Belts on Volvo Penta IPS500

DID

Recruit
Joined
Sep 5, 2019
Messages
1
Hi All,
Thought I would share my experience I had last month regarding my 10 day boat trip that ended after 3 hours.
We had 3 boats planned to go from Saugatuck to Mackinac Island over a 10 day period.
I have a 2010 Monterey 400 SY with Volvo Penta Diesels with IPS 500’s. (D6 370D-C.)
3 hours into the trip my RPM gauge started fluctuating on the starboard engine and losing power.
All gauges looked fine, Oil and water temp was fine, The engine computer did not show any errors.
I had to shut it down.
Keep in mind this was a late Friday afternoon and all service marinas are about to close for the weekend.
After looking at the engine and smelling like burnt rubber, I did see shavings by the Serpentine belt.
I was busy calling friends and family who knew anything about volva Penta Diesels trying to diagnose the problem.
The engine was quite warm and was hard to do a visual inspection without getting burned.
We narrowed it down to 3 things; The belt, Pully bearing ceased up or the clutch assembly on the compressor.
Needless to say, none of these parts would be available to me until middle of next week at the earliest.

Fortunately, we broke down in front of the Muskegon pier head and we limped to Great Lakes Marina on one motor where the boat sat for a week.
Great Lakes Marina was very accommodating and gave us a great rate for seeking safe harbor.
Not to be teetered on our first day of vacation, we decided to order up a Land Yacht (a.k.a SUV) from Enterprise. They picked us up a the marina and we were on our way to Charlevoix and Mackinac Island the next day.
Another positive to this debacle was it only cost us $35.00 in fuel in the Land Yacht to make it up north.

Not to make a long story longer, the problem was the belt was stretched to the point where it was slipping and gripping.
(Which caused the RPM’s to fluctuate.)

Being more familiar with Gas engines and Merc Cruisers, This was a great learning experience on Volvo Penta Diesel IPS 500’s.
I was searching frantically in Forums to see if anyone could shed some light on my situation and came up zero.
Hopefully this will be helpful to someone in the future.
Lessons Learned:
-Not only is this IPS 500 turbo charged, it is supercharged.
- IPS 500 does not have 1 serpentine belt but 2 belts.
-Part # for serpentine belt (Larger) Volvo penta 21405494
Belt for Alternator
-Part # for serpentine belt-(Smaller) Volvo penta 21407026 for the supercharger compressor.
Belt for compressor
-Make sure you have a spare set of belts.
-Make sure you have the correct tools to replace the belts. ½” Rachet , Socket set, Allen wrenches, Variety of star heads, shop towel and grease hand cleaner etc.
-Check the pulleys to make sure they spin freely and are not rubbing against the engine block.
-My old belts where 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] party from an automotive store which will work and less expensive, however the Volvo Penta is laced with Kevlar which gives it more strength and longer lasting. You get what you pay for.
-They say the belts should last 500-600 hours.

Hope this was helpful, happy boating!
 

Saline Marina

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Sep 9, 2014
Messages
162
Really good to have a twin engine to keep you going if one is down! Bobbing on Lake Michigan doesn't sound like my idea of fun...

Good idea as a lesson-learned to beef up your stocks of spare parts especially since most of them don't somewhat cross over to automotive engines and so are longer lead time...I can't say exactly what those are for your diesels but belts, hoses, impellers, filters are all good places to start, and then think about the tools to change all of the above parts you intend to carry along.
 
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