Serpentine belt issue..
 

My wife and I were out of town for a fun overnight at the lake. The X has been running fine for some time now, but we came out from lunch, started it up and the battery light was on, no power steering.

I hopped out to see, and the belt is still, there not shredded or cut, but loose. No weird sounds or anything to alert me early to any problems... So, cut our trip short and caught a rise home in a tow truck,...lol.


I'm getting started on in the morning, so, aside from the obvious, is there anything common it might be?

The belt tensioner failed or the idler or tensioner pulley have come off? Let us know what you find out?

Will do. I 'll take a few pics to boot.

BTW: Only other thing I can think of is the water pump bearing went and belt alignment was off. Any water dripping out from under the X?

Now's the time to change the tensioners, pulleys, and belts since they're coming off anyway (unless you've recently done this).

Naw. its dry under there. hopefully its something half simple.

Sounds like a failed tensioner or pulley. Should be pretty easy to diagnose.

Surprise surprise. The lower bolt for the power steering pump had worked its way out. It was still in the splash shield, which was nice.

The pulley for the pump and the idler above it were touching. The tensioners both look pretty fresh, so I'm going to be cheap and just do belts.

Lucky!

Might as well make sure the other PS bolt(s) is/are tight while you're in there... :stickpoke


:D

Ha! Ya.. All good now. Gotta figure out how to get the fan off now. It's reverse thread, right?

yes.

Get a 32mm open ended wrench and whack it with a hammer (protecting all items in way of wrench when it lets loose -- coolant system in particular). If that doesn't work, you can use a pry bar to hold the fan pulley in place. Screwdrivers snap, or so I've been told...:(

I have ONLY used a screwdriver. Wedge it between one of the small bolts that hold the clutch to the pulley, and the shaft, then loosen the nut. On the E36 and E46, this is pretty easy to do from the bottom. I have not done it on my X5 yet.

Not too bad. Soaked it in penetrate for a bit, and it came right off. I did back up the bolts with a screwdriver, but could've just held the pulley with my hand.

That nut gets tighter as the engine runs, which is why the threads are reversed, so you do not have to tighten it more than finger tight. The torque spec on that nut is inch pounds, and not very many of them. My memory is 22 inch pounds, which is less than 2 foot pounds.

So. I guess it's good it broke. I have a fairly significant coolant leak from that small silver radiator on the passenger side, towards the bottom of the actual radiator... At least that's what it looks like. I'll post a pic in a minute..

Transmission oil cooler.

So it's the trans cooler? Awesome.

If it's leaking coolant, could it be an o-ring? Any DIY's on it?

Mine seemed to be coming from there but was the waterpump.

When you take that off, coolant is going to drain, so don't do it in the living room else the Mrs. might be annoyed with you.

Aren't there metal clips that are about the diameter of a paper clip and have a small plastic handle on them that you can pull.

Taking that radiator (trans cooler) off should not take a direction booklet. Yes, there are o-rings on the fittings.

From the pics I've seen online its called a heat exchanger. Does the trans fluid run into the actual radiator, or just make a loop at the exchanger itself? I'm just curious so I can have tranny fluid on hand as well.

And thanks, Trader.. But I'm on the the next problem. Which it always seems like there is one.

Alright. Just if you guys were wondering. The trans fluid does not cycle through the radiator, but just makes the look at the exchanger itself.

It looks like a simple repair. I got the special "X-Rings" to do it. hopefully the radiator isn't cracked or anything crazy.

With the X5, if it isn't broken yet, it will be in the near future. Not really, but it does seem that way...

Tell me about it. This is the most fragile vehicle I've ever owned... And I've had a lot.

I sure like it when it's all working, but that seems rare. I thought about trading it off for a newer one.. But I'm afraid the cycle would start all over...