serpentine belt slipped off

cobey

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So I went to start the car (04 V8) early this morning, scraped the windshield off and hopped back in to head to work and I noticed that the message center said "check charging system" and the battery light was on, so I immediately shut it down and called in to work. I went back in for a little bit because I knew that I wasn't going to get anything done in the dark (it was about 5:30 AM at this point.) I went back out a few hours later when it was light out and I looked at it to see if I could see if something is obvious to me. It didn't take me long to see that the serpentine belt wasn't connected, pretty much just sitting in between the accessory drive and the air intake. Normally I would have taken a closer inspection and probably fixed it myself, but I live in an apartment, have no garage that I can go to and according to the car, it was -9 outside so I brought it in to the local shop, hoping that it was just idler pulley or tensioner. According to the shop, the serpentine belt just slipped off. Tensioner, Idler pulley and all other components to the accessory drive checked out just fine and they reattached the belt and everything runs fine now. I took it for a quick 5-10 mile drive and everything checked out as far as I could tell. I have never heard of anything like that happening, where the belt just kind of comes off, and my only thought is that the aggressive cold that we have been having in Minnesota lately with 0 degree high temps may have somehow caused this, but I thought I would post here to see if you guys have any thoughts or have had this happen before. Overall, this was probably about the best case scenario for my bank account since I only paid about $25 to get it fixed, but if its something that is going to keep happening, I would like to get it fixed too. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Thanks in advance
 
Might also check the tensioner pulley. I could see the grease in the bearings freezing up, causing it to react slowly to tension changes at such a low temp. All it would take is a split second hesitation on the tensioner pulley to throw the belt.
 
Okay thanks guys. Is that part really $900+? I cant find it anywhere other than fordparts.com
 
Okay thanks guys. Is that part really $900+? I cant find it anywhere other than fordparts.com

It's $700 at FordPartsGiant.
Do verify that it is really the problem first. Look at it with the engine idling and see if it is wobbling around a bit.
 
im doing mine friday , i took it off a wrecked ls that had 80000 miles
 
It's $700 at FordPartsGiant.
Do verify that it is really the problem first. Look at it with the engine idling and see if it is wobbling around a bit.

Yeah I definitely plan on verifying, I was just researching after ghost's reply and I couldn't find the part at all on my usual sites, so I looked at ford's site.
 
Man these parts are a killer and the problem is not even the dealers want to stock them. I waited 5 days for a part last summer.
 
yea exaclty, who would have thought that rubber and metal can cost more than gold lol
 
I looked it up just for fun, I still need to take a closer look at it, but I found a harmonic balancer off of a 2005 3.9 at a local junk yard/recycled auto parts shop for $35.99...They grade it as a B, meaning that it has >60k miles on it, but <200k with <15k/year. I assume that they at least test it to make sure that the part is sellable, but would you recommend going this route if I end up needing this?
 
Has anyone checked to see if the Jaguar 4.0 balancer will work? I'd have to wonder, if it will, if the part wouldn't be cheaper and more available at the Jag dealer.
 
go for it cobey, it might just work , and telco idk would be nice to see a side by side comparison on them first before taking a jump on one , would be a miracle if it did
 
I looked it up just for fun, I still need to take a closer look at it, but I found a harmonic balancer off of a 2005 3.9 at a local junk yard/recycled auto parts shop for $35.99...They grade it as a B, meaning that it has >60k miles on it, but <200k with <15k/year. I assume that they at least test it to make sure that the part is sellable, but would you recommend going this route if I end up needing this?

I'd jump at that price in a heartbeat. I don't think that age/mileage makes any real difference. Either you have a good one from the start or a bad one. A bad one may not make 100K miles, but a good one could be okay for 500K miles.
 
yea that is a really good find , mine was off a 2000 with 80000 , cost me 40 , i know 2000-6 have the same harmonic balancer but i wish I found one closer to my year
 
Cool. I won't be able to look at it from an overnight cold start until this weekend probably, but I will make sure that I take a look at it this weekend and jump on this as soon as I can if its needed. This morning it started right up with no issues with the serpentine belt. It wasn't quite as cold as it was yesterday morning, but still in single digits.
 
its 17 below here in Chicago with the wind chill and im surprised my car is doing as well as it is doing with a messed up balancer lol
 
its 17 below here in Chicago with the wind chill and im surprised my car is doing as well as it is doing with a messed up balancer lol

Yeah it has been awful here for about a week and a half. We're having a heat wave today though. It's supposed to be 19 lol
 
pics of the balancer i bought , what you guys think ?

20131212_100347.jpg


20131212_100326.jpg


20131212_100415.jpg


20131212_100423.jpg
 
Dumb question, but I've never understood what a harmonic balancer does. Looks like just another pulley. Does it have some special functionality where it can lock and/or release as needed, to make the rest of the system pull correctly?
 

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