Power steering and alternator belt tensioner shearing???

[Dannorama]

I have a 2003 "bug eye" 2.0 manual...
The farthest front belt, Alternator, power steering, and harmonic balancer...the tensioner has two bolts, one long one to adjust the tension, and one short one that goes through a small metal block through the slide, and into the flange on the alternator. This one is tightened down once the belt tension is set. That little B*#(%@# keeps shearing right off, I have replaced it 3+ times, every other month, buying the hardest bolts i can find...no help. I have tried just barely tightening it...when it shears, the belt is still pretty tight, it just squeals really loud. Any suggestions? could this be an indication of a bad motor mount or something?

Thanks for your feedback!

[EvoEatr]

How many miles are on the vehicle? Are the bolts your purchasing the same length as the original one? I'm assuming your talking about the lock bolt of the alt. belt tensioner? How do the threads look where it gets threaded into? The bolt is actually snapping and its happened more than once? The next bolt you buy make sure its grade eight... Perhaps your over tightening the belt...the deflection should be around half an inch for every foot of free span... Do you have any bent pulleys or anything?

[Dannorama]

Grade 8 I'll have to look into that. The threads on the flange on the alternator are in great shape. I am using the same length bolt, it clears the back side of the flange by less than a half an inch. The bolt itself shears off right at the front of the alternator flange. all of the pulleys spin true, no nicks or anything that would cause vibration. This time when i fix it, i'm ordering the belt and bolt from the subie dealer, rather than my local parts store. I am pretty sure that i am not over tightening the belt, any looser and it'd squeal, i'll look for the half inch per foot thing you mentioned. Thanks for the expertise.

How hard is it to change motor mounts, I may look at that next. I am not really all that hard on the car.

What do you think? I can get pictures tonight.

[EvoEatr]

No prob. man...The motor mounts arent that, that bad to change however the last thing I would do is go and throw parts at it when you really arent 100% sure on the cause..Even if you did have a bad motor mount I would never imagine that little bolt breaking for the whole engine is moving when the mount is bad not just part of it...

[Dannorama]

so...I feel kinda silly...but i am glad that i figured out what the problem was. The hinge bolt on the other side of the alternator was loose. I hanged out the belt, put a grade 8.8 bolt in, and one i had it to the desired tension, i gave the hinge bolt about 18lbs of torque, and i thing we're good to go. time will tell, but it already feels better. Thanks for your help!

[EvoEatr]

No prob. man...glad it was something simple...