Serpentine Belt Question

[movietvet]

If I were worried about serpentine belt life, I'd be verifying the pulleys including pulley alignment, and tensioner before I bought "better" belts than normal, name-brand stuff.

AFTER I'm assured that the pulleys and tensioner are OK...maybe I'd go green. Probably not.

Best things I ever did to improve belt life were 1) never, never, ever use "belt dressing"; and 2) replace the tensioner when it starts jiggling. Tensioners have a damper inside them, when the damper wears-out, the arm jiggles and the belt life drops.

Completely agree with the remark about tensioner replacement. They are not meant to be bouncing on the belt or jiggling on the belt. I like to see "stillness".

 

[GoToGuy]

With the correct size belt installed, did you know the tensioner has wear indicator on it? Shows acceptable operating range, for new and used belts?

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[HotWheelsBurban]

With the correct size belt installed, did you know the tensioner has wear indicator on it? Shows acceptable operating range, for new and used belts?

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No I didn't! I'll have to look at this on Rawhide's engine.

 

[someotherguy]

I've seen more than a few with obvious cracking in the rubber while still in the wear indicator limits. That prompted me to change 'em ASAP.

Richard

 

[AuroraGirl]

With the correct size belt installed, did you know the tensioner has wear indicator on it? Shows acceptable operating range, for new and used belts?

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heres an example of a indicator on a tensioner. not from a GM but similar concepts.

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heres a GM example, a L67 3800 supercharged you can see the belt tensioner there is mid range.

To note, tensioners SHOULD move when engine is running but the movements shhould be back and forth and not jerky, that would indicate either our misifring or your tensioner is worn.

 

[DerekTheGreat]

Nope.. last one I bought was a '96 back in.. late 2010? It was a little bit ragged but ran and drove great; I think I paid less than $2500 for it. Those were the days, or something.. I gotta say while I really did enjoy those cars, you can only fix up so many of them before you get the urge for something with more grunt. I could either spend a fortune on modding a Caprice, or look elsewhere, since GM forgot about us after 1996. That's how I ended up getting into Chrysler 300 SRT8's. Those will punk out a Caprice without breaking a sweat.

Looking at this pic makes me miss the '94 C2500LD, and my glass brick windowed warehouse back in FL. Oh well. Crummy times but with a few bright spots.

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Richard

"Ragged". ::Laughs and coughs up rust spittle from salty Michigan::

 

[someotherguy]

To note, tensioners SHOULD move when engine is running but the movements shhould be back and forth and not jerky, that would indicate either our misifring or your tensioner is worn.

I've bored y'all with this story before, but choose a quality tensioner when it's time to replace. I had a customer bring me his truck for an A/C compressor, which I always tried to discourage people from buying used compressors. He was low on funds and his was making a LOT of noise. I noticed he had a brand new tensioner and the belt was really jumping around when the compressor kicked on. Not sure what possessed me to try this but I used a large pry bar to carefully hold the tensioner arm in place and the noise went away. It sounded all the world like a failing R4 compressor but it was the cheap, but new, tensioner. I hooked him up with a good used OEM Gates unit for a few bucks and sent him on his way.

"Ragged". ::Laughs and coughs up rust spittle from salty Michigan::

Yeah; we definitely have different opinions on what constitutes ragged! Down here we really don't tolerate much in the way of rust. But, that car had been rode hard (as most former cop cars are) and had lots of broken pieces in the interior, and was banged up all around the body. The Caprices seemed particularly bad about stuff flying around in the trunk banging dents into the sides of the quarters; I swear every 9C1 I had was dented up from the inside. And of course the plastic bumper covers are always chewed up to some degree. Still, it was cheap, reasonably solid, and would light 'em up at will.

Richard

 

[PlayingWithTBI]

With the correct size belt installed, did you know the tensioner has wear indicator on it? Shows acceptable operating range,

yeah, I bought a shorter Gates belt to get the indicator aligned but, it kept jumping a groove when I started it up. I went back to the original one and had no issues.

 

[454cid]

Tensioners can be weird, I guess. I've had no issues with mine, on my 454. It's still original. It moves a bit, but it's always done that. I did finally replace the pulley itself. I have a new older stock part from ebay to install when I need it. However, on my dad's old 96 truck with a 350, the tensioner seized! I was borrowing the truck, and I was looking at the engine for some reason, and I realized that even though the pulley spun fine the tensioner was frozen solid. I had a new Gates tensioner, in my parts stash, for my own truck, that I installed for him. I'm still kinda baffled by it. Failure usually means pulley/bearing problems, or the arm becoming undampened/loose.

 

[movietvet]

yeah, I bought a shorter Gates belt to get the indicator aligned but, it kept jumping a groove when I started it up. I went back to the original one and had no issues.

So, the whole belt would move over one groove? The shorter belt likely caused a snap to the tensioner, that caused it to be out of acceptable operating range and loosened the belt enough to jump. That is a strange one and my guess is just that, a guess. Have never seen a belt jump a groove unless there was an alignment problem with one or more pulleys.