If you have a car for a while you must have run into serpentine belt replacement issues. The belt is a simple unbroken belt that runs across a couple of pulleys that aid to rotate a fan to blow air into the radiator. Ideally, the life span of belts is designed to last up to 150,000 miles for newer cars and 40,000 or 50,000 miles for older cars.
Symptoms For Serpentine Belt Replacement
Squealing or screeching noise from the engine area is one of the common symptoms. Sometimes the sound comes last only a few minutes after starting the vehicle. As time goes on the sound gets louder even when you are driving. However, the sound varies from car to car.
Serpentine belt replacement signs such as break or dents are some of the visible problems with a radiator fan belt or serpentine belt. Simply to look at the condition of the belt. A worn or slipping belt will usually show signs of damage such as fraying or cracking and can easily be seen using a flashlight and a small mirror to view the underside of the belt.
Many mechanics recommend that you change a worn belt whenever there are two or more cracks per inch in the belt. Worn belts can also show signs of cording and ribbing. If these types of defects appears in your radiator fan belt, then you have to consider purchasing a new belt ASAP. If you have a crack that is deeper than half the thickness of the belt, you should change the belt immediately, because it will probably break or snap soon.
How to Replace a Radiator Fan Belt
Most vehicles now use a serpentine belt that should last well over 100,000 miles. However, there may be times when the belt becomes cracked, worn or otherwise damaged and needs to be replaced.
What You Need To Fix a New Serpentine Belt
- A new replacement serpentine belt
- Wrenches.
- The belt diagram for your vehicle.
Steps
- Locate and loosen the Serpentine Belt Tension Adjustment.
- Locate the bolts and mounts for adjusting the tension.
You may have to jack your car up to access the fan belt of your car.
- Use the wrench to loosen the Tension.
You will have to loosen the belt’s tension to remove the old serpentine. Leave the tension slightly relax so that you can fix the new one.
- Fix in the New Serpentine Belt.
With the tension slightly relax, install the new serpentine belt carefully following the diagram for your vehicle. Feed the new belt through the series of pulleys that the belt controls. Always double-check to ensure you fix it just correctly before the next step.
- Tighten the Serpentine Belt.
Turn the bolts on the mounting assembly until there is no longer any play anywhere in the belt path. Once you have adjusted the tension on the new serpentine belt. Do a final check of the belt system and the arrangement over the pulleys. Check what you have on the diagram.
- Turn on the Engine.
After you have installed the new serpentine belt, turn on your engine. Then check if the belts is rotating correctly. Also, do a check if the symptoms that you experience are still there after starting the engine. If there is still noise, maybe loose and need more tightening.
Check the belt for shimmying or flapping, as these are also indicators that the belt tension needs to be adjusted. If the belt still seems loose, turn off the car engine and readjust the tension of the belts in the same way you did earlier.
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