does this look normal on the belt? i was concerned with the thin band around the belt, it has been on for 500 miles and the previous belt snapped on me after 400 miles im told as it broke the same day i got the car. Im just a little paranoid now about this belt ? Its a zvh engine
Cheers

 

maybe rubbing against sumthing. investigate why belt snapped after 400 miles

 

as above may be rubbing am sure mine used to sit more to the outer edge on last zvh I had

 

The engine was built by jamsport, the belt snapped and they cound not explain why so it when back got a set of valve and this belt fitted , cant see it rubbing on anything it seems to me like the belt is under no strain at that thin band ? Its no inspiring me with confidence, thats it done just over 500 miles on this belt,

 

If they've done it, I'd be contacting them with your worries...
Belt don't look healthy for 500miles...

 

That looks horredous for such low mileage. And as per comments above, ZVH's tend to ride the belt on the outer edge far more also

 

get a tension gauge and see how tight its set, also check the basics like contamination like oil etc getting on the belt and the make of the belt

 

I don't know anything about ZVH but I know about belts.

That belt is rubbing on something, probably the tensioner edge, idler or a bolt sticking out lower down.
It'll be polished where it's rubbing.
You can see the remains of the belt on the valve cover.

If that was mine I wouldn't be driving it anywhere till I'd found the reason.
That belt will snap.

 

that is running over the back of a tensioner somewhere, the belt is overhanging the back and isnt making contact with the tensioner where the thin line is on the belt, that belt isnt running on the pulleys and is being damaged
that will snap

 

As everyone is saying it def looks like its rubbing somewhere, but also it is weird that the belt is sitting so far back, all zvhs I've had have always been the opposite with the belt sitting more or less on the outside edge?

 

take pictures of all the pulleys with the covers removed

 

investigate-rectify
do not use
certainly not right at all

 

I Am going to look into it further, i emaild jamsport to see what they had to say about it but as its them that built the engine in the first place and have done all the work but no reply yet, it seems to me like a pully or the tentioner mite be running off as it seems the thin band has not been under strain as it looks new, the writing on the belt is clear on the thin band, i will let yous know what i find cheers

 

looking at that first pic bet its rubbing on one of the water pump bolts

 

I had a look at this again today and it looks like the tensioner has a spacer plate btween that and the block ? And its causing the belt to run on the edge of the tensioner pully causing the thin band on the belt it is also rubbing on the tensioner body because of this , is the plate normal ?

 

What's that plate that's behind the tensioner? Looks like it could be making the tensioner too far out, with the belt then hanging off the back. When I was reading up on building a zvh years ago I'm sure the block was just drilled and tapped for adding the cvh tensioner and that a 1.3 tensioner should be used.



Edit to add, sorry only looked at your pics before posting, now spotted what you posted.

 

I'd remove the plate and see how it sits

We had a belt not running true not long ago on a zvh but the tensioner they had is a 1.3 cvh tensioner but it was bent so the belt wasn't sitting right it was kicking over (poor casting very brittle)

Ordering a new tensioner wasn't easy as nobody seems to stock them anymore ours came all the way from France! we tried the 1.6 cvh tensioner but the pulley was to big,

New belt new tensioner and it was perfect,

 

http://www.quantums.info/zvh.htm#Tim...lt%20tensioner

 

The plate is the water pump adapter plate so it needs to stay , but it is causing the tensioner to sit to far out from the block so i messured the thickness of the plate and milled off the back of the tensioner to compensate and it seems to be running true now with a new belt so i will see how it goes

 

I would be querying the adaptor plate. Mine doesn't have a plate like that, but just for the pump itself as shown HERE in the thread.

Agreed on being horrendous! However, my ZVH did when I bought it run the belt smack bang in the middle of the cam pulley before. However, it now sits better on the rest of the pulleys. I may change it this year again just to be safe, but go back to a Gates instead of a Ford belt (which is a Dayco item).

I reckon the tensioner being sat on the adaptor plate is at fault personally.

 

In my opinion that belt isn't rubbing on anything. It still has the printing on it, you can clearly see it's a Dayco belt and the blue print on this area looks as new. Seems to me like it's not running quite square because the water pump plate has pushed the tensioner away so has a small strip which isn't making contact with the tensioner, that's all. The discolouration you think is from rubbing looks like the standard texture the belts have before they smooth off from following over the tensioner etc.