travlr

I realize that this is probably a very easy thing to fix yourself, but I'm not sure of what I need to do exactly...

Long story short, how do you reinstall a serpentine belt?

The long story... Last night I was trying to leave my house after dinner to go meet up with some friends and my power steering went out in my car and I had a notice come up to "Check Charging System". I went online on my phone to find out what that meant and I found something on here that mentioned the serpentine belt being loose.

Left it along last night, looked at it today and it was loose... And there was cat hair everywhere! Makes sense since I saw 2 cats run away from underneath my car.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

obxdude018

Rather simple, the belt tensioner is right underneath the alternator, if you have a 3/8" breaker bar or ratchet with a pipe, you stick that in the end of the tensioner and pull the tensioner to the driver's side to loosen the tension.

travlr

Thank you for the help!

baddog671

If the belt is loose, putting a new belt on the car will do nothing. If the belt is loose, it's because the tensioner has weakend.

Torch_Vert

If he tried to run a cat through the serpentine system (not recommended ) it's possible the belt could have jumped a pulley. First thing to do would be to look at the sticker under the hood, and confirm the belt routing matches up

Sancho805

sometimes cats may climb up into the engine to keep warm on a cold night. they'll stay there until the car is started again. sometimes too close to the fan. i've witnessed chopped kitty before. not a pleasant sight.

Nice Pony

Kitty through the belt is pretty common. I doubt any damage was done to the belt or tenssioner. Kitty, not so good! Belt more than likley just jump off a pulley as the Kitty went through it. Just put the belt back on and you should be good to go.

athansor007

Many thanks to everyone on this forum - you have no idea how much help you've been...only had my Mustang for about 5 months now. I just used this and other threads to replace my tensioner pulley and drive belt. I had my young son crank it up this morning with emergency instructions for a quick shutoff (just in case LOL!), and I am thrilled to report the little bird is gone! (cat ate him?) I just don't find Haynes / Chilton as helpful as you guys.

I was excited that I also found my Stang's throttle body - and it was dirty, so that is my next maintenance job. Anyway, I also wanted to contribute, especially for other new DIY'ers like me. These type things shouldn't scare me but I am always afraid of doing more harm than good. I was very fuzzy on which direction each of bolts should be loosened, until I read somewhere else that it would make sense for a single bolt pulley to tighten in the direction it rotates. So I watched to see which way the belt runs, then figured out each pulley rotation and marked it on the pulley with a sharpie, then unbolted in the opposite direction. Also, the leverage to loosen the belt was huge for me. I couldn't get it to budge with a shorter breaker bar, and was convinced it was frozen up. But with the longer breaker bar, it was a piece of cake to loosen and slip off/on the belt, a one (woman) job.

I used a 13 mm socket on the tensioner pulley and a 15 mm on the idler, which brings me to my question. I couldn't get the idler pulley bolt loosened. I am turning it CCW and it won't budge. PB blaster on the way from a friend today. I am terrified of breaking it off - that would be beyond my capabilities to fix. However, the old one's painted surface is worn and uneven and I swear I saw a wobble with the belt off (possibly just my paranoia :-) ). Now that the squeak is gone, I can hear this pulley and it seems to make a very soft metallic whirring sound. I could also hear it when I had the belt off and I hand-spun it. Is it worth it? Any ideas or suggestions?

Again - thanks!