Petrol 73

Howdy all!

First post for me though I have been an lurker. I must say that the knowledge base on this forum is simply fantastic and I hope to contribute what I can as I do more and more maintenance myself.

I own a 2004 TSX Navi with 130K miles. Up to now, it's been dealer maintained. I just replaced the Power Steering Pump myself which was noisy and allowing air into the system. I also took the opportunity to replace the drive belt.

Previous belt was dealer installed (don't recall when exactly) and appeared in good shape, though some rubber was found in various pulley groves. Tension was, and always had been, dead center of the allowable range.

I ordered a Mitsuboshi belt as a replacement and installed it with no problems. Now the tension indicator is right at the edge of the range, (edge toward front of car which I believe means the tensioner is putting more tension on belt as if it were loose or stretched). Prior to installing, I confirmed the belts were the same length, as far as I could tell. Now I'm worried that any stretch of the new belt will put the tensioner out of the forward limit.

Any thoughts on how to best fix this?

kipsy

buy a new tensioner, it is a wear item. amazon has the gates model for 45. they also have OEM belts for 20.

Simba91102

I think you may find that the tensioner gauge actually works in reverse. If I remember correctly, the tensioner moves forward when you push the tool to the rear of the car (and vise versa). I'd wait awhile and let the belt settle in and see if the tensioner moves back into the range. Or.... change it; your choice.

Petrol 73

I believe you are correct. Pulling forward on the tensioner lever/wrench moves the tensioner pulley back away from the belt loosening it. When I put the new belt on and relax the lever allowing it to move back (and the tensioner pulley forward against the belt), the pulley moves further forward against this belt than the previous belt, based on the indicator being at the edge of the range.

I suspect it's due to the belt being slightly longer than OEM, causing more movement of the tensioner so that it can exert the correct tension.

I think I'll take Kipsy's advice and replace the tensioner just because of age. I think I'll also temporarily reinstall the old belt to see if the tensioner returns to normal, then try to find a suitable OEM belt.

Simba91102

I used a Dayco belt #5070690 for my 05. It fit perfect.

Petrol 73

The old belt that I removed was measured at 1754 mm / 69.1 inches.

Acura eStore lists the OEM part as a Bando 38920-RBB-E03. Bando's catalogue lists that part with a Bando part number of 7PK1755 and also 690K7 (1755 mm / 69 inches). I bought two.

After careful measuring, I come up with close to 1770 mm / 69.7 inches for one of those and about 5 mm shorter on the other. This explains why my tensioner is so different!

Petrol 73

Just to follow up, I got yet another belt, though this was from the Acura dealer. It's a Bando belt 7PK1751 with an OEM number of 38920-RBB-E03. After installation, tensioner is back dead center of range.

Beware of Amazon and Bando incorrectly showing 7PK1755 as being the same as the OEM 38920-RBB-E03. It's definitely longer.

TexasHonda

Your tenacious pursuit of correct belt length is admirable. I'm surprised that 1mm extra length made such a difference.

Is length measured on ID or OD of belt?

good luck

Petrol 73

"Tenacious" is a nice way to describe it. Obsessive would've been equally accurate.

It was too difficult to measure directly with a tape measure, so I marked the outer surface, flipped the belt inside-out, and carefully rolled the inner surface along the garage floor placing a mark at the beginning and end on the floor. That distance was measured with a tape measure.

16mm was the approx difference between the removed OEM and the Bando 7PK1755. While the tensioner was still able to apply pressure against the longer belt, there would not have been very much additional travel available to the tensioner beyond the max limit position. While I don't believe these belts stretch any significant amount, they may wear enough on the inner surface to require that bit of tensioner movement.

I'm sure that any of my many belts would have been suitable, it just makes me feel better to have the proper size on (finally).

kipsy

thanks for the info. i am returning the belt to amazon and ordering the 7pk1751

mickey513

If you read the reviews on Amazon, someone did mention that 7PK1755 is NOT the correct belt for the first generation TSX.