Change Serpentine Belt
 

Alright guys, call me a newbie or whatever.... I bought my stang to tinker around and my recent problem is I blew out the S-belt tonight. I bought a new one Goodyear Gatroback and had a heck of a time getting it on. I released the tensioner pulley which was easy enough, but now after feeding the belt through all the pulley's I can't get it under the tensioner. I believe it's correctly routed as the smooth side runs along all the smooth pulleys and all the ribbed pulleys are along the ribbed side of the belt. I do believe I have the correct belt as I matched it up with the old. I undid the alternator thinking I could get some added slack from that, but not enough. I was under the impression that the T-Pulley was the only one I had to mess with? I'm about 1/2 an inch away from getting the stud on the T-Pulley back into the hole it needs to be in... Any help would be appreciated. Am I missing something?

One last thing to note, the guy at the store asked if I had factory a/c or dealer a/c I told him factory, but I don't know for sure, could this have made a difference in belt size?

It's a 90 GT...

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

double check your routing, it'll tell you the routing on the box that held the belt since it's a gatorback. If you don't see yours, you got the wrong belt, or you're not lifting the tensioner enough

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

You loosen the top bolt on the tensioner correct? There's a little post that slides into bracket on the tensioner. The only diagram on the box is fairly basic and says to route ribbed to ribbed and smoothe to smoothe.

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

No. You put a wrench on the bolt for the pulley and lift upwards... Think it's a 16mm bold or 18mm i don't remember, been awhile. It's a spring tensioner, you don't loosen any bolts.

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

if you are moving the tensioner right and it doesnt work go back and get a larger size belt. when i deleted my a/c the "factory non a/c" belt didnt work.... despite having the PS relocated to a factory non a/c location.sometimes belts just dont fit and u need to upsize a slight bit.

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

it's 18 mm and you use a long breaker bar ...and lift up on the spring loaded tensioner...no need to unbolt it..and double check your routing;)

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

Thanks alot gentlemen! I lost sleep over this last night as after my first post I realized it needed to be much simpler than it was. Well, to my wife's dismay, she woke up and said, "Did you sleep at all last night?" Umm, no! So at 6am I was under the hood of the car and had the belt in like 5 mins. Realizing mainly that sinse the tensioner was spring loaded it seemed logical that you'd just pull up on it hard enough to get the belt under it. And then this AM realizing that all I had to do was put a socket on the lower bolt and pull up. Oh well, live and learn and that's why i've got the thing in the first place....

Now, why did the belt break in the first place??? After replacing, I fired it up and checked to make sure everything was turning.... They were, except the Smog pump! Shut it down so I didn't blow through a new belt... So off to EBay I go to find a smog pump and yet ANOTHER weekend project.....

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

50resto has smog pumps for like 50 somethin bucks...you getting the actual pump, or a delete pulley?

RE: Change Serpentine Belt
 

I'm going to do the actual pump. I live in So Cal and even though I don't need to smog up again until next summer I don't wanna hassle with it later. Thanks on the 50 resto. I've been buying alot of stuff from Mustangs Unlimited, but I'll check 50.