How To Replace Belt Tensioner Pulley 1993-97 Dodge Intrepid

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In this video, we show you how to replace the belt tension or pulley on this 1997 Dodge Intrepid with a 3.5-liter. Tools you'll need are a 15mm wrench, a 13mm socket with a ratchet, and six inch extension, as well as you'll probably need a jack and jack stands as you have to get the tension and bolts from the bottom.

The serpentine belt here. This is your tensioner, and you could see there's the end of a bolt here. That is tensioner bolt and hopefully you can see right there is the head. That is designed to get add it from underneath. What you're going to first do is use a 15mm wrench and loosen this nut right here. You can see the bolt right here from up underneath and we're going to use a 13mm socket with a six inch extension and ratchet.

I do have it up on a lift. You'll need either a jack or, probably what you could do is you have someone to help you. You can probably reach under the front of a car and then have somebody guide the socket on for you and then you can wrench it. I want to speed it up here. All you do is you turn that bolt counterclockwise and you can grab hold of the belt and start feeling it kind of loosen, and you can see actually I start getting impatient here and I pull out my air ratchet and loosen it way up.

You want to just loosen that until you can then take the bolt. All right, I'm sorry, take the belt and pull it off the lower pulley. Now you can just remove the belt. I take it all the way out here because I'm combining the video of replacing the serpentine belt at the same time, but you don't have to remove it all the way if you don't need to. Then there's a 15mm, you just finish taking that 15mm bolt that holds that pulley onto the tensioner out, and I'm going to fast-forward here for a little bit.

Here's a new pulley from 1A Auto. There is a space here on the back, so make sure that goes on first. with the pulley with the insert, I'll put the 15mm bolt back on. Okay, you want it on there snug, but you still will able to move the pulley back and forth, and then you want to have it all the way up here to put the belt on.

Here's a new belt from 1A Auto. Before you go try to put it on, just stretch it out, compare it, make sure it's basically the same length, and it is. Take the new belt and stuff it way down underneath. You have your engine crank pulley over here on the left. Put it down and around that first, and also around your power steering pulley. We've got the belt around the crank pulley, and around the power steering pulley. I'm going to push it underneath the tensioner. Now we'll go up an eighth. For the sake of speed, I'm going to use my air ratchet first, just to preliminarily tighten this up. I'm going to do is give it up in there, get it on the bolt. I'm going to grab hold of my belt, so I can feel the tension.

What I do here is, as I'm tightening it up there, I'm jiggling the belt, the lower part of the belt up and down until I see just about an eighth of an inch of play up and down for a total of a quarter of an inch of play. Now I'm going to tighten up this 15mm nut here. You want to just run it for a minute. Now recheck the tension of the belt. You want to have about a quarter of an inch total tension, so you want to be able to push it down about an eighth of an inch and up about an eighth of an inch. If it doesn't move at all, it's too tight.

Too tight can wear out the bearings in your alternator, and the bearings on your right of the pulley, as well as your power steering pump, etc. Too loose can obviously cause squeaking and loss belt. After you run it, it's either too loose or too tight. If it's too loose, just loosen up that 15mm nut again, tighten it up a little bit and then vice versa if it were too tight.

We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.