am i missing something with the serpentine belt?

M

MaddShadez

Active LVC Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2007
Messages
139
Reaction score
4
Location
Miamisburg, OH
Went to replace the serpentine belt on the 2004 LS v8 today. on my mark it was a ten minute job, the LS however...

I've got the belt mostly off but i can't get it from around the tensioner pulley. it feels like there is a lip on the engine block that stops me from bring the belt from behind the pulley. i must be doing something wrong, i can't imagine it's supposed to be this hard to change a belt.
 
Here's a pic

rsz_img_20110521_151701.jpg
 
On my GEN 1 I loosened the bolt for the tensioner about 6-8 turns. That gave me enough room to get around it. I believe it is a 13mm. I'm not sure if it is the same on the Gen 2. Good luck
 
There is a small lip that does hinder your ability to easily get the belt off and on. I just cut the old one off and installed the new using a pair of pliers to wiggle the belt back into place.
 
Well it took a few hours but i finally managed to get that S.O.B put on. I had to use brute force to get the old one off. the new one (gatorback ftw!) slipped on easy, but routing it was a PITA. Easily the most frustrating thing i've done to this car yet!

Oh, and I cleaned the engine after that pic while i was in there :)
 
FASTLLS said:
I was going to say why don't you compress the tensioner to get it off but you got it now..
Click to expand...

I had the same problem and the belt was mostly off. Putting it back on was harder. I also have the gatorback and it took me about an hour to get it in. I noticed the gatorback is slightly thicker than the motorcraft and seemed much more stiff. I even knew the routing to have it done correctly but you have so little space to work with on the gatorback. I had to use a screwdriver to put it on the last pulley while compressing the tensioner all the way down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

No members online now.
Total: 186 (members: 0, guests: 186)
Back
Top