Took the truck on a quick blast down the highway last night... don't most mistakes seem like a good idea at the time? Well i overheated the truck!! idk how hot it got but the needle was pegged and coolant was pouring out of both the overflow and the radiator cap. Took me about 5 minutes to calm down and see that i lost the fan belt, i am unsure when i lost the belt but after a 2 hour cool down she started up and ran without and didn't act up for a 3 mile trip to the nearest parking lot.

Buying a belt... seems like the hardest thing to do, i was supposed to be at work by 6:00 and the part store wasn't open until 7:00... and they won't be able to get the fan belt in until 11:00. The only thing good about this is that i got two belts for just under 60 bux!!

 

You need to determine why the belt failed. When's the last time you checked the belt tensioner's pulley alignment?

 

Just like David said. My old Ford IDI shredded 3 $50 belts before I saw my tensioner was out of alignment. A bushing in it was bad, so slopped off to the side.

 

Well to answer your question first...never

Thats y i bought 2! Didn't know if it was the 20 year old belt or maybe something stuck and it slung off. How would i check for this alignment you speak of? I assume visually it will be to one side or the other. I'm sure crossy or crossys son will chime in saying it was overdue for a new belt.

 

i just went through the entire sticky and couldn't find anything about "adjusting your belt tensioner" or pulley alignment. I'm getting ready to go pick the belt up now and will be towing a ramcharger home tonight. Would hate to loose the belt then, although i won't be near the rpms i was yesterday.

 

Standing on the passenger's side of the truck, hood open.

Look down where the belt runs on all the pulleys and line-up all the pulleys in your view.

If your tensioner is defective, its pulley will present as being a little crooked as compared to all the other pulleys with the belt on. As such, the crooked pulley acts like a rudder and steers the belt to one side or the other, ultimately having it ride up the side of all the pulleys and shredding.

 

Thanks! thats what i thought you meant, just had to be sure.

 

yeah on one of the donors I bought, they had installed a belt that was half as wide as a standard one to keep it from shredding itself. I found that out the hard way after putting a normal belt on there. A new tensioner should be a standard replacement item after X hours of operation etc.

 

Just for clarification, it's been my experience that the resilient rubber "Flex" thing of the tensioner gets soft and allows the pulley's arm to move sideways.

It seems a few have experienced an actual pulley (bearing) failure.

I think it's most economical to just replace the entire assembly.

 

I shredded one belt in the 9 years I've owned my truck and it was caused by a bad tensioner. The pulley and bearings were fine, it went to crap where it bolts to the block.

 

I agree 100%. A year ago I replaced my OEM belt, not due to failure but to visible surface cracking. A month later my tensioner bearing began squealing. My conclusion is that the expected life spans of the tensioner and the belt are approximately the same, at least in a low-mileage truck. From now on I won't replace one without also replacing the other.

 

I put a good used tensioner on it when we bought it, it had a bad bearing and squeeked.

As for the belt...Looked good to me i stuck it back on there. Never had a problem with it.

 

i just changed my tensioner finally with a real dayco tensioner for 65 bucks from advance auto (had to look around to find a good one)... i also got the expensive fleetrunner micro v belt from napa for 82 bucks. you can get the stuff cheaper online but not by much. before i swapped tensioners, even a new belt would come off of the pullies by one rib as soon as i started the engine.

i had to get a new tensioner and belt finally after the same thing happened to me last saturday. i had the AC on, i was beating on the truck big time and i looked down and the Check Engine light was on and my temp was near the high side of normal. belt was gone, i had a used spare and i drove another 15 miles. the spare started coming apart after those 15 miles so i think the tensioner started to tilt even worse. might wanna change that tensioner before it happens again and the belt falls off and ruins something else.

 

If you're having a bad day, you'll enjoy knowing the belts internal reinforcement includes some rather strong metallic wire . In my case, they wrap VERY tightly in between the AC compressor's case and pulley. Consider yourself lucky if they don't do damage wrapping-up in there. Been there, done that.

 

i had a bunch of it wrapped around my AC pump behind the pulley but it all came out (thankfully). i kept the pile of junk i have found all over the engine compartment. i even found a part of a hamburger roll? i dont have any idea where that came from because it looked kinda fresh.