Hotpoint SUTCD97B6GM belt shearing along one edge

[Tiptonian]

The belt on this Hotpoint tumble dryer keeps drifting across the drive shaft despite the grooves and causing the edge of the belt to rub against the pulley resulting in the belt edge to eventually start shearing off. Much of the belt is barely half the width that it was originally. This is the third belt that this has happened to in this machine despite great care to ensure the belt is central on the drive shaft / pulley initially. Visually I cannot see anything askew with the components that might cause the belt to slip across like this. Is there anything I can do to ensure this does not happen again if I fit another new belt please.

[electrofix]

seem to remember a tech bulletin somewhere thats says the belt must fitted in a position where it avoids screws in the drum as it revolves otherwise it wears out

Dave

[andyjawa]

Design fault IMO = paddle screw/s in the wrong place relative to the plain of travel of the belt`s width. In other words no matter what you do the belt will always over ride a quarter to over half the head of a paddle screw hence splitting of the inside belt rib no matter how far you had to play with with the belts position on the motor pulley simply because you have so little to play with. I wrote to Hotpoint about this 2 years ago but never got any reply back and didn`t really expect one either – they`re that kind of business!
The only thing you can contemplate is to fit a narrower width belt so it goes basically like this: I think the original belt was 1970 length H gauge 7 ribs width. This was changed to a shorter belt 1965 H7 presumably to allow a tighter belt but missed the whole damn point since it still rode over the paddle screws. This inturn was then changed to still using a 1965 H but to a narrower width of 6 ribs instead of the 7ribs. Whether ditching 1 rib saves the day I could not tell you ( since I no longer work in the trade) and possibility it really needed to go to a 5 to miss the screw head completely and if so the belt would then be not be strong enough for its tumble load.
So, the answer may well be that you could try a 1965H6 part number C00313102 and set the belt on the furthest motor shaft pulley groove to the right to suit its plain of travel and hopefully miss the screw head.

[andyjawa]

Via your picture you presently have the belt set too far to the left on the motor`s pulley wheel which is just asking for trouble. When I was playing about with this problem with a H7 belt I still couldn`t get it to fully miss the the screw head even with the belt set to the right hence suggestion above.

[Tiptonian]

Thanks for the advice. I am torn between replacing the belt again, or replacing the machine. I don’t like the idea of replacing the belt only to find I’ll need to do it again in a couple of years time. Incidentally the pic shows where the belt was when I opened it up. I removed it back to the right before closing it up again but I doubt it will last very long given how narrow it is now along much of its length.

[andyjawa]

Its 6.85 quid belt (with free postage – see appliancehelp on ebay uk – and fingers crossed verses over 200 quid for a new tumble dryer annd it`ll still be fingers crossed! So it is pretty obvious what to do surely.
One point when or if you order this belt make sure you get a C00313102 belt 1965H6 and do not get fobbed off with the pattern part POL66 ( which is in itself a fine belt just not for you ) because that is a 1970 H7 belt (so you would be back to square one again) The 1965 length belt is slightly more harder to fit because it is shorter. Make sure the belt jockey pulley is ok too before you order anything. Make sure the rear drum bearing is fine too.Well worth having another go at the thing.

[Author]

Posts