<ALL> belt dressing - BAD

["Jack@xxxx" <jack.money@xxxxxxxxx>]

everyone,

a few days ago i asked about the use of belt dressing, the pro's/con's,
people's opinions, etc.  well, a few said they used some form of dressing
others said not to use it as it contains petroleum products which, of
course, breakdown rubber.  from my experience of using it (prestone brand) i
would have to agree that it is VERY bad.  perhaps many of you already knew
this but i thought i would share my experience.  i used it on a couple of
the belts on occasion and recently i used it on all the belts liberally.
after a few days the noises came back and some sounded worse, overall the
noise was much worse.  so i decided to just replace all the belts and clean
the pulleys thoroughly.  first of all, the belts, which are only ~12k old
were totally breaking down.  they were cracked and gooey as if they were
melting only not hot.  i cleaned the pulleys and put the new belts on and
boy oh boy did that make a difference!  i will never ever put belt dressing
anywhere near belts again.  i had periodically inspected the belts so i know
that most of the damage occurred recently.  well, that is the jist of it.
if anyone has particular questions feel free to email me privately.  hope
this can benefit someone.  YMMV.

on a side note, i still have one noise which i have not tracked down.  will
update when i do.  also, still need a new fan clutch - next week.  drive
happy and hard.

regards,

jack money
motor city chapter
'89iX ---->  sounding much better with new belts!!

email replies:
jack.money@domain.elided (home)

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