Got one of those "what the heck" situations with my serpinteine belt.
It wants to work it's way off of the harmonic balancer. It rides up out of the groove on the balancer just barely. (by one groove on the belt) It stays on just fine, but is obviously going to eat the belt in a matter of hours. All other points are tracking perfectly, alt., ac., powers steering etc. no noise or sign of other possible trouble. How do you know if the hormonic balancer is going bad? I took it loose 4 times this evening and each time it would jump the groove within the first couple of revolutions.

 

did you inspect the ribs on the belt? if it is checked, then you will need to replace. its uncommon for the ribs on the pulleys to go bad but not unheard of. just check everything

 

Two brand new belts were used today. Made special trip to O'Reiley's.

 

is it in line with the rest of the other pullys

 

Yes, it is in line. took fan shroud off so I couls see better, and laid below the front of oli pan looking up while it ran. I am bad stumped. Stuff like this usually is easy for me to trouble shoot. Something I am missing somewhere.

 

mines an 89 id replace it mine came apart about ayear ago maybe yours is getting ready to also the two ps are only held together by the rubber in betwee the two ps

 

Yea,

 

Mine is a 90 model. I put the eyeball to the rubber on that balancer and just don't trust it. Had one go bad on smallblock chevy once but you could tell very easy that it was toast. Got a feeling that I will be ordering a new one tomorow. Only have about 128k on this enjine so I never would have expected it.

 

i think mine was around 75 bucks from the dealer

 

Yeah...I'd seriously look at the harmonic balancer. Any cracks or gaps in the rubber, time to change it.

Just remember, the outer ring on the balancer is heavy as heck. It'd be like turning loose a 20 lb. discuss doing 2000RPM's under the hood if it let's go.

Makes me shudder just thinking about the damage it could do.

-bob-

 

mine came apart right at the end of my street went to turn now power steering came back and its gone on friday knight got a dodge dealer right across the street back togehter in on hour i got lucky

 

its going to be the harmonic balancer, mine came apart just enough to walk the serp. belt into the fan blade, you will need a puller to get it off and yea its about $75 bucks at dealer it wasent available to me otherwise. while your at it replace the idler pully as well its about $15 and will give you piece of mind knowing that its done.

 

Doooohhhh !!! I wish I'd thought of that while I was changing mine.

Good call....where were you then?

-bob-

 

out side putting the thing on lol

 

Hey guys thanks for the input on this minor setback.
Good news is, OReilly's had one in stock, and it only cost 45 bucks! Brand new part!! Total piece of cake to put it on. Removing the old one was pretty easy too, just be sure you have a puller. I will be watching those balancers more closely from now on. At the parts store they said they sold the heck out of them. I am once again a happy camper!