makes my 240 seem like my old f-250's engine bay. Well, I do have a little bit of hate for this car because its costing her a good bit of money (which she doesn't have) to keep it running.

As far as bein to busy to figure out whats going on, on the occasion where shes in something skimpy, its hard to concentrate on anything else haha.

[raaksha]

Yeah, its too bad, she really loves her car but is starting to realize how expensive it is and is thinking of selling it soon. She can't afford the shop work its gonna take. At least it'll get a good bit of money if she does sell it.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

DIdn't she realize that owning a turbo AWD car would be more expensive than owning a regular NA car. Having a turbo alone increases price of maintanance throw in the fact that its a GSX and has AWD which adds to the cost. Oh the reason why your belt only took 15min to replace The One was because it was the accessory belt which is in front of the of the timing belt so it's way easier to get to and yeah that one only took us a few minutes to get on, the PS/WP/AC belt is a pain in the *** because you have 0 stretch with it.

[raaksha]

No, she didn't really realize what the upkeep on that car was goin to be when she got it a couple of years back, which is why she is thinking of selling it now, even though she loves it. By the way guys, thanks for the help, if it had just been a popped belt her could woulda been fine