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Hi!

Been driving my 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid with no A/C for a couple months because the clutch started getting stuck in the DISENGAGED position. It's been getting worse as I kept driving. Even though I thought if it was stuck disengaged that the pulley would freely spin. But it caught up to me.

Today, it didn't start anymore. It seemed like the engine was seized!

Trying to start it many times, the belt was tugging and tugging trying to rotate around all the pulleys, but to no avail.

Well, I took the belt off and tried to spin the compressor pulley by hand... NOPE. Totally stuck!

So, to recap -> first symptom was intermittent clutch engagement which quickly led to no clutch engagement at all when turning A/C ON from Dash. Due to a stuck clutch. -> Which led to me not using the A/C or blower motor at all ever, which after 2 months led to a stuck pulley! (during 2 months I never unplugged electrical from the compressor. But I never turned on the A/C system from the dash either. It was always OFF. But the belt always still stayed routed and running over the compressor pulley all this time as normal.)

So, back to today -> time to bypass the A/C pulley completely then.... because the pulley is stuck completely. And I need the car today not in 3 days when eBay can ship a pulley kit.

So I bought a belt for a Honda Civic Dx from 2001 because it was exactly around 39 inches and 4-ribbed V drive belt, which is what I measured if we delete the A/C compressor pulley from the belt route.

So literally the only reason I need a belt on this Hybrid is for the water pump... there's no other component that needs it if I'm deleting the A/C, lol.

Well, the belt is actually just a hair too big sadly. By like 1/2 inch.

I found a 6-groove belt that is perfectly 1/2 inch smaller but I'll have to cut 2 grooves off to make it 4-grooves. No big deal but kind of lame. Or maybe the extra grooves (1 on each side overhang) will make it fit better LMAO!

I wanted to ask:

Is there a way to tighten this assembly? My auto-tensioner on this Hybrid is right at the very top of the engine, fully accessible. But is there a way to tighten it about a half inch?

Honestly this 2001 Dx belt is working fine but it's a bit loose so that's not cool. Half an inch too loose.


So, do I swap to the half-inch smaller 6-groove and cut it down to 4-grooves? (try it w/ 6 before cutting 2 grooves off)
Or can I tighten this auto-tensioner by a half inch? (Preferred because I have this 2001 belt in my hand RIGHT NOW and it's almost PERFECT!)



Then very very soon (very soon) for $75 I'll have someone on eBay ship me a replacement clutch & pulley kit and hopefully it's just the pulley bearings that completely failed and not the pistons inside this Hybrid compressor itself because the Hybrid compressor is actually TWO compressors back to back, one is traditional belt-powered and the back-half is Electrical powered.

They cost $1,700 refurbished, so...

 
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New tensioner might hold the loose belt tighter. All belts have a universal part number "x"PK"xxxx". The first x is the number of ribs, the four Xs is the length of the belt in mm. Combine the part nubers of the two belts you have and that should give yiu a working belt

 
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Thank you bro, you were spot on

I had belt 5040398 and switched to one inch below, 5040388

Turns out the 5040 is the .54 width and the 388 is 38.8 inches

Worked perfect. Made a video out of it for others: