Belt tensioner gave out...

[Doug]

To make a long story short i was driving up the road when the belt tensioner pulley basically gave out. The power steering went the alternator went and of course the cooling went. I was gonna drive it home till i noticed the temp gauge was pinned. Anyway my question is has any one ever heard of the belt tensioner failing? Basically there was nothing left of the sides of the pulley it was all chewed apart.

 

[Garyboy]

Hello ... My wife has/bought new a 94 Explorer XLT and just after warranty expired the belt tensioner broke and fell off. Fortunately I was following her motioned her to pull over, noticed the temp. rising and turned it off. I waited for it to cool off and took off the chewed up belt. I quickly cranked it up and drove it into a parking lot for repairs. I purchased the part ($90.) at Ford Dealership and checked on any recalls (none) and returned to Explorer and replaced it with a new belt. The old tensioner was a defective design at a glance. The new one was reinforced at the fracture point. My concern was that if I hadn't noticed the piece fall off my wife might have driven it without noticing the temp. gauge peg and ruin the engine. A few years after that repair I had the thermostat stick closed and had to drive 20 miles at 5 mph to keep from going into the RED. Otherwise out Explorer w/150K miles has been a very dependable vehicle to own. We did however have difficulty with hot/warm starts at around 100K miles and it turned out to be a no fuel problem and with a fuel pump relay the problem was solved for less than $10. at Autozone. Good luck Gary at Ggaryboy@aol.com

 

[mrboyle]

I have replaced hundreds of failed tensioners and pulleys. It doesn't matter what vehicle manufacturer you name, if it has a serp. belt, I more than likely have seen one loose the tensioner.

 

[Doug]

I called a local auto parts place and they quoted me 38 bucks for one.

 

[Garyboy]

Great price!!!

WoW ... Great price, unfortunately at the time I needed one the dealership was the only game in town. I called NAPA, and any and all other part sources and it was a "dealer only" item at the time. I'm sure I paid something like $78.-86 or something like that - I recall not getting much back from a $100. dollar bill. I tried to get Ford to cover it but "No Deal". Later Gary

 

[Muskrat]

Namitey only needs the plastic pulley, I believe. The tensioner itself seemed to be fine, the pulley just exploded.

 

[TunnelFear]

my pulley went out too. sucked. out on the highway taking my two little brothers to the mall. i managed to drive it back home (about 6 miles) very carefully. the pulley went out, but the belt was still turning, imagine that.

 

[Jesse 1965]

My 5.0 tensioner failed at 28,000 miles. It was under warranty, however, it took some work to get the knuckleheads at Ford to agree it was the tensioner. I finally had to walk out on the shop floor and show them the pulley was loose.

 

[Doug]

I replaced it today and it was no big deal. took me about 30 minutes to replace. The hardest part was trying to get a wrench inbetween the fan and the tensioner.

 

[AQexplorer]

yep...the exact same thing happened to me yesterday!!

it scared the sh*t outta me!

 

[LowdPypes]

Tightening my belt...

Question, how tight should the serpentine belt be? I don't have an auto tensioner anymore (supercharger) and I can't seem to get this damn thing to stop squeeking when I start the car. I installed new belts and tightened it down pretty tight. Can I overtighten it? Won't that kill bearings?

 

[Doug]

Over tightening is bad. Itll cause the pulleys to wear and put more wear on the bearings. I beleive you should only be able to push the belt down about half a inch on the longest part.

 

[Campo]

If I remember right... look for the furthest distance between pully's... wiggle the belt up and down.. if the travel is more than 1/2", (should be between 1/4" and 1/2") than you need to tighten the belt... if you have no way to tighten it .. then you need slightly larger pully's...