Seprentine belt - but what about the fan clutch wires?!

[frobozz]

OK, I did all my research, I know all the tricks for dealing with the tensioners, I have my new serpentine belts in hand (dual alts), it's time to get rid of these lousy squeaky belts from my early-early 2003.25 6.0L truck, and replace them with the updated ones.

So I got the smaller one free of its pulleys, fed it blade by blade past the fan and.... now it's hung on the wires going down to the fan! Argh! How come nobody mentions that part in all these threads on serpentine belts? It doesn't look like the wires just unplug from the fan, but do they? How? I can't get the connector clip loose from the shroud because the wire gets taut, but even then that probably wouldn't be enough room to feed the belt past it. Obviously if the shroud were off I could do it, but that's what all these old threads are about, getting the belts out without hacking the shroud apart.

I realize most people only have the single belt, but it sure looks like that one is around the fan hub too, and would have the same problem coming out? Or is it not and that's why nobody's brought this up before?

Or am I just being really stupid and overlooking something obvious?

Duncan

[RatherBNtheWoods]

Can't remember unplugging the fan, but I may have. It plugs/unplugs up near the top of the radiator. I tried it without cutting the shroud, then cut the shroud. Not that big of a deal. It's marked where to cut. With the dual alternators it was a lot easier, for me, to just cut the shroud.

[frobozz]

Right, I can unplug the harness on the engine side, up at the top of the radiator. But the connector on the fan side is clipped into the shroud there, and I can unclip it but can't slide it completely out because there's no slack. (You wouldn't want a lot of slack hanging in front of the fan!) It looks like cutting the shroud would allow me to drop it closer to the fan, which would allow me to slide that connectr clip out, which would allow me to get the belt out... but it's a shame to have to do that when I've already done all the hard work with the shroud in place!

Duncan

[GregH]

Do not cut the shroud...

Drain a little coolant out to get the level below the radiator top tank. Then disconnect the radiator hose and degas hose from the radiator and position them aside. Remove the 2 8mm screws from the fan shroud. Remove the 4 8mm screws on the radiator retaining brackets.

Rock the radiator forward to increase clearance for the fan shroud. Push the fan shroud rearward and pull up. Watch those two hose connections on the radiator! The shroud will lift all the way off the vehicle.

[fordboyyfm]

yeah do it right and pull the shroud instead of hacking up your truck. its allot easier to work with that out of your way and it only takes a few seconds.

[dmags]

while on this topic I was wondering if it is normal to get a squeal /squeak out of the belt when turning off the truck??? It was doing it once in a while but now every time I shut her down,If it is not normal does it fall into the 36/36 warranty that is just about up on me?? [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif[/img]

[frobozz]

OK, I cut the shroud. I too was hesitant to hack up my truck... until I actually looked at it! It's a pre-perforated cut line, has holes for screws to go through in the top part, and into in the bottom part. Piece of cake, used a sharp utility knife to slice the perforations. I had to remove the air cleaner to get at the left side, but it was finally due for that anyway... with 63K miles since the last change, the filter minder had moved to about the midway point.

I figured out why nobody else has mentioned this in previous threads: the main belt does indeed come out without needing to go around the fan! It's only the secondary alternator belt that has this issue. So if you don't have the dual alts, you don't need to cut the shroud, or get the belt past the wires, or any of that.

That is absolutely the world's longest serpentine belt, routed in the most ridiculously contorted fashion. The diagram on my truck is correct, which helped a lot. Is it because I have dual alts, or because I have such an early truck, that my main tensioner had no lever to keep it in the released position? I made do though, with a helper to put the last loop back on at the end.

And I am *very* happy to report that all my squeaking is gone! The updated belts indeed completely fixed that. It had been squeaking on shutdown forever, but was more recently audibly squeaking just while driving down the road. All gone. I was afraid that in addition to the belts maybe I had an idler going, but nope. I wish I'd done that sooner. Other than the whole bloody-hands-from-threading-them-past-all-the-sharp-parts thing.

Duncan

[frobozz]

Oh, I thought I should also add some tool notes. I didn't use any ratchet straps, or long-handled special tools, and there's certainly not enough room on a dual-alt setup to have a beefy friend grab the main belt and pull on it, so I just used 1/2" ratchet handles.

For the secondary belt, working from above, I stuck a 1/2" ratchet handle directly into the square hole in the tensioner. With the handle pointing towards the passenger side of the truck, and the wrench in "tighten" mode, I simply yanked up on the handle. I could easily hit the end of travel of the tensioner, at which point I slipped the belt off of the second alternator pulley. As I slowly released the handle, it ended up resting on one of the shroud blades before all the tension was released, so I just left it there while I continued to work; it wasn't in the way of anything. At the very end when I put the second belt back on (by slipping the last loop around the second alternator pulley) I was pulling up on that wrench again, and when I released it, it of course stopped far short of that shroud blade, and then I just popped it out of the square hole.

For the main belt, I took another 1/2" ratchet handle, also in tighten mode, and put a short extension on it. I crawled under the truck and put the extension into the square hole on the main tensioner, and lined the handle up pointing towards the driver's side of the truck, which means it was just under the fan hub. That left me a ton of room up behind the shroud to pull down on the handle as it arced towards the passenger side. Once the belt was loosened, I slid it off of one of those pulleys under there, I believe it was the A/C compressor. Unthreading it and rethreading it is a nightmare exercise left for the reader, but in this case I did remove the ratchet handle from the truck while I did that. When reinstalling, I left the unthreaded loop up at the main alternator, and used the wrench in the same position as before to release the tension, while my lovely assistant fed the belt over the alternator pulley. It's also important at that point to scoot the belt so it's square on the two idlers just below the alternator, because they tend to be crooked from where the belt was sitting before being put on the pulley. Then release the tensioner slowly until it takes up the slack on the belt, remove the ratchet and extension, and that part is all done.

