hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1994.txt

Episode: 1994
Title: HPR1994: Truck Repair: Serpentine Belt Replacement
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1994/hpr1994.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 13:00:32

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This is HPR Episode 1994 entitled Truck Repair, Serpentine Belt Replacement.
It is hosted by John Culp and is about 61 minutes long.
The summary is, listen and replace the Serpentine Belt, idler bullet and belt tensioner in my truck.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at AnanasThost.com.
Okay y'all, this is John Culp and lefty at Louisiana and I'm starting a little project
right now.
What I need to do is replace the Serpentine Belt, the idler pulley and the belt tensioner
on my pickup truck and the reason I'm doing this is because, not so much because I noticed
that there was excessive wear on the belt, although the mechanic said it looks like it was
a little bit worn, but because there's a really bad high pitched sound, like, wee wee wee
wee wee.
That's the truck so you can hear it.
I'm going to start it up the truck and hear it now wee wee wee wee wee wee wee wee wee.
See, it's here that chirping sound that's really bad, I don't want to let it go very
long because I want the engine parts to be cool while I'm working on it so I don't
burn my hands on stuff, but anyway, so that's the sound I'm trying to fix.
And I've got what appear to be, I've got the parts, I've got the new parts, I'm going
to put a new belt, a new belt tensioner and a new idler pulley and one of the parts
concerns me a little bit, it's the belt tensioner is got a different attachment than what
they show on the video and it concerns me a little bit so I want to see how that plays
out.
What I've got to do is get the belt off first by releasing the tension on the belt tensioner
so that I can actually move the belt and you got to get it out from behind the fan and
all this kind of stuff.
I've watched a video twice showing how it's done so we will see if I can do it.
I might actually have to swap out the mounting hardware on the new belt tensioner if it turns
out that if it turns out that I can't get this thing, the thing is the new belt tensioner
has a different bolt with it's got a star key thing to turn it instead of just using
a socket and I don't know, I don't have any star keys that are the right size and that
can put on to go 90 degree angle to it like that so anyway, we'll see, the first step
is to remove the air intake hose from here, loosen up the thing a little bit and pull
that off.
Okay, that's off and now there's another thing to pull it off of over here, I should probably
be taking pictures but I've got these gloves on, I don't really want to, how does that come
off?
Can you just yank it off or is there a little trick here?
There's a coming up, oh, somebody pulling in my driveway and turning back around, how
do you come off there?
I can see that there's some kind of clasp to get, oh there it goes, there it goes,
right?
Okay, so we got that off and then move that out of the way a bit and what I want to see
is, okay, yeah I can see the belt tensioner now, so the next step is to loosen the belt
tensioner and that relieves the pressure on the belt and to do this, I had to rent a
tool from AutoZone, I've got a tool rental program where you, I guess you buy the tool
and then as soon as you're done using it, you bring it back and I give you a refund,
so it allows you to do some of these jobs that require specialized tools, so this one
where the guy said it was a 15 millimeter, go on the video said, I think he said it was
a 15 millimeter, the belt tensioner tool is just a really long slender metal bar that
fits down in this tight little hole, okay, and did he say that it was, you know what,
I might need to, I might need to just put a socket on there instead, get that off,
so the tool comes with the long bar and then it's got various sizes of either wrench,
like box end wrench heads or sockets to put on there and I started with a 15 millimeter
socket but I think I need to get that off of there and use, I mean sorry, I started
with the wrench head and I think I need to put a socket instead but I can't get the
darn thing off, come off you, there it goes, okay, I'll put that back, try the socket instead,
okay, it's a very narrow socket to fit in this little spot, okay, so that's too big,
it must be the 13 millimeter that I need, I'm gonna go on the video, I thought he said 15,
I've gotten out all the right size tools according to what they said on the video and of course it
looks like mine are a little bit different, wait that's 16 millimeter, what's that, 13, maybe this is it,
okay, this one is too small, for a little more time, what is that, 16, this one is 15, okay, 15 is what the guy said,
whoever used this tool asked put