Serpentine belt comes off

The serpentine belt on my 99 Grand Caravan came off when I drove on a rainy day. What surpirsed me is that two dealers said it happens quite often for this model when drive in deep water. I was driving on some 2-3 inch water that day, wasn't that deep. It really scared me at the time because I can hardly control the car - no power steering! Anyway, I don't think it's right for any reason that the drive belt should come off under drivable condition!

Does anyone have this problem, or heard of this problem with 96-99 model of caravan?

Thanks,

Young

That is the first I've ever heard of such an incident. I really hope that what happened to you was a freak accident, because my dad has a 98 Voyager 3.3L and I would hate to have that happen to him while he's driving.

There is a TSB (?07-09-99?) on this. AllData has an article about it too. It advised to replace the idle pulley bracket to align the pulley better with the belt. But it only applies to 96 to 98 model. Mine is 99 grand caravan 3.3, supposed with new bracket, but still has the problem. I saw two other occasions on the web complaining about this (drive in deep snow, through puddle). Use extra cautions when in any of these situations.

Thanks for the head's up. I guess I should read things carefully because I first thought it was a recall, but it is a TSB instead.

New member here....

I just lost the fan belt on a 1993 3.3L when driving through a puddle.

Anyone know where I can go to find a diagram as to how to put it back on? (other than a Chiltons etc.)

Thanks,

Originally posted by yongshao1
What surpirsed me is that two dealers said it happens quite often for this model when drive in deep water. I was driving on some 2-3 inch water that day, wasn't that deep. It really scared me at the time because I can hardly control the car - no power steering! Anyway, I don't think it's right for any reason that the drive belt should come off under drivable condition!

Actually the vehicle is not designed to be driven through 2-3 inches of water.

But, there is a Snow shield that can be installed on the idler pulley to prevent the belt coming off after driving through drifts(again, not designed for this type of operation) that may help your situation as well.

Hope this helps

we have had this problem about four or five times on our 97 caravan. we have even had the pullies replaced. the last time was about 3 weeks ago. my mechanic told me that they have been trying to find a solution to this problem, but haven't came up with one yet. ours actually has a shield on it, but it doesn't seem to help.

the first time this happened to me was on new years eve, it took me over four hours is the freezing cold and rain to get the belt back on. the last time was during hurricane ivan's trip to ohio. nothing like standing out in a hurricane trying to put a belt on!!!

This happened to my father in a 94 Caravan while in a car wash (March 2004). He had another pulley installed and I bought the van (April 2004). Since August, I've had the belt come off while I was driving in light misty rains at least 4 times. I can put the belt on in about 15 minutes now (what a pain). I'm going to try another pully and a fresh belt and then take it to a shop/dealer to check the alignment but I'm afarid it won't help. Any other ideas/suggestions are GREATLY appreciated....

We Have a 98 caravan and have had it happen 3-4 times without water being a factor. Once it was the tensioner but the other times it came off. Not to mention other issues with this van such as the computer going out twice, transmission going out, rear main seal, A/C now and lifter noise. All under 80,000 miles. I am going to look hard before buying Mopar again.

To all having belt promblems, try using Dayco Top Cob belt. It has additional perpendiculer cuts on it besides the standard long cuts. My belt lasted for thirty thousand be for it broke . Good luck

I've made it to 288,000 miles on only five serp belts -- two of them in the last month. Every time but one, the tensioner was the culprit. The other time, it was the P/S pump. They've dropped the price on tensioners substantially, by the way. I speak from experience.

Rick

My 97 Dodge caravan (73K mi) serpentine belt came off the other day when I sprayed belt dressing to reduce the squeeking noise. I tried to replace the belt by turning the tensioner all the way clockwise, but the belt won't get back to the pulleys.

I removed the upper screw from the alternator and was able to put the belt on, but then I could not put the screw back on the alternator.

Please help! Thanks.

HL

HL

A couple of suggestions:

When trying to reinstall a serp belt, get the longest 15 mm combination wrench you can find. Then get a piece of wood or something to hold your hood up, and put the prop rod down because it stands right in the way of where you need to be to get the best leverage on that pulley.

Secondly, when reinstalling, don't thread the belt onto the tensioner last. Instead (after putting your alternator back where it belongs), thread it onto everything except that ungrooved pulley right in front of the tensioner. It should slide on easily. My wife can actually do it, and she's only 5-5, 110 pounds.

If you are finding that you still can't get the tensioner cranked over far enough, this is a sign that it is shot, which, based on your description of a squealing noise, I would have figured was the problem anyway.

Good luck, and let us know how everything comes out.

Rick

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the suggestions. I used a 15mm wrench with pipe extender to crank the belt tensioner all the way and thread the belt to the center ungrooved pulley last (as you have suggested), but the belt could not be inserted onto the center pulley. I forgot to mention that I am putting on a new belt with exact dimension as the old one.

I intend to loosen the bolt for the tensioner unit and rotate the tensioner unit slightly clockwise to leave more slacks for the belt. But the tensioner bolt is hard to get to. Any other suggestions are appreciated.

I will work on it after work today.

Thanks,

HL

Hello Rick,

I checked the v-grooves on the new belt, and they seem to be wider than the old belt. So the grooves do not fit well into the grooved pulleys... I ended up putting the old belt back without any troubles.

Thanks for all the help.

HL

I just changed the serp belt on my 2000 Caravan. Mine doesn't fall off, it shreds. This was the 2nd. time in about 10,000kms. With a new belt on now, I se it is not aligned on the tensioner pulley, which is also new. I'm going to try changing the tensioner assembily, which I've had off today, so I know how to do that. I wil let u know if it makes a difference or not.

I just lost the fan belt on a 1993 3.3L when driving through a puddle.

The 3.3 never has had a "fan belt"- the fans are electrically driven on all 3.3's.

I had the problem of the serpentine coming off with my '93 Caravan. I recently purchased an '05 with a 3.8L. Does anyone know if Dodge has fixed the problem?

Does anyone have a link that shows a diagram of the belt configuration? Mine came off in the rain yesterday and I need help getting it back on.