Hi,

tonight my serpentine belt jumped off my Pontiac Grand Prix 98 SE (not supercharged). I wanted to replace it and noticed that the plastic wheel fell off the belt tensioner pulley. I tried to take the pulley off, but the bolt holding it in place is way too tight.

How can I take the pulley off? Should I take the whole tensioner spring assembly off or just the pulley?

What is the right size of my serpentine belt? Is it 93 or 93.5 inches? The one that I just jumped off is 93 inches, but the previous one was 93.5. I believe that mechanic who installed the belt used a smaller belt size for some reason.

Thanks.

Alec

you dont need to take the pulley off to replace the belt. just loosen the bolt and swing the pulley towards the front of your car. Put the belt on and then reverse the process. There should be a sticker on the frame near the hood release latch that shows how to put the belt on.

If I remember correctly, the pulley bolt threads in the reverse direction. Also I found a local parts store that had metal pullies for cheap.

Replace all your tensioner and idler pullies, and I do believe it is reverse threaded.
Try turning it the other way, Alec.

brown, the problem is that the plastic wheel fell off the pulley. So, I either need to replace just the pulley or the whole belt tensioner assembly.

According to markp I should be able to just replace the pulley and not the whole belt tensioner assembly.

I'll give it a try.

markp, I just tried to unscrew the bolt in the middle of the pulley in both directions, but it won't come off. Section "Don’t Forget Belt Tensioners & Idler Pulleys" here http://www.aa1car.com/library/2004/us90410.htm states "Timing belt tensioner and idler pulley bearings are sealed for life and are not serviceable."

Do you know how to remove the belt tensioner?

What is the right size of my serpentine belt? Is it 93 or 93.5 inches?

markp, I just went on autozone.com and found that they sell pulleys separate from belt tensioners. So, I went back to my garage and unscrewed the pulley using a pair of wrenches. Tomorrow I will go to a local parts store and buy a new pulley.

I will take my question about the size of the belt to a different thread.

Thank you all for your feedback.

Any auto parts house will be able to tell you what size your belt is.

Well, I already call two and they both told me that they have two sizes of belts for my car (93 and 93.5 inches) and they are not sure which one is the right one.

Any ideas?

They're so close in size I don't know if it would really matter. I'd just pick the cheaper of two.

Just to let everybody know I bought a 93' belt and was barely able to put on. I am not sure how tight it should be fitting, but it works.

Thanks all.

As long as you can get it on, that's all that matters. The tighter the better, tbh.

If the belt will fit on over the pulleys the tensioner will maintain proper tension. 93 and 93.5 are with in the range that the tensioner will take care of. In other words it's physically impossible to have the belt too tight unless you have the wrong tensioner in. And if that was the case then you'd never get the belt over the lips on the pulleys.