New Belt Tensioner Issue

Aaron said:

So I went to Advanced Auto and Autozone and came up empty. Nobody has a ribbed tensioner pulley. I know Foxbody95 said not to move the tensioner into it's original spot, but I wonder if this is not a bad idea, given I am having trouble finding a proper pulley. Here's the belt routing diagram off of my car for both with and without AC. As you can see, the tensioner is in the same spot for both applications.



Why wouldn't buying a shorter belt meant for non AC cars work here?

Click to expand...

When I did it I snapped my power steering pump bracket since there wasnt a pulley to take some of the tension and wrap around off the pump but I mean maybe It was just a single case thing sorry if I lead you on a wild goose chase for that pulley thats odd i found one for mine on the first try but if you want try it just make sure you put the tensioner on the second notch for less tension because if that bracket snaps it will scare the hell put of ya lol.

Aaron said:

So I went to Advanced Auto and Autozone and came up empty. Nobody has a ribbed tensioner pulley. I know Foxbody95 said not to move the tensioner into it's original spot, but I wonder if this is not a bad idea, given I am having trouble finding a proper pulley. Here's the belt routing diagram off of my car for both with and without AC. As you can see, the tensioner is in the same spot for both applications.



Why wouldn't buying a shorter belt meant for non AC cars work here?

Click to expand...

When I did it I snapped my power steering pump bracket since there wasnt a pulley to take some of the tension and wrap around off the pump but I mean maybe It was just a single case thing sorry if I lead you on a wild goose chase for that pulley thats odd i found one for mine on the first try but if you want try it just make sure you put the tensioner on the second notch for less tension because if that bracket snaps it will scare the hell put of ya lol.

Aaron said:

So it was finally time to replace the factory belt tensioner on my '87 GT, as the bearing was squeaking on a regular basis. The old Ford tensioner was great in that it has a lip on both sides, and a bunch of grooves inside to help keep the belt in place.



Well the new pulley is 100% smooth, no guides, no ridges, etc.



My first thought was "how is the belt going to stay on this thing? Sure enough, after installing it and running the car for only short period of time, the belt tracks to the point where it's halfway off the pulley.





Even if it does stay on, we're talking premature belt wear for sure. I got the tensioner from Latemodel Restoration. It's 100% metal, so it's not some cheap piece of junk, or at least I thought it wasn't going to be junk. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

I had similar issue...went to Autozone and bought the tensioner like yours.... I them asked them to look up the pulley itself ( it has the correct designed pulley). I had them pull the pulley off the shelf, then I installed it on the tensioner assembly and made them defect exchange the smooth pulley for the one with an edge. PITA.

A good part person should be able to find you a ribbed pulley for your set up from a different car. There are a lot of them on the shelf.

The belt should be riding on grooves....but hey it worked this long.

I'm not sure what issues @Foxybody95 has had, but I ran my tensioner in its original spot on two different a/c deleted foxes for more than 5-years apiece with zero problems. If your tensioner is making contact with your water pump pulley, then you have the wrong size belt on there. There is no additional stress being placed on the water pump pulley. The tension on the pulley isn't changing a bit....only its location.

As you can see by this photo, the tensioner is nowhere near making contact with the power steering pump pulley.



Granted, this engine has under drive pulleys, but the difference is nil. This is a factory non a/c set up (or the Ford Racing A/C delete). That's the ONLY way to simply and effectively remove the compressor from your car. I have the one removed from mine for sale if anyone is interested?

Also, all of the smooth idler pulleys on the later cars are of non-grooved design and it never seems to pose a problem. As long as the pulleys are properly aligned, they'll center themselves.

clearly a belt alignmnent problem/wrong tensioner and not because of the smooth tensioner.

Hey @Aaron. It looks like you have your tensioner in the wrong location, in order to make it work correctly, you will need to move the tensioner over to the alternator bracket in the location that I've circled in the picture. To correctly delete your A/C we recommend using this pulley.

https://lmr.com/item/ASP-028200/82-...-Air-Conditioner-A-C-Delete-Eliminator-Pulley

If there are any other questions, you guys can shoot me a PM!