Idler Pulley Siezed...belt Seems Short

[jsmith20]

It was such a nice day in West Michigan I had to open the sunroof, man was that nice...:-)

Well after about 3 blocks, I had to give in and acknowledge the steady screech was coming from under my hood...turns out the idler belt puller was gone.

$18 and 10m later problem fixed, well it should have taken 10m (or less) but I spent about 10m since I couldn't get the pulley to extend and further and release the belt. I was able to slide it off the pulley and had to do the same to get it back on.

OK - so after a bunch of rambling this is my question...

How much should I be able to move my idler to get a belt on and off? My belt is in great shape, but I'm thinking the previous owner threw on the closest belt they had around and missed the correct length be 1" or so.

In the process of trying to move the idler, I may have (pretty sure I did) stretched and potentially stripped the threads in the aluminum arm. Since the bolt is a LH thread, I just put it touching then backed it off 1/8 turn (and added a small drop of blue Loctite), figured the worst that will happen is the washer will turn the screw back on, lock up the pulley and I will hear the belt squealing on the pulley again.

If you have another 30s...

Sunday I was backing out of my garage and accidentally hit the remote opener. I looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see the garage door opening, out of view...crazy thing is it was open before I put it in reverse...Pretty sure I hit the opener, started backing up and tripped the safety sensor before I had a chance to run into the garage door, but not before the garage door had come down and snagged my antenna. So today I was driving through town with the antenna limply hanging to the side and the engine squealing like a stuck pig...pretty humbling :-)

[SLORICK]

Your 96 may not be same as my 94LS400, but doesnt your serpentine belt have a tensioner?

My shop manual says use a socket wrench on the tensioner pulley to turn the belt counterclockwise and it will create some slack in the belt... maybe that's what you needed to do.

[jsmith20]

Your 96 may not be same as my 94LS400, but doesnt your serpentine belt have a tensioner?

My shop manual says use a socket wrench on the tensioner pulley to turn the belt counterclockwise and it will create some slack in the belt... maybe that's what you needed to do.

I did that...but like I mentioned, there was no adjustment left as the belt was so short it was holding the tensioner all the way open. I think I streched/stripped the threads when I tried to open the tensioner. It moved very easily with the belt off, but in order to get the belt back on, I had to hold the tensioner open while scootching the belt onto the idler...I'm pretty sure my belt is ~ 1" short.

[steve2006]

Those belts are a very tight fit, when I replaced mine I took it back to the parts store as I thought it was too short, they rechecked and confirmed it was correct.

To fit it I had to kneel down on the top of the engine grab the belt with both hands, lift up as hard as possible then slip the belt over the idler pulley.

This was after trying the conventional method according to the workshop manual.

Anyway 2 years later it's working fine so must be correct.