Belt alignment?

[jre97]

Ok it's not a turbo but my mother-in-law's 97 voyager with a 3.0 keeps losing the serpentine belt. To me it acts like something is out of line. If you put the right belt on it it will set and smoke the belt but if you cut a rib off of the belt with a utility knife it will be stay on and not smoke for a while. Anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing the belt to jump off?

[turbovanman²]

Has someone worked on it recently and put an alternator on or ? and used the wrong pulley? happens all the time. Also, common for the tensioners to go.

[jre97]

I put a water pump on it last spring but the belt we took off someone had trimmed and/or worn a rib off of it. So it was like that before then but recently the belt has started popping off regularly. After closer inspection it lookes like the tensioner is offset. If you look straight on at the belts/pulleys you can see about a 3/16" of belt on the tensioner pulley eyeing it from where it comes off of the alternator. I took the belt off and checked the bearings in the tensioner pulley and the had no movement and the same with the idler pulley. If the tensioner is the problem the whole arm it rides on is out of alignment. Is there anything to wear out where the tensioner attaches to the alt. bracket?

[turbovanman²]

Yes, when they start to go, the tensioner arm either seizes or moves out. I bet if you replace it-WITH A NEW ONE, ;) your problems will be solved.

[jre97]

thanks:thumb: