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What's eating my serpentine belts?

Looking for some help with a "s" belt problem. Had one break, replaced it, got about 3 miles down the road and the new one self-destructed.

Truck is a 1998 Silverado 4x4 w/the 5.0L fi engine. I know IO had the right replacement belt and I double checked the routing against the routing diagram on the radiator shroud, all looked good. No problem with the tensioner, working as it should.

Wondering about the very top "wheel." If you look straight on at the engine at the verfy top the belt runs under what just looks like soem kind of round guide. But it doesn't spin or flex. Not sure what it's purpose is but the belt aas running tight up against it. Shouldn't this have been spinning as well? Otherwise it was just a big friction poin that could be the point of failure. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Mike

Cross posted.

Reply to
mkerns1026
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Happened to me once before but my a/c was screwed up and the wheel would not turn causing belts to tear up. Not sure but worth a check.

Reply to
trevor274

Reply to
Chevrolet

Your belt shouldn't touch any non-spinning surface.

Reply to
Meat Plow

It's an idler pulley and its supposed to spin freely

Whitelightning

Reply to
Whitelightning

Reply to
Chevrolet

Some sort of "round guide" that doesn't spin or flex = frozen idler wheel.

Reply to
Meat Plow

That's just a stop to keep it from flapping around too crazily at certain speeds but it should hardly ever actually touch it. If your belt is solid against it then you are not routing the belt correctly.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Sounds like a seized idler pulley. That "wheel" should spin freely.

Reply to
Mark Schooley

I recently had the same problem. I found that a bolt on the big one piece pulley bracket, (that all of the accesories attach to) was missing. The Take a close look at all of the bolts that connect that main bracket on the front of the engine to the block. You might find that a few of them are loose or possible missing. Without all those bolts in place the force of the tensioner will cause the bracket to bend and the pulleys will not line up properly.

Reply to
CENR

I'm sure it's obvious and might have been mentoined earlier but I had the same issue when my idler pulley was 'sticky'. I guess it had a bad or failing bearing so sometimes it would stick and other times it would spin. At any rate, it cost me 2 belts and a new idler to get it all sorted. That idler pulley was very cheap (I was going to press a new bearing into the casing but the pricing was about the same either way). Also... check the "'" marks on the tensioner - they should be pretty close to each other otherwise the tensioner isn't functioning properly (the range indicator should be visible and self-explanatory).

I hope this helps. Andrew.

in article snipped-for-privacy@localhost.talkabouttrucks.com, CENR at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 6/12/07 1:37 AM:

Reply to
AWN

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