This is during my water pump/fan belt replacement. I tried to do everything as it was previously, but it seems like something doesn’t look right. There’s a ring on each tensioner bolt, and I couldn’t figure out whether that ring goes on the outside or the inside of the tensioner bracket. I’ve taken pictures and circled the referred part.

Only thing is, I’m missing a ring on the water pump tensioner bolt, but I have one on the alternator. I don’t want anything to break by having the bolt sitting on the bracket like that.

I added a picture of what happened to my water pump belt. So far after 600 miles, I haven’t heard any squeals from the new belts, but just wondering how do I know if it’s too tight or not?

I'm not positive on the assembly, but the washer is there to allow the tensioner bolt to be turned without too much torque. But, it should be locked down once adjusted, so it's probably not super-critical.

Belt tension deflection should be in the FSM, but I like about 1/4" of one-way deflection at the longest span of the belt.

Oh okay, well I’ll go back thru and switch it when I do my oil change. The FSM doesn’t seem to show exactly how that goes on there, but I’ll look some more and see. are you saying that the ring could be used to automatically know the proper adjustment, by only allowing the bolt to go so far?

I have the water pump belt on pretty tight as it always seems I under tighten belts, and didn’t want it slipping as it stretched considering I had to do the job while out of town at a friend’s place. It’s hard to get any type of feel around the water pump belt once everything is put back on.

Update: I was finally able to find some new E-clips that go on the tensioner. They’re available everywhere, I just couldn’t figure out what they were.

I went ahead and loosened and then retightened the waterpump and alternator belt, using the e-clip to guide how far to tighten. It kept popping off a couple of times. But I figured out to push/hold the pulley onto the adjusting bolt.

It seems that the belts must have been way too tight (though since they were new, I took my chances and did it that way anyway) The bolt didn’t even go thru all the way on neither idler tensioner. And at startup, I didn’t get any squealing from the belts.

There’s more slack in each belt than I feel confident about, but hopefully it should be good. Last thing I need is for those belts to be too tight, and mess up a bearing on alternator or waterpump.

Buy a tension gauge and stop guessing. I used to use the old "twist test" method, but being conservative usually under tightened my belts. Then it would get cold, and they'd squeal and I'd mess with them again. For $15 (maybe less, I think I found the best deal at NAPA) you can know you have it right.



https://www.amazon.com/Gates-91132-Belt ... way&sr=8-4

The tension, like torque on bolts, is specified in the service manual. It can be very critical in older cars especially, and can ruin your day if you don't get it right.