Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) +8 98 drive belt

Hi all,

This might be a stupid question. But if you don't ask you don't learn.
The car in question is a -98 +8, 4.6 litre engine.
I asked myself the other day - how do one actually change the drive-belt on this car?
It is the 7 ribbed serpentine belt, and I think I have understand that it is called 7PK-1025.

But I do not understand the tensioning system. And I have not found any good picures of it online yet.
How do you change the belt?

If needed I will try to fix some pictures of my car.

Bjorn, there is no such thing as a stupid question, silly mistakes are made through not asking for help though

That is the right Gates belt you have. I have the same on mine, if you have a squeaky belt they say changing to the 6 toothed belt minimises this without compromise, I don't have that problem.

If you stand at the rear of the alternator you will see the mounting bolts and there is a tension adjuster and the slot itself is toothed on mine which you slacken off to remove and replace the belt.
Once you start in it's quite obvious, when I renewed mine it was a fairly tight squeeze getting the old one off and fitting the new one but slack enough with ample adjustment when on.

About 1cm deflection on the longest run will do nicely without compromising the alternator bearings.

I have a 98 +8, I doubt the belts been changed. There’s 32000 miles on the car.
How often should it be changed?

It's more an age thing with our cars really, mine has 36,000 on it and I last changed it 6 years ago, I keep an eye on it when I service the car and it still looks and feels fairly flexible.

You'll see hairline cracks on it and they start to squeal sometimes when they are older.

I would change yours if you think it's original, I'll change mine at ten years (on a time basis) if it still looks ok and not squawking away they are only about £15 here so cheap really compared to the alternative.

Thanks Richard, better to be safe than sorry!

I changed mine at 40,000 miles and 14 years , it was in pretty good condition , so just a precautionary measure . The new one has done 27,000 in 8 years and still looks OK.


I do carry a spare with me.........just in case.

My 2002 car had the common belt squeal on my test drive. It is the ancillary serpentine belt. Sorted by the dealer before I picked the car up. It had about 30k mileage.
It came back after a couple of thousand miles. I took it off ( released the alternator to get slack). The belt was in good condition. I cleaned the pulleys with brake cleaner on a cloth, wiped the belt clean and replaced it. Reset the tension. No squeals after that. It still looks new, no cracks, hardening, fraying.
Gomog site gives one fix as getting a slightly narrower belt. The dimensions of the belt are printed on it and any motor factor/parts place can get them.

As I mentioned it previously to the OP the six groove belt number is Gates 6PK-1025 in case anyone wants to pursue that route.

Thank you for the answers.
Regarding squeaky belt, my car has a fairly loud exhaust, so I do not hear a lot of the enginge.
An interesting solution to that problem