Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Installing Serpentine Belt Tensioner

Has anyone around here replaced the belt tensioner? I just got around to replacing the belt itself to try and take car of my Battery Light problem. So the next step would be to replace the tensioner itself. Here are my initial questions:

1) How tight should the belt be? This is being measured by the location of the notch on the tensioner. Mine is located about 1/2" from the left most point. The left-most point is the spot you aim for when relaxing the tension to change belts.

2) Are there any bolts besides the Torx-40 in the center that hold the tensioner in place?

3) What else would have to be removed to get the tensioner out of the engine bay? Could it be pulled out and replaced from below, or is it best to do from above?

4) (last question) What would be a good source for this part? I already contacted car-part.com and will e-mail Bill Jenkins on Monday. Anyone else have alternate sources?

Thank you in advance.

TTT

anyone? bueller......buelller....

First off why are you changing it?.If the spring tension takes it to the stops on the casing there is no need or is the bearing in the idler shot?,either way once you remove the torx bolt watch out,there is a VERY powerful spring in there......

Terry, the original problem is having my battery light come on when the car is being revved above 5500 rpm's. Previous posts indicated that this would be a problem with the serpentine belt, or the idler or tensioner. I changed the belt, and the problem persists (51k miles on the car). I wasn't sure that the tensioner could be at fault, especially because no one has described any problems with that part. But, I'd figured I should ask if anyone has happened to try and replace it. Your posting suggests that the tensioner is probably not the problem (why change it?). That's fine with me. So, instead should I look to change the tensioner pulley? I'm assuming that's were the bearing is that you are referring to. Would a bad bearing cause the aforementioned problem?

Any assistance you can offer is greatly appreciated.

Andrew

Andrew,

Have you had the alternator checked?

Nope not yet. I figured I would work my way towards it if the more basic components weren't at fault.

Agree,alternator check next..

Let me know if I'm on the right track here;

Use a voltmeter to check the voltage across the battery terminals when the car is shut down (should be about 13v). Then again when the car is running at idle (14-15v). If the voltage runs higher than 16v when running, then the voltage regulator should be replaced.

Ideally I would like to see what the voltage does at high rpm (when the battery light comes on), but I'm not planning on revving the engine that high in neutral.

Are there any leads on the alternator that I should check while the engine idles?

I'll say it again, thanks for the reponses so far.