Well my always broken, giant POS GTA decided to break again.

I was having some hesitation on starting, and when the car would start it would not hold RPMS and would die. I traced this to the battery terminals not being on tight enough...but what worried me was that there was some smoke coming from the drivers side front of the engine bay, under the battery, and some coming from under the air filter...the car wouldn't start, and I when I did get it kicking over I discovered the smoke, but couldn't find the source of it.

This morning I retightened the battery terminals and got it started after it turned over a few times Then it started to smoke, I turned it off only to see that the accessory belt had broken and it smelt like burnt plastic/rubber...I pulled the belt off and went home (the car is a block away from my house parked on the wrong side of the street...rolled back from the stopsign where it died.

This is just the belt right? And if so, how hard is it to put on?

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1988 Trans Am GTA 350

 

It COULD be a bad belt.. But before you put the new one on there, see if you can turn all the pulleys by hand. You should be able to, with the exception of the crank. If you find something that can't be turned by hand, chances are that accessory locked up.

Now, to put on a belt.. If it's a serpentine system (one flat belt with four or five ribs), grab yourself a 1/2" drive (breaker bar or ratchet) and use that to release the tension to get the belt on.

If it's a V-belt system, loosen the bolts holding on whatever accessory the belt's for, slide the accessory in some, put the belt on, pull the accessory out (thus tightening the bolt), and tighten it back down. You may have to take off a belt or two to get to a pulley that's in the back.

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89 iroc-z 305 tbi
k&n filtercharger, open element air filter. nuffin' else