Are O'Reilly Masterpro V belts any good?

Cubey

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It seems I did a bad job tensioning the alternator belt after doing the fan clutch and thermostat at IDIBRONCO's place. It got thrown today. I don't think I did it my usual way, and in almost 3 years of IDI ownership, it never got thrown before. Too many cooks in the kitchen so to speak with him there too. Not blaming him, I just don't do my best work when distracted.

Thankfully it didn't take out any other belts nor did it get caught in the fan. It's just completely gone. It did knock the alt/vac pump belt off and flipped it inside out but it was there pushed beyond the pulleys.

Only odd noise I heard was a once I heard a sort of thump when driving on a 30 mile stretch of rural highway with pretty much nothing along the way, but nothing that sounded like a disaster.

I did notice recently that the belt seemed awfully loose, but then my crap memory made me forget to go back and tension it.

I have a spare 9580 belt, so I will be putting that on in the morning. I was able to limp to a truck stop about 5 miles beyond realizing I had effectively no brakes. I have to let it cool off first, so I'm at a truck stop for the night.

I want to get my hands on two more of those belts, since power steering uses the same one. That way I have two spares in case all belts get destroyed. Oreilly has their 9580 Masterpro belts for $7/each, far cheaper than Gates XL at $28/each. But are they any good?
 

IDIBRONCO

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Now, just for the record, I held the alternator in place with the amount of tension that you wanted on the belt while you tightened the bolts. Is it possible that the belt was old and broke? Maybe it stretched some causing it to look loose for a short while before it broke?
 

Cubey

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Now, just for the record, I held the alternator in place with the amount of tension that you wanted on the belt while you tightened the bolts. Is it possible that the belt was old and broke? Maybe it stretched some causing it to look loose for a short while before it broke?

Again, I'm not blaming you. I was just mentioning the last time things got touched.

Usually I do it by myself with a big tire iron. It was just a different deal with someone else helping and I may have judged it poorly.

Yes, it's possible it stretched. It's entirely my fault for not immediately dealing with it when I was doing routine belt and fluid inspections, just a few days ago. Famous last words: "I'll do it later."

No harm done, in any case. I have a spare to put on to get me to O'Reilly.
 

Golden Helmet

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The only "good" belts I've encountered in my travels thus far have been the green Gates belts. I've run regular Gates belts plenty of times and they all started cracking in under a year for me, though I've never had one fail on me. I HAVE killed several Masterpro belts, once they start showing cracks you need to get rid of them ASAP, but for the price you can't complain, you can buy 2-3 of them for the price of a single Gates belt, and half the time I got them replaced under warranty for free LOL
 

gandalf

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I spoke with Calvin when it came time to replace the belts on my '92 truck. He told me that our trucks have a propensity to throw that long belt. It's just too long. He then told me that the only 9580 he has never thrown is the Gates 9580HD Fleetrunner. It's the one with the green backside.

I ordered mine on Amazon, for what I considered a reasonable price. You can find it HERE. Clicky on that link.
 

Cubey

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I spoke with Calvin when it came time to replace the belts on my '92 truck. He told me that our trucks have a propensity to throw that long belt. It's just too long. He then told me that the only 9580 he has never thrown is the Gates 9580HD Fleetrunner. It's the one with the green backside.

I ordered mine on Amazon, for what I considered a reasonable price. You can find it HERE. Clicky on that link.

Yeah there is that one and also the Gates XL one. The old spare I have is a Gates Green Stripe.

I can get a Gates XL from Walmart (or Amazon) for about $15. Walmart is usually better/easier to get stuff from on the road, but this time I might order that Fleetrunner you linked. Walmart lacks it for site to store.
 

Cubey

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Well even better, rockauto had ONE closeout Gates fleetrunner 9580HD belt for $8. Shipping first class mail was $4. With tax, just under $13. That beats Amazon for sure.

It's going to general delivery in a town I will be in next weekend. The estimated delivery is next Friday so that will hopefully be perfect.

I might go get a $7 oreilly belt for an emergency spare in the unlikely event this old gates can't last a week.
 

Cubey

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Yeah, I can't blame the belt itself. It was my fault for not keeping it tight.

This from within a pic I took a few days ago about group 65 batteries in vans. You can SEE how much slack it had around the top of the pulley. I didn't realize it was that bad or I would have addressed it immediately.


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I dunno what exact belt it had though. Of all the pics of the engine bay, this is all I ever captured of it where you could see writing. It looks to be a manufacture date code though. If 0316 means March 2016, it wasn't very old.

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Garbage_Mechan

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Funny this came up I was just eyeballing the belt on the 91.
Totally agree on the Gates belt. Back when I had a fleet of these the Gates rep told me they built that part number with extra reinforcement due to the known problems with belt whip.
 

Cubey

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Well I got the old Gates 9580 put on. I have a feeling the ps and ac belts are originals, being Motorcraft, but maybe not. The spare ac belt I have is also Motorcraft.

Gonna probably get a $15 Gates XL from Walmart, unless I can find another cheap fleetrunner.
 

chris142

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It's getting hard to find good belts. I prefer Dayco. I ordered some a few weeks ago and they were made in China. Sent those back. I have had zero luck with Gates. The squeal ,stretch and flip off. I found some Goodyear ones on Rock auto.
 

Cubey

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Hmm, I just noticed something about the Fleetrunner belt. It has a wider top by 1mm and has 2 degree different angle compared to the Gates XL and the cheap Masterpro. The top probably wouldn't matter much, but what about the different angle? I might have it backwards, but a Fleetrunner 38 degree angle would make it have less contact with the pulley's side walls, vs 36 degree. I can't find the angle spec on the pulleys to know what they are.


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Cubey

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Well I wish I had waited to order that $13 shipped Feetrunner. Looking at RockAuto again, they have the 9580 Gates XL belts for $3 each on closeout. The 9630 Gates XL belt (AC belt) is only $1.50!!

So, I placed another order, this time for two 9580s and two 9630s. I also tossed in an economy $1 Dayco Alt to VP belt for an emergency spare since it didn't raise shipping cost any. I already have a newer VP belt I bought a while back from Oreilly It doesn't take as much abuse as the others IMO and it's the easiest to deal with replacing.

I paid under $19 for 5 belts including shipping.

If anyone with v-belts is thinking about buying some, now is a good time!

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gandalf

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Hmm,... I might have it backwards, but a Fleetrunner 38 degree angle would make it have less contact with the pulley's side walls, vs 36 degree. I can't find the angle spec on the pulleys to know what they are.

Not to necessarily disagree, but what is the basis of your argument if you don't know the specs of the pulley?
 

Cubey

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Not to necessarily disagree, but what is the basis of your argument if you don't know the specs of the pulley?

Because there's two different angle belts being sold. The pulleys can't be both 36 and 38 degrees.
 

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