How to Replace Serpentine Belt Tensioner 2003-08 Dodge Ram 1500

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for 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'm going to use 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 show you how to replace the serpentine belt tensioner on this '04 Dodge Ram. This has the 5.7 liter Hemi engine, pretty much the same as any '02 to '08 with the same engine. You'll need a 3/8 inch ratchet handle and a 15 millimeter wrench. Right down in here I've got a 3/8 ratchet and right down in here is your tensioner and there's a square hole hiding in the middle of the tensioner. Okay here I'm just having a little trouble, I'm trying to get the wrench on there and still make sure that you guys can see, you can see the wrench actually goes into the hole there but I can't get it to lock in so I need to change my position around here a little bit, so I grab it with the other hand and get it into the hole and then you can see the wrench right there in the tensioner and then I spin it back around.

Go up on your ratchet, loosen the belt, then you take the belt of the alternator, and then slowly let your tensioner back, take off your Ok and now remove your belt, just kind of unwind through the different pulleys. Reach down, pull it out from between the power steering pulley, then got to reach down way underneath your fan here and pull it out from around the crank and then up and out. Ok so right down here you can see is our tensioner and it's a 15 millimeter bolt. You probably can't quite see the head of the bolt but its right in the middle of the tensioner. Get the bolt loose with a couple of turns, turns pretty easy with your hand. Fast forward here a little bit as I just loosen that bolt up with my hand. Ok then your tensioner comes right off. Then there's your tensioner off and that's right where the bolt is. Ok there's nothing actually wrong with this tensioner so I'm just going to put it right back on. Just do it this video to show you how to do it. Keep the bolt in it, put the bolt in and thread it a little bit, then you can push the tensioner on and it has a square and a little round pin that line it up correctly. Again, we will fast forward through this as I tighten this up with my finger.

Now, tighten up, probably should do about 50 to 55 foot pounds but I'm just going to tighten it up nice and tight with my wrench here. That's all set. Ok on this truck I couldn't locate a pulley diagram or a belt routing diagram so I kind of made one here, so when we go to install this belt first we're going to make a loop and put it down around the crank which is the largest pulley at the bottom and then going up and around the w-p, which is the water pump and then down around the power steering or the p-s, which is the power steering pulley. Up around the AC and then you want to wind it through the idler pulley, the lower idler pulley. Then to the tensioner and then you basically have a little loop that you can pull up on to the alternator when you pull up onto the tensioner. Ok to get the belt back on, I know you can't see much that's why I showed you that diagram. I'm going to put a loop down and again sorry all you're looking at is my elbow but way down underneath the crank and in between the crank pulley and the power steering pulley and then I'm going to pull a loop on top of my power steering pulley, down around the, I'm sorry, on top of my water pump pulley, down around my power steering pulley, slip it between the power steering pulley and the crank pulley then up around the AC pulley here. That goes from my crank up over my idler, bring it up onto my tensioner, this goes down underneath this idler pulley. Ok and now I have this, my hand that I can put onto the alternator. I'm going to reach in here, hook my ratchet and grab onto here with this hand, pull this hand, ok up and over, just check your belt. It's around there correctly; it's down around my power steering pulley correctly, down around the crank correctly.

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