Okay, so I'm cleaning out my car to get ready for gathering 8 at the Marriot in Atlanta GA. It started raining and I was just finished washing it, no biggy cuzz I have a garage. Well as soon as I start it up to put it in the garage it starts REALLY rough like it wanted to just die, then I turned the steering wheel to align the car and I noticed something that was impossible to not notice... No Powersteering, and as soon as I got the wheel to budge... I heard something go POP! got an SES light. and the engine died... I popped the hood and the belt was lieing clean off the assembly, the pulley's just plain spit it out... It was still in one piece and in good condition too because it has no more than 3k miles on it... I've noticed ever since I got the car that the belt, no matter what belt we replaced it with, would always rest on the front edge of the pulley's... meaning it would be sitting toward the frontend of the car instead of sitting and restraining back toward the assembly.

I don't know at all as to what caused this but I called several auto parts stores for a belt tensionr and they said that they only sold the pulley and I'm like "which pulley?!" but the tensioner I'd have to get from GM... Just my luck, I'm going to miss the gathering because GM doesn't reopen their parts and service department till TUESDAY!!! Meaning all that cleaning and show&shine was for NOTHING!!! Even STILL GM say's the tensioner is going to cost me $150.00!!! Thats $149.00 that I don't even have! and I can't even do the job myself because I have none of the proper tools!

How can I know for certain that it's the belt tensioner and not a pulley? or the other way around? whats it sound like to you guys?

Thanks all...

 

Dude,the tensioner pulley is $15 from GM. It takes either a 13mm or 15mm socket and about 10min worth of time. Good luck!

 

It wasn't the tensioner "pulley" I needed, it was the whole assembly, the pulley and the arm, thats why it was $150 bucks. But here's what I did, I went to adavanced auto and bought a half inch larger belt and it fit almost perfect. it still hung on the edge whenever I turned the car off though... This got me to and from the F-Body gathering. Since GM's service department was closed. Turns out the mechanic who last installed the belt had it going the wrong way aswell because the tensioner was already broke then. I got a replacement tensioner from a 98 3.8 Firebird in a Junkyard for $40 instead of GM's $150. Installed it and now the old belt fits fine, the new belt is a tad to big though. btw I didn't know antifreeze went through the tensioner...