How to Replace AC Compressor Belt 2001-06 GMC Sierra

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Hi I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1AAuto. I want to help you save time and money repairing and maintaining your vehicle. I've been using my 20 plus years' experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts, installed correctly. That's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we're going to be showing you how to replace the AC belt, which is a smaller belt, down below on these engines. This is a 2002, with a six-liter. This is the same as basically any '99 to '07 with a V8 4.8 liter, 5.3 liter or 6.0 liter. The tools you'll need are a flat blade screwdriver, a 15-mm socket with a 3/8 ratchet and extension.

You're going to start out by removing your intake hose assembly because you do need to remove that because you would need to take the serpentine belt off first. We're going to speed up through this part here. Use your screwdriver to pry in and break the rubber loose from the plastic, maybe twist it a little bit as well and then pull it from the throttle body and also pry it. There's a little clip that holds the radiator hose in. Pry that out with your screwdriver as well.

Now install back on my intake hose to make it easier for later. Now you can see your tension's right here, so what you're going to do is take a 15-mm socket and ratchet and put this socket on there and you just move the ratchet clockwise and that takes the tension off. You can pull the belt either off of your tension, or I'm actually over here pulling it off of the eyelet pulley in the middle and then slowly release this back.
It's going to actually go back further than the original point. That will get your wrench back off.

You're going to want to remove this protection plate. It's five 15-mm bolts. I'm going to do it with an impact wrench real quick. Make it fast, and I'll make it even faster by hitting the fast forward button. Now you can easily see up in here. Here is our serpentine belt, which we loosened. This is our tensioner for our AC belt and there is our AC pulley over here. You just want a 3/8 ratchet, goes right into this square hole here, and clockwise, release the tension, slip the belt back off the crank pulley and then you can take the belt and snake it back around and pulling it off.

You can see this belt; it's in pretty rough shape. You're going to take your new belt and feed it up over the crank, behind the other serpentine belt, and I just put it right in behind. I feed it around the AC pulley. What I want to do is feed it around and get it set on the crank pulley here.
Then I have set it up on the AC pulley as well, but a ratchet with an extension and push the belt up within there, pull that down, flip that up on top of the tensioner pulley, then reach in from the side here, and put my belt correctly onto my AC pulley. Then, let my tensioner back and then feel all the way around my AC pulley and see all the way around the crank and its all set on there.

Now, you're going to put the shield back on, and I'm just going to fast forward through that. It's nothing more than putting those 15-mm bolts back in and tightening them up. To put the belt back on, what you want to find is your routing diagram. We're going to be using this one right here and the solid belt is the one that we're going to be looking at. What you're going to do is actually feed it down and around your crank pulley first, then up and over your water pump, around your power steering and then up in here, and then you'll pull. What I usually do is pull on here and then pull it up onto the alternator.
I'll show you that. You can't really feel it very well. Of course I can't really can't film that well, so you'll have to take my word for it that that's what I'm doing. You can take your belt, feed it down and just make a loop that goes all the way around the crank pulley, over the water pump here and down and around our steering pump.

First I went down and around my crank pulley, up and around the water pump with the backside of the belt and then around the power steering pump. Now I have this part that I can hold to put onto the alternator. I'll just put it there for a second. I'll move my socket around my 15-mm bolt on my tensioner.
Then while I pull this way on the tensioner, I take the belt and pull it up and onto the alternator. Then the tensioner takes over and then I'm just going to push it on a little more so my idle is over here. Make sure it's pretty well centered.

After you have the belt on, just a quick check, make sure it's on all the pulleys. Look way down at the crank pulley and make sure that it's on correctly down there, and also, obviously, over here, the alternator and the power steering pulley. Everything looks good.

We're going to fast forward through this section, which is just putting that tube back in basically and pushing the rubber onto the plastic, tightening up the clamps and reinstalling that little clip that held the radiator hose to it. After that, you should be pretty much all set.

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