1st gen belt question

[neondriver]

i should know this but dont. is the belt a serpentine belt? last night my car started making extremely loud noises from the belts, i thought possibly because i drove through a puddle or something....but today it did it again so when i got home i looked under my car and about a .25" thick 1ft long piece of the belt was hanging from the motor. anyone know how hard it is to change? looking at it it doesnt seem too complicated except getting everything out of the way to get to the belt.

[Josiah]

there are 2 belts for you're car, the alt belt is on the back pulley ridge and the power steering belt is on the front ridge...both are relatively easy to change...the power steering has 2 bolts on the back side(the side under the intake manifold) and one lock bolt which is also one of the bolts for the motor mount plate....its easiest to turn that one with a 15 mm wrench...the alternator is easier to loosen, one 15mm lock nut on the front(PITA to get to even with a wrench...but I reccomend a long 15mm wrench for that), also on the back of the alternator bracket is a 13mm tension adjustment bolt that must be loosed to get enough slack to remove the belt, its easy work that takes about 1 hour for the inexperienced

[neondriver]

Originally Posted by Josiah

there are 2 belts for you're car, the alt belt is on the back pulley ridge and the power steering belt is on the front ridge...both are relatively easy to change...the power steering has 2 bolts on the back side(the side under the intake manifold) and one lock bolt which is also one of the bolts for the motor mount plate....its easiest to turn that one with a 15 mm wrench...the alternator is easier to loosen, one 15mm lock nut on the front(PITA to get to even with a wrench...but I reccomend a long 15mm wrench for that), also on the back of the alternator bracket is a 13mm tension adjustment bolt that must be loosed to get enough slack to remove the belt, its easy work that takes about 1 hour for the inexperienced

awsome, thanks for the help. got it all fixed and replaced both belts. when i got under the car the bottom alternator bolt was about to fall out, the only thing holding it in place was the presure from the fallen alternator against the bracket. it looks like the nut came offf and the bolt vibrated out and loosened the belts causing the alternator belt to shread into 2 pieces and one piece was wrapped around the alternator pully...i think that was causing my battery light to come on.