In both cases, there is enough depth to the 1/2" hole to fully seat the wrench or extension. Just push harder.

I can think of a lot of choice words for the engineers who designed the belt routing, and the people who packaged it all in there with the multi-piece hand-shredding shroud, but the tensioners at least were well thought out and worked exactly as designed, with simple tools. That part of the whole experience was very easy.

Duncan

[OMCUSNR]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I can think of a lot of choice words for the engineers who designed the belt routing, and the people who packaged it all in there with the multi-piece hand-shredding shroud, </div></div>

There ought to be a law, that any engineer AND the accountants responsible for OK'ing a design be REQUIRED to fix 6 production models before they are OK'd for final production. That way they might get one you could work on. This applies to ANYTHING.

Of course, there is that disclaimer: "There are no user servicable parts in this (whatever). Opening the case will void the warranty" Remember, Vovlo listened to a bunch of women trying to design a car, and one of the "features" was a completely sealed engine compartment, where only a dealer could open it.

[frobozz]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: OMCUSNR_RET</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Of course, there is that disclaimer: "There are no user servicable parts in this (whatever). Opening the case will void the warranty" Remember, Vovlo listened to a bunch of women trying to design a car, and one of the "features" was a completely sealed engine compartment, where only a dealer could open it. </div></div>

Well that is how the vast majority of people interact with their cars; they let the dealer do everything. But in the case of the 6.0L serpentine belts, the dealer tech is going to find the experience just as maddening as any of us. I agree with your rule that designers have to fix their own designs once or twice, just so they know what they're foisting off on people.

Duncan

[khitch710]

I had a Job 2 '04 built in Oct 2003...mine had the squeeks running and shutting the truck off...Ford came out with a bulletin for the belts...they now have updated belts that elimate the squeek at shut down....maybe if you are buying new belts from Ford they should be the updated belts....hope this helps...Kevin

[frobozz]

I remembered a long ago bulletin about squeaks and new belts, which is why I bought the Ford belts. Well, that and the occasionall horror story about finding out you were given the wrong aftermarket belt, after threading it all in there! I got mine at a quite reasonable price from powerstrokeshop.com and they were a perfect fit, and no more squeaks.

Duncan

[AllOutFirefighter13]

<span style="color: blue"> Duncan .

Very nice how-to...every time I come across the dreaded serpentine replacement, I seem to read a different way to do it! How were you able to overcome the shortness of the fan wiring? Did you use Greg's advice?

Also, interestingly enough, when I finally got the belt out, it didn't look like it was nowhere close to needing replacement, but I figured I had a new one in hand and I'd let it be another 60K miles before I replaced it again. My symptoms that I thought were telling me that it needed replacing started out as worse and worse chirpping, but soon I developed chirping while the engine was running AND it got worse with the A/C engaged. The weird thing about mine is that it finally sounded like something was broke everytime I would shut off the engine. After getting the belt out, I noticed that the tensioner didn't seem to be responding. Sure enough, I pulled it and couldn't hardly turn the adjusting portion with a 1/2" breaker bar that is about 3 feet long. Needless to say, I bought a tensioner from O'Reillys, got everything back on the engine, and it runs quiet again. If you ever hear a weird rattling sound (not like what the turbo does) when shutting it down (kinda sounds like the engine is shutting down very abruptly), most likely the tensioner is no longer working. At least that was my experience.

dmags

Not too long after I put some miles on my truck, I too would get the belt squeak when shutting down the engine. I was told that this is normal and is a result of the sudden stop of the crankshaft due to the relatively high compression involved with diesels and the spinning inertial mass of the driven accessories. Basically the serpentine belt was "peeling" out against either the crankshaft pulley and/or the accessory pulleys, thus the chirping upon shutdown. One thing to keep in mind is that all tensioners are constantly adjusting the belt tension. Each time the engine is revved in Park or Neutral, each time an automatic transmission shifts, and when you shut down the engine, the tensioner will move. This movement could result in a temporary loosening of the belt just enough to where it slides on a given pulley and chirps. Without watching the actions of the tensioner in slow motion when shutting down the engine, I am only guessing that just before everything stops turning, the tension could suddenly tighten as a result of this movement. I wouldn't worry about it if it were my truck. Good luck!

Later, </span>

[GregH]

Just to clear a few things up, here are a few pictures. First one is of the dual alternator belt routing, and the second one shows the primary belt tensioner. The lever at the bottom is what you flip up to hold the tensioner in the released position. The primary tensioner looks similar on both the dual alternator and the single alternator application.

If the lever happens to be missing, I think I recall someone saying an 8mm 1/4" socket would work in it's place.

Belt Routing for Dual Alternators

Closeup of Primary Tensioner

[teamroper60]

I guess I am blind.... I don't see the lever in the photo. Didn't see it on my truck either... The only thing I saw that looked like a lever on mine was a flimsy piece of metal that wouldn't hold anywhere near the force that tensioner is under.......