as the title says, i gotta change the drive belt on the gf's escort...so she got the danger ranger for today...:(....

last night when she was leaving, her engine sounded awful! there was a ticking noise coming from it when she was taking off....i made her come back, popped the hood and at first i thought it was a spark plug, but then i got to looking and her drive belt is split and is making all
that racket as it is going around the pulleys! so now i have the daunting task of changing a drive belt on a front whel drive car!! i have never done this other than on my ol ranger which was easy on a rear wheel drive truck; the pulleys are right there in front, but on her car, they are between the engine and the fender!!!!!

i think ive read that a few off yall owned an escort before having a Ranger, have yall ever had to change a drive belt on an escort (hers is a 97 model)? if so is it hard, or pretty simple?

 

Hey scott...

I did own an Escort (a '93) before I got the Ranger... but never had to change the belt...

..say, she doesn't happen to have a 1.9L engine with a 5-speed manual, does she? If so, I've got a brand new clutch for it sitting around collecting dust...

 

I changed out the alternator on my wife's 98 Escort. Broke the tensioner with my ratchet while trying to get the belt off... be careful with that. Unfortunately I can't remember anything other than that about the experience. Good luck.

 

Only experience I've had with a sideways engine (hah) is trying to change out a Starter.. piece of crap was buried under the engine under road grime and had 2 10" long bolts to unscrew out of the engine block.. not fun...



Other then that - I guess all you need to do is track down the tensioner and give it a go!

 

what good are ya'll...Just kidding...lol sorry man, hers is an auto, and m thinking it wont be too bad, just the space issue is all im worried about!

 

lets hope you arent forced to do the 'retarded hand' thing to get into position to crank on it.. ugh, I hate some engine bays - our own is a bit of a pain on the 4.0 when you have to get the tnesioner, takign it off is easy - but putting it back on you have to really dig into the fan shroud area to get enough leverage to slip the belt on - only really takes about a minute to pop the old one off and put the new one back on

 

Another reason I love my truck. Small engine and rwd is a dream compared to the rest of fwd cars we have.