New guy having a very annoying problem.

This story begins about 1.5 years ago when I ran through a fairly deep puddle and the belt came off. After a long fight and some tears, I was able to get it back on(in the rain) but noticed that the tensioner seemed sorta stiff.

It ran trouble-free for about 6 months when the belt came off again and required even more of a fight to get it back on. This time it ran for about 2 minutes before the tensioner broke.

Installed new tensioner(I would still like to kick one of the dodge engineers in the B%*ls for that location). After a couple 1000 miles the belt ripped longways but kept working for about 5K more. I chalked this up to the posibility that I didn't have it aligned properly so I simply replaced the belt. This time I made sure that it was completely aligned on every pulley.

Today it happened again, the belt ripped lengthwise. I looked closely this time and it appears to be aligned on every pulley except the PS pulley. As I said, I replaced the tensioner but it was replaced with an autozone part and not and OEM. I mention this because the PS pump is immediately after the tensioner. I wonder if the "new" tensioner is the problem.

This is a '96 Grand Caravan with the 3.8L, A/C, Auto. Anyone here have a similar problem or any bad experiences with aftermarket tensioners?

If you have read this far, I thank you and would appreciate any advice you can offer.

 

sounds like p/s pump shaft is pulled out of pump, should be leaking p/s fluid

 

Well, I pulled the belt(whats left of it) off and pushed, pulled and wiggled the PS pulley and it is solid also the PUmp doesn't leak at all. I may see how much an oem tensioner costs, if it is cheap enough I will try it. I am not as afraid of it after you advice from another post about removing from underneath.

If I look down from the top, it is clear that the belt going from the alt. to the idler is not inline with the belt going over the tensioner. The other ? is the crank pulley, it look like it isn't runing true. It is tight on the crank but looks like it may be very slightly bent.

 

I see this is a rather old post, but I had a '94 T&C with a similar problem. I had the tensioner replaced at PepBoys (non-OEM part). The belt came off rather soon thereafter. Had the OEM Mopar part put on, and that ended the problems for me. (BTW, PepBoys said they've seen problems like this in the past with the aftermarket tensioners, and "worked" with me on the price.)

 

here is have a tsb about the idler pulley maybe its your trouble!

its in pdf format you need acrobat reader

http://rapidshare.com/files/64399912...y_tsb.pdf.html