commonrail fan belt.. a write up for those thinking about doing it
 

as the title states..

if you have to do it, it is tricky, but not bad at all.. a little more involved than a 12 valve, but nowhere near as bad as a 6.0, or duramax....

my pickup started squealing Saturday when I was driving home from work... I popped the hood and dropped it to idle... nothing at idle, but at above 1200 rpms (the high idle cruise control function was really handy for this) I was able to somewhat pinpoint the noise to the tensioner, and or the belt.... my belt hadn't been changed on the truck, so I figured it was time to do it...

after reading the comments that its a PITA, and so forth, I decided to prepare, and look at diagrams before attempting it this morning.. It did not seem to difficult to do so, away I went... Although it probably was not needed I first removed the 4 13 mm nuts that hold the fan shroud in place... to give me more room to get in there and squish the shroud.. secondly I got my 1/2 inch ratchet on the tensioner and got it loose.. I could immediately see that the belt was doing to be an issue to pull out of there.. the space between the belt and block was very tight...so I started at the water pump and removed the belt pulley by pulley... finally it was at the tensioner.. I just loosened it up, and pulled it out just enough so that I can pull the belt... the belt looked pretty sad...worn spots, some small cracks on the ribs, and one side of it was starting to fray... ehhhh problem might be solved...

logic told me that if the belt was that bad... the tensioner was going to be just as bad, if not worse... I pulled the tensioner... with the same 13 mm ratcheting wrench, and yes it was bad.. I could wobble the wheel side to side with my hand... while I was in there.. I checked the rest of the pulleys, all seemed well, the idler, the alternator, the water pump, power steering, crank shaft pulley etc etc... the first four had no play on them, and were not squealing when I spun them manually... so I narrowed down my issue to the crappy belt and craptastic tensioner...

off I went to my o reilys (pretty sweet that its only one mile away) and got me a gates tensioner and fan belt.. and back to the truck I went.. first off when I got back, I put the tensioner on its location, with the long bolt just tight enough to hold it there.. the trick here is simple.. the tensioner rests on a slottled area in the block somewhere that will allow you to put your ratchet on it and adjust it... if you put the bolt on there just enough to hold it, the tensioner can sit with the pulley much lower and you can pick it up and position it closer to the block where it goes, and then tighten away... anyways I left the tensioner loose, and started messing with the belt...

far as the belt goes, the most important thing to remember is that it goes OVER THE FAN AND AROUND.. not under the fan, nor try to wrap the belt around the fan... you will get nowhere...

I started with the alternator pulley and worked my way to my right on top of the truck, alternator, water pump, idler pulley, and then power steering... that's where it gets a little tricky... its gonna sound funny, but get under the truck, and "loop" the belt, and push it through the fan and idler pulley, the smooth side will go up over the fan, emerge on the right side of the side of the truck, and then, you simply fish the belt out.. you should have enough slack to go under the crank.. and position the belt where it belongs on the tensioner.. then around the ac pulley and back up to the alternator...

you have ALOT OF SLACK at this point in time due to the tensioner not sitting where it should.. AND THE BELT.. should be correct around all of your pulleys... at this point, go back up to the alternator, and undo the pulley from there... and leave it alone...

go back to your tensioner, pick it up (belt should be in place) and position it close to the block, in the hole where it goes, and go on to tighten it into place....once that is done, (I work alone so this is what I did) position the ratchet in the tensioner, and use a cheater pipe BELOW the fan and tensioner.. I then used a small ratchet strap to my front bumper to pull and hold the tensioner open, a few clicks did the trick and was able to slide the belt over the alternator pulley easily.... rechecked belt for correct routing, positioning on the pulleys, and for no binds and kinks, and undid the ratchet strap...

voila! the hard part is done.. finally put the four nuts back on the fan shroud.. and for good measure (this is not needed) barred the motor a few revolutions with a ratchet on the 15/16th alternator nut.. once I saw that the belt was good on the pulleys.. I turned on the truck... let it idle and warm up, revved it up, and no more squeak or squeal...

all in all, start time to finish time was two hours... that includes doing to o reilys to get the parts, checking everything, and idle warm up of the truck time...

hopefully this helps someone in the future.. thanks for taking the time to read it.. like everything else, this has its knack to it.. I think I found it, and hope it helps someone else..

Nice write-up.

thanks for the writeup! I will re-visit this thread in the near future when I swap mine out!

Great write up. Just a small piece to add.

In general, if the smooth side of a belt runs over the center fan pulley on any application you do not need to transverse the belt around the fan blade. Simply follow the directions provided above. Ribbed side of a belt on the fan pulley you must go around the fan first.


Nice job TxDeisel007!

Great write up!
Same thing when I did mine. After fighting the belt for about 5 min I noticed that if I loosened the tensioner that it would come right out!

On my 2006 all I did was remove my Volant CAI to access the tensioner, but I highly doubt I could have used a 1/2 " ratchet in there, very little room to move. I have a Gearwrench ratcheting serpentine tool, they are not too much $ from Amazon, and the hardest part was getting the belt in and out of below the water pump and the factory packaging folds in the belt kind of make it a bit harder putting the new one on, a coat hanger hook was a good help, still close to a 2 hr job and not something you want to have to do on the side of the road, so be pro-active and change it sooner than later. Put on the Gates heavy duty one from Genos , better than the stock one.

Nice post!!!:agree:[laugh]

Just received a gates fleet runner green back from rock auto. This belt is a beast. Just hope I can get it on without removing my fluid damper.

Thanks for the help TxDiesel007!!! Worked like a charm, well almost....

Great write up@ txdiesel007 It definitely help

Nice write-up.

One thing I would like to add, expensive mistake if not corrected before you start your engine. Check the belt at the crank pulley and make sure it is on the inside of the crank sensor and not resting on it. It has never happen to me because I always check it first[duhhh] but it almost has several times. Also a great tool I use every time I change out a belt. A 3/8 dowel with a screwed in hook at the end. Great for manipulating the belt and not doing any damage to it around the pulleys. Sometimes you wish you had a helper when putting your serp belt on. I found a way around that too. Take the top right side nut off the fan shroud. You will get more swing with your fan wrench and also you can use the shroud bracket as temporary holding fixture for your fan wrench while you work the belt around a pulley that's difficult to get to otherwise. They do make many tools for this job but a 1/2 drive long ratchet works ok.

Well, I finally got around to replacing the serpentine belt on my 98 Dodge 24V Cummins. I've owned it since new, belt has never been changed, truck now has over 143,000 miles on it (better late than never)!!!

It was pretty straight-forward ... here is what worked for me (your mileage may vary):

I used an old simple 1/2" drive torque wrench (the kind that has no protrusions of any kind, where the torque setting is done by slipping a locking ring up then rotating the handle to the torque setting desired) that happened to be just the right length, with a 1/2" to 3/8" socket adapter to fit the 3/8" square drive hole in the belt tensioner.

Facing the front of the truck (to my LEFT is the truck's right fender) I tied a length of baling twine through a hole on my LEFT in the body fender flange just next to the battery. Actually, the first thing I did was cover the positive terminal of the truck battery on my LEFT in a SECURE fashion so as to minimize the chance of shorting it to ground while working in close proximity to it!!!

I inserted the torque wrench in the belt tensioner's hole, pulled the handle of the torque wrench to my LEFT as far as I could (even past the "detent" in the plastic fan shroud/housing). Then I tied the other end of the baling twine around the handle of the torque wrench to hold the wrench in the far LEFT position.

I removed the old serpentine belt by working it off the various pulleys (easy peasy ... it had already fallen off a couple of them), then worked the belt over the cooling fan blades and down between the fan blades and the radiator (gently, so as not to damage the radiator fins).

Then I untied and removed the torque wrench, loosely installed the new belt (reverse of above, including working the belt over the fan/between the blades and radiator), got the belt in the approximate final position, then re-inserted the torque wrench, pulled it far LEFT, and tied it up again.

Using fingers and a 30 inch stick, pushed and prodded the belt onto the pulleys, then re-tied (relaxed) the torque wrench handle so it was LEFT, but not nearly as far LEFT as before. This put just a little tension on the belt so it would stay where it was unless pushed/prodded by me. This let me adjust the belt so it was not off a groove or two.

Then I removed the twine and torque wrench, studied (with strong lighting) each pulley to make sure everything was groovy (hardy har har), and ran the engine for a minute to make sure it was OK.

I looked the old belt over ... the grooves were cracked every 1/2 inch or so, but there were no sections of ribs missing (!!). If I bent the belt backwards (as the idler/tensioner pulley would do), I could just barely see the white thread cording (nylon??) at the exact location of the belt splice (but nowhere else).

jerry

Thanks for sharing your DIY change-over of accessory / fan belt.

Hi.Can you take a photo of the old belt?