As far as I know, 1999 9-3 never came with the centre pulley, although I suppose someone might have installed one, assuming there was a tapped hole for the idler pulley bolt

I would start by verifying that the belt goes around all the accessories correctly, including the bottom pulley. The routing is not obvious, and when I have installed the belt, I've had mysterious slack even though everything looked right--it wasn't right.

You can easily search someplace llike eeuroparts that will give the belt length required for your car. A quick search on my part suggests that 2345mm is the correct length for your car. So we're back to the question of routing.

 

EdT,

Thanks, I'll review routing again.
Follow-on question about tensioners in order to determine my root cause - Assuming the belt was working on the short belt path until recently, something caused the belt slip off the pulleys. Do tensioners fail in a way that they stop providing enough belt tension? I will check again, but think the tensioner pulley itself is in good shape.

 

Yes, they can definitely stop tensioning, but usually they will be making quite a racket before that happens.

 

It sounds like you have more slack than even if the tensioner was fully released. The belt can still be fiddly to get on all the pulleys with the tensioner locked in released position. A fully released tensoner will line up the two nubs with holes to put a screwdriver through. You can try levering the tensioner to see how loose it is.

Belt can come off due to a failing pulley bearing that loses alignment, a seized component, or the belt getting old and/or covered in oil or other fluid.

You may need to pull the wheel and the belt shield to get a better view of what's going on. Looking from the top can be misleading.

 

EdT,
My tensioner definitely has solid resistance when attempting to pull it forward. I think you're right, that doesn't seem to be the issue.
Smart idea to pull the wheel to see better. I'll do that.
I'll also take a closer look at the top left idler pulley.
Much appreciated,
Mike

 

Confirmed routing isn't the issue - I pulled off the wheel and well cover, then routed the belt as it should be. There's so much slack, I can only think I recently lost my center idler pulley while on the road. The block definitely has threads for the pulley.

It doesn't make sense that I have both the short belt of 2345mm and enough slack for a center pulley however, I think I'll buy a pulley and see if it fits.

 

I would not just buy stuff... If you have a short belt iand it's too long, you have something wrong. If you have a long belt and no center pulley, then something is wrong. I would make the determination of what belt you have and then figure out what went wrong before you spend time and money guessing at parts.

 

Wise advice - I'll step back, take a deep breath, and reconsider.

 

Check the routing in the alternator area again. The belt does a funky up and down thing there. Also check in the water pump and A/C area - not as funky but it needs to catch both.

Your belt length is correct for an engine with no center idler pulley.

 

What routing diagram is being used to verify?

It's easy to misroute in the A/C-PS-waterpump area and get slack.

I assume the idler pulley above the alternator is still there.

 

EdT,
I'll try to attach a picture of the routing. I don't have the center pulley marked with the red X, but my belt does go down about that far, so :

...now I question whether or not I routed the smooth side of the belt over the top of the tensioner pulley. Will check in just a bit. I hope that's it.
Yes, left topmost idler pulley still connected.

Thanks,
Riggsme

 

I would check thoroughly all pulleys and accessories. There's no scenario where a belt should just come off, so either the tensioner failed or some pulley/accessory is in sad shape and it shed the belt.

 

Check the alternator routing

 

As bob Says , Check around the alternator and tensioner , my guess if that You have missed hooking it over the tensioner pulley altogether and gone straight from the crank pulley to the altenator pulley .
What I dont understand is why the belt came off at all , Had you had it off and failed on re routing when installing ?
If you were driving the car with that much slack , not only was it not charging , no AC or water pump , the steering would have been obviously very heavy.

 

Since you also lost coolant check for play in the water pump pulley. I’ve seen bearings go and create a tremendous amount of slack in the belt.

 

Ahhhh!!! No new parts were purchased in the resolving of my belt slack issue....so far. I appreciate you guys telling me to check routing AGAIN, even though I had checked it and checked it. I miss routed from crank to alternator pulley. Once I routed from crank pulley to tensioner pulley, tension returned to the belt!

Now I need to figure out why the belt initially came off. After restarting I checked no fluids were leaking, no battery light or fluid warning. I did notice the tensioner wiggling about 2-3 mm. Maybe that’s not the tensioner, but the socket you put a ratchet extension in to release belt tensioner. Should that piece wiggle a little? It definitely needed a good amount of force to get the belt back on.
Maybe it is starting to fail evidenced by the wiggle?

Thanks,
Riggsme

 

Will check water pump pulley more closely.

 

Believe me, we were saying "check the routing" out of definite experience!

Is the tensioner bobbing up and down, i.e. changing tension if you will, or is it moving side to side?

Any side to side movement is not good news. Neither is the belt riding on one edge or another of a pulley, especially the smooth ones that the back of the belt contacts.

I assume that the belt is dry and has no oil or grease on it. And it's the full width that it's supposed to be (six ribs).

 

Check bearing feel when you wiggle the pulleys.

Believe me, we were saying "check the routing" out of definite experience!

LOL - I think we've all been there. It's a non-intuitive routing.

OP:
Wiggle all the pulleys. More than a mm or so is usually trouble. That tensioner sounds iffy but it might not be the only problem.

See how the accessory and pulley bearings feel when you spin them - a bad bearing might snag for a moment (especially when hot) and cause a belt to jump off (keep in mind the tensioner is always willing to loosen the belt, and a big enough yack can cause the belt to dismount when it happens.

 

I had a leaking PS pump front seal. The fluid made the belt shred in about a week.

I sourced a seal and pulled the pump, the pulley (using loaner tools) and installed a new seal. That seemed to work, however as I had a nice condition junkyard pump, I eventually replaced the pump with that. Considering that it ran out of fluid a few times on my drive home from where the pump started leaking, I figured it wasn't worth keeping on there.

I would first try a junkyard. If the pump looks in good shape, is clean, and the fluid looks good--all easy to check--I would grab that pump and install. I don't really think my seal repair was worth while.

A google search (not the site search, it's not very useful) on something like "saabcentral power steering pump leak" gets you lots of hits. This has happened to many of us in the past. Might be some useful reading or hints there. I forget the details of my seal replacement, it was almost ten years ago.

 

I'd go with that. Pump seals are not a common issue... but look for a car that appears to have been running. A seal that sits for a long time on an immobile car is more likely to leak when it goes back into use.

 

I was so close!
Mile-Hi Auto in Colorado shipped me a new (to me) PS pump and I just finished installing. During removal of the old one, I found it didn't look like the pump was the problem, but the split in the high pressure o-ring. Swapped the PS pump anyway.
Since there is PS fluid on my original belt, I think it will soon shred and I should replace it.
Is that the only smart way to go? I assume I'll find myself on the side of the road replacing it if I don't do it now. I have the replacement. Talked myself in to it. I'll take care of the belt.

Before my test drive, I went to replace my upper throttle body O-ring and broke it. My replacement part wasn't the right thickness. The circumference of the ring was correct, but it wouldn't create an air seal.
This is the one I need: 4226833 by OES | O-ring
Part #30 here is what I ordered: 9138702 by OES | O-ring

Any idea where I can source the thicker 4226833? It seems it is unavailable, but maybe another part could do.


Thanks,
Mike

 

Yes, totally, replace the belt. Like I said, my soaked belt started to disintegrate on the highway a week after the leaking episode. At least one edge rib had snapped and was peeling of the body of the belt and the ends were whipping various underhood components.

It was changed in a Home Depot parking lot--fortunately I had both a replacement belt and tools.

When you tackle that job, in addition to making sure all pulleys are working smoothly but with resistance that shows that the bearings are lubricated and seals are fine, clean all parts of the pulleys and engine so that there is no more PS fluid left to settle on the new belt.

 

Nordic has ONE. I don't know how long shipping from CA is these days... but they are good people to deal with: Charge Air Pipe To Throttle Body O-Ring OEM SAAB. I also see one on Ebay UK with undetermined ship-ability.

 

Yesterday, I pulled off the air filter box, passenger front wheel and plastic wheel cowling, replaced the belt and cleaned up as much PS fluid residue as I could.
I'll start a new thread on my next issue.
Thanks for all the help on my PS issue!

Mike