Hi,
I have a dodge 3500 van roadtrek camper and i want to change the serpentine belt i have 25.000 miles on it but the dodge is a 1997 it has a 5.2 liter engine I took it to a garage to have it changed and they said it did not need to be changed ,but I still think it should be done , I decided to do it myself but i need some one's advice as how to go about this without getting into trouble, thanking you all in advance for your input ,
Bob Moyer
koihito
08-04-2007, 02:36 PM
Check the belt for cracking and check the tensioner pulley to see if the belt is stretched out. If they said the belt is OK, it may very well be OK. Why waste your money?
That said, if you insist you must for peace of mind, make sure you check the belts routing before you take it off, pull the tension off the belt (with the tensioner pulley) slip it off and put the new one on. It can be annoying, but it's not really difficult.
van-nut
08-04-2007, 11:14 PM
I just did mine a few weeks ago ( '98 2500 w/5.9 V8) and it was pretty straight forward. There should be a sticker somewhere around the fan shroud which shows the belt routing. It is a little tight, but not real bad. I used a 15mm socket on a 1/2" drive breaker bar to relaese the tensioner. I had to remove the air duct which goes from the radiator support to the air filter housing for some extra elbow room, but that just snaps in place and didn't require any tools to remove or install.
Pete
Mazdax605
08-04-2007, 11:21 PM
I had to have my father-in-law,and a friend on two different occasions help me with the belt on my 01 Ram Wagn do the belt because it seems Dodge made it so you can't do it by yourself.Maybe I was doing it wrong,but there was a raised section on the bottom of thetensioner that I got a pair of slip joint pliers on,and used to rotate the tensioner so that my friend could slip the bely over the idler pulley near the alternator.Every other car,or truck I have done in the past with a serpentine belt you just had to take the tension off,and slip the belt around the tensioner pully,but this one was either designed different,or the new belt was a little shorter than the old one.It was a royal pain in the a$$.
Chris
Dodgevanman
08-06-2007, 12:52 PM
It's a pain in the butt. I had a buddy give me a hand holding the belt on some of the accessories while I operated the tensioner tool. Took about 10mins or so.
