300TDi eating auxiliary belts

Hey gang


Here's a curious one for you.

My Land Rover Defender 300tdi engine has got a bit of an issue with the auxiliary belt. I need to give you a little context first.
Last year I drove from Singapore to London and in Nepal noticed that auxiliary belt was wearing away on the engine size as the power steering pump bearing was failing. I managed to make it to the land rover dealer in kathmandu and had it replaced with a genuine new one.

Everything has been going fine with it ever since, I completed the journey and have amassed another 10k kms since then.

I checked the belt the other day and noticed it was starting to crack in places so time for a replacement. I put a new one on and started up but could hear a rubbing noise and worked out the belt was rubbing up against the engine side of the power steering pump pulley (shown in the photo). Clearly it's not sitting centrally on the pulley and that's wearing away at the new belt.

On closer inspection the old belt has had a fair bit of the inside edge (almost an entire groove had worn away)

I've checked the power steering pump for any movement on the pulley itself and it's solid as new. The tensioner has no movement and none of the other pulleys appear to have any issues.

Does anyone have any ideas if the power steering pump can be moved towards the engine block at all ie shimmed to move it a couple of mm backwards?

Or any other ideas on what night be causing this?

Help me out of a confusing situation!!

Cheers


Ben

Not sure if it is the same,

I know you had the power steering pump / bearing replaced
I had a replacement alternator and had to space out the pulley as it came with fitted with a 200tdi pulley, the old pulley of the new alternator did not align the same with the old spacers fitted. So it required tuning to make the belt run true for all the pulleys.

So , my question is, is the PS pump pulley in line with the rest?

Also a silly one but have you got the correct size belt fitted. As there are iirc two size belts depending on the alternator pulley diameter.

Cheers

Thanks for the reply Neilly

Belt size is definitely correct but I'll check the lining up of the pulleys tomorrow to see what the situation is.

Appreciate your help

Ben

I remember this thread.

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/300tdi-squeeling-belt-penny-trick.64595/

Maybe off track here but can the pas pump pulley be fitted the wrong way around?
Iirc theres only two different belt lengths on the 300 early and late and that was because later alt pulley was smaller diameter as higher output.

There shouldn't be a need to shim the pump, there is obviously something wrong and you would just be masking the original issue. I think it is possible to put the pulley on either way and I seem to think it isn't symmetrical so that could be the issue. Is the pulley belt surface smooth all the way across between the flanges so that it can take up whatever position it wants or is there a groove that it may be trying to follow. As mentioned above there are two lengths of belts, measure your alternator pulley diameter, one is about 50mm and the other 60mm. If you have managed to get the short belt on the big alternator pulley (don't actually know if that is possible) then it could be excess belt tension causing the belt to wander to one side.

Watch this, is your tensioner sitting in about the same position with the belt on, also when I feed the belt on all the pulleys (leaving the tensioner to last) the belt lies in the way of the tensioner pulley bolt which is also a good way to check it is the correct length belt