1996 GMC C3500HD V8 7.4L without Air Pump Serpentine Accessory Drive Belt Tensioner TRQ BPA03800

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Hi, I'm Don from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and the next time you need a part for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the serpentine belt tensioner on this 1996 Chevy Tahoe with the 5.7-liter V8 engine. It's the same part and similar process on a large variety of GM vehicles, and it fits the Tahoes from 1996 to 2000. The items you'll need for this include a new serpentine belt tensioner from 1AAuto.com, a 10mm, 13mm, and 17mm socket and ratchet with an extension, and a 3/8 inch ratchet.

First, we need to just remove this cable. Just push back on that tab and pull the harness up and out. Next, you want to remove the series of 10mm bolts that line this panel. We'll just fast-forward as Don removes each of those. Now, lift that shroud up and off.

Now, using your 3/8 inch ratchet, just push it into that square hole, and then when you push down on it, it will loosen up the tension on the belt allowing you to pull it free. Just start off by pulling off the alternator. Then, carefully let the ratchet up and pull it out. Then remove your belt the rest of the way and pull it over that fan.

Now, using a 13 mm socket and ratchet, you just want to remove this bolt that secures the tensioner, and we'll fast-forward as Don removes that. Now, the tensioner will just pull right off.

On the left is the old serpentine belt tensioner; on the right is the new one from 1A Auto. You can see they're identical, and they're going to mount exactly the same. Now, you want to line up this tab into the slot right here, push your tensioner back into place, and replace that 13mm bolt.

Now, to put the serpentine belt back on, you're going to want to use this belt routing diagram, and if you don't have A/C you follow the dash line. If you do, then you're going to follow the solid line. You just want to follow this and put your belts on in this order. It's kind of hard to show Don doing it, so we're just going to fast-forward as he fits it over each of the pulleys.

All that's left is your alternator. Put that 3/8 inch ratchet back into your tensioner. Push down and put the belt up onto the alternator, and then carefully release the ratchet and pull it out. Now, fit that shroud back down into place and make sure all of your holes are lining up. We'll just fast-forward as Don replaces that series of 10mm bolts. Now, just push that harness back into that clip and push it down into place.

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.

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the serpentine belt on this 2003 GMC Sonoma. It has the 4.3-liter. It's a pretty easy operation, you need a 3/8 drive ratchet handle as well as a 13mm socket.

Look at the top of the alternator. Right down here is your tensioner. I've got a 3/8 drive ratchet handle. There is a 3/8 square hole in the tensioner. Take your handle, push down. That takes the tension off the belt, and put the belt off. Slowly let your tensioner back, remove your handle. To proceed with removing the tensioner and reinstalling it, you don't have to take the belt off all the way, but I am going to show you how to take it off, and then also how to put it back on, just in case it comes off a couple pulleys or something. This just gives you some guidance on getting it back together if you need it.

Okay, here's our belt routing diagram. Always want to make sure you have this before you take the belt off, and then I can remove the belt. So, your tensioner right here, it's got a 13mm bolt right on the front, so I'm putting a ratchet and socket on it, and it's pretty tight to loosen. I'll speed it up here as I remove that bolt, and, as you can see, after you get it loose with the wrench, you can switch over to your hand and thread it out by hand. The tensioner will come right out.

Get your tensioner from 1AAuto, bolt goes through there. This pin on the tensioner. If you look down where it mounts, you can see the hole and then this smaller hole where that pin lines up into. Just drop the bolt through, put the bolt in. Make sure that tab goes into the indentation and start the bolt in. Speed it up again as I thread the bolt in mostly by hand, and then I'll switch over to my ratchet and socket to tighten it up. You probably want to tighten this to belt 25 to 30 foot-pounds.

Now, back to our belt routing diagram. What I'm going to do is take a loop and put it down around the crankshaft first, then come up and down around our power steering, up to our AC, and then over. What I'll do is I'll leave it off this idler pulley here so it'll just go right above that, and then we'll pull the tensioner over, and put it down onto that idler pulley. Then I take a loop and I'll put it right down through here, and then just kind of take my hand, put it up onto the crankshaft pulley, and then it's coming around the water pump here, and now I'm reaching down here and putting a loop down, and around the power steering pump which is down here on the right side as you're looking at the engine. Pretty tough to get your arm down in there. Then it comes up around to the AC compressor, and across the alternator. I think it came off my crankshaft, so I'm going to put my arm down in there and make sure it's down and around the crankshaft.

So, basically now, I have it routed around my tensioner there. It's not around this idler pulley yet. It's on my AC pulley, it's down there on my power steering pulley, and also down and around the crankshaft pulley. A little hard to see way down there. So, I take my 3/8 ratchet handle, put it into my tensioner again, push my tensioner down, and then take this and put it right down. I'll have to pull it a little bit because it's going to need to tighten it up around all the pulleys.

As I was trying to do this, I realized that it actually had come off the crankshaft pulley a little bit, so I'm reaching down in there, and I'm making sure it's on that crankshaft pulley correctly. So now I push that under there, and let it off. Okay, it's now under the idler pulley, around my tensioner, down and around my power steering pulley, up and around. The only thing I can't really show you is the crankshaft. You can see it down there, and maybe a little bit right down there. It's all in there correctly, though.

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.

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet.

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

In this video, we're going to show you how to replace the serpentine belt tensioner on this 2005 Silverado with the 4.3-liter. This vehicle, like I said, has the 4.3-liter so, the procedure's the same for any Silverado or Sierra with the 4.3-liter. Since this is the '05, it does have the electric fan so everything is really easy to get to in the front. If you have an earlier version, you may have the engine fan on the engine, which just makes things a little more difficult to get to.

Okay, so if you hear some squeaking when your engine's running and it changes if your A/C's on or if you're putting a load on the alternator, come in here and check your belt. My tensioner is actually in good shape, so that's about how tight it should be. If you can press down more than that and when you're pressing the tensioner moves quite a bit, I'll show you here, my tensioner, when I press, doesn't really move a lot, but as these loosen up in age, when you press on the belts, you'll be able to move the tensioner quite a bit. If I really pull, you can see I can really move that tensioner, but that's me pulling hard. If you just put some pressure on especially over here, that tensioner shouldn't move at all.

Okay, the serpentine belt is pretty easy. First make sure you find your belt diagram. This is the 4.3-liter V6, so there's the diagram. It matches up with what's in the engine compartment. Removing the belt is pretty easy. Put a 3/8 inch drive ratchet right in here. Pull on that and see that loosens the belt. Move it from the idler pulley up top. Release that slowly and you can pull your belts right off.

To remove your tensioner, it's a 15-millimeter bolt. Use a 15-millimeter socket and ratchet or a wrench will work too. Good, easy engine to work on, for sure, for the front. It seems to get the job done in this truck. We don't ask it to do a lot, just haul some stuff around every once in a while. Okay, tensioner comes off. Reinstall the tensioner. My old one is in good shape so I'm just putting it back in. New ones from 1A Auto are going to have a bolt in there just the same. There's obviously the hole where the bolt goes through and there's a locating tab, goes into the hole there. Just make sure that you put that in correctly. Put the bolt in. That's in tight, not too tight though, between 35 and 40 foot pounds.

To put the belt on, you want to follow the pattern. You can't really see this, but I'm going to go down, around the crank pulley first. Then, I bring this up and around the water pump here. Then it goes from the water pump down to the power steering pulley here, up to the A/C pulley and across the tensioner and the alternator. I'm just going to kind of reach down and make sure everything's on the way it should be. Now, you can press down. You see the belt starts to tighten up and you try to press it onto the idler here. Then, we take our wrench, put it in, press down. That gives us the slack to put the belt right in here. Then, just check, make sure it's on all the pulleys correctly, it's in the grooves. It's actually not quite on there correctly, here. So, pull it off here. New belt's on.

We hope this 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.

This video is brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet.

Hi, I'm Mike Green from 1A Auto. In this video, we are going to show to how to replace a serpentine belt tensioner and an idler pulley on a Vortec 5700 equipped 99 Suburban. This process is basically the same for a lot of GM, V6, and V8 applications. Vortec 4300, 5000, 5700, these engines were used in many trucks from '96 to '98, vans, full size SUVs as well as the S-Series, S10, S15 Blazer and Jimmy.


The procedure is pretty simple. The only tools you'll need are 3/8 inch drive ratchet handle, a 13mm wrench, a 15mm wrench, and a small flat-bladed screwdriver. Okay, get started by finding your belt routing diagram, usually located near the radiator. This will help you taking the belt off and putting it back on. Unhook the battery, and then use your 3/8 drive ratchet handle. There is the hole in the belt tensioner that you'll put the handle into. You push down to release the tensioner on the belt, as I'm doing here, and then pull the belt from the idler pulley like that, and then your belt is free.

Then we can get right into to removing the idler pulley. It is a 13mm bolt. Just takes a little pressure. You see me loosen it here, and then pull the bolt the rest of the way and the idler pulley comes right off. Now you need to transfer that spacer on to the new idler pulley. The spacer is held on by a little locking washer. Basically what I'm doing here is I'm using a small screw driver and you can wrench below my hand. I actually have the wrench on the opposite end of the bolt. I'm using a small screw driver to pry up the little teeth on that little lock washer. That'll allow me to start being able to spin it and get it off. (Then my wonderful hair getting in the way a little bit there. No need to see that.)

You can see it. As I get a few more of the teeth loosened up, I can start spinning it a little bit, and then from there I will just spin it off with my fingers. Then pull that spacer off. Then next shot will be, I got the spacer on to the new idler pulley and I'm just twisting that little lock washer back on to hold it in place. Now I'll take that and screw on the idler pulley a little bit. Then I'll use a 13mm wrench to tighten up. I don't think I will show it in this video, but sure enough I'll tighten up. I will be tightening it up probably 20 or 25 foot pounds.

Now go on to the serpentine belt tensioner, which requires a 15 mm wrench and same thing; one bolt, loosen it up, and then unscrew it. I'm going to show you all of that and pull it right out. Bolt comes right out. Take your new tensioner and make sure you've got the right thing. Actually you can see I spin it and shake it a little bit. You can see some of the play causing it to make some extra noise. Just compare the new tensioner, make sure it is the right thing. Small, minor differences but in general it's the right, correct thing and install the new tensioner. One bolt, press it in there, get it started, and tighten it up. I did tighten it up, trust me.

Now, there is the new tensioner installed. Now what we are going to do, before we replace or put the belt back on, we are just going to through it. I'm just kind of spinning it through and just checking the outside surface, just to make there is no breaks, cracks in it or anything. I just go through the whole length of it and kind of pull it through. You see in a second I flip it over and on the other side, on the groove side; you may see some cracks and stuff. That is not a big deal as long as the outside is in good shape. Okay, now using the diagram, I have put the belt into place. I've got my wrench on the tensioner. I push the belt down into the idler pulley, and then I take some tension off and push the belt down on. After this, just make sure you check all the pulleys. Make sure everything is on their good. Then we connect the battery and you are all set.

This video is brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Feel free to call us toll free 888-844-3393. We bring you quality parts as well as we are there for you in person. Thank you very much.