AAUUUUGGGHHH

[ghunt]

Have to admit, I kind of feel like Charlie Brown tonight.

This huge blizzard was supposed to be coming in today, and instead it ended up raining the whole day. I left work to go to my girlfriends, and right before I got to her place I accidentally hit a huge puddle, which apparently splashed up in the engine compartment and made my truck throw the belt (and completely mangle it). I pulled off the road to make sure everything else was ok, and as soon as I got out of the truck it started dumping the snow down. This was at 5:40 PM, it's now 10:40 and we've got 6-8" of snow and it's supposed to snow all night.

ARGH!!! My truck is probably the only thing that could actually get around in this, plus I wanted to go do some donuts. This freakin' sucks.

 

[Agnem]

We've got almost 2 feet. Kick back and drink some coffee. Your not going anywhere.

 

[SparkandFire]

ghunt- I think with all your belt troubles, a v-belt swap might be in order!

I have had way more troubles with serp. belts than v-belts, I just don't see the benefit to the 1-belt system!

 

[ghunt]

There has to be some reason it's throwing belts though. Really frustrating- and what I don't get is that it never did it BEFORE I replaced the idler pulley and tensioner pulley. The belt looks like it's tracking fine. I just don't understand what could be out of line enough to make it jump off the damn pulleys just because of a little water. ugh

 

[icanfixall]

Is the tensioner bounching. If so usually its the vacuum pump pulley getting out of round. Look closely for any pulley with runout...

 

[ghunt]

The tensioner bounces but only a little bit. I figured that was normal just because of the way the engine idles. It kicks a little when you rev the engine too.

But, the vac pump pulley has a big enough lip on it, it doesn't look to me like it could jump off there? Maybe I just need a wider idler pulley, I dunno.

 

[wolf5842]

This might help..., I had the same problem down here in Georgia when we had the terrible floads last year. After checking everything what I ended up doing is placing a shim behind the pulley of the tensioner to move it roughly 1/8" (I noticed that the belt was riding even witht the edge of the tensioner pulley) . This seemed to take care of it. Haven't had a problem since.

 

[f-two-fiddy]

There are three different tensioners for these rigs. Where'd You get Yours? You might have the wrong one.

 

[Goofyexponent]

We've got almost 2 feet. Kick back and drink some coffee. Your not going anywhere.

When you guys are done with that snow storm, will you please send it up the eastern seaboard to us here in Nova Scotia. It's been in the -20's and 30's (-4 to -22*F) here for about a week and a half. Too cold for snow!

I would love a good dump of about 2 feet to go plowing in that new JOh Deere tractor we got at the shop!!

 

[ghunt]

Well, as far as the tensioner pulley goes- the factory one had a lot of slop in it, and the parts store didn't have the plastic one in stock so I actually bought one of the metal ones that said it was for the 8-rib belt (it's actually the same width as the plastic tensioner pulley), and the belt rides in the middle of it. On the idler, I used the factory-style plastic one, and shimmed it out with a washer so the belt rides in the middle of it too (it was riding on the outside edge, that was how it rode on the original idler too). At some point I think I'd acctually like to replace the plastic idler with a metal tensioner pulley from one of the gasser V8 trucks- it's about the same diameter but it's wider. All these pulleys have the same size mounting hole so they're all interchangeable.

Also I still have the factory tensioner on the truck, it's one of the hydraulically dampened ones.

 

[icanfixall]

The tensioner you mentioned is the newer updated part. That shock absorber really works. Ebay has them for $44.00 and they are the oem Ford ones. Seller is in Texas. I bought two of them... One rides behind the rear seat as a spare...

 

[ghunt]

Yeah I saw that. Might buy one eventually, but it's $16 shipping so $60 total.

So I went out to get a belt today and there wasn't an Advance Auto Parts within 30 miles that even had one! I had to go to an Autozone that was 15 miles away and get one. Criminy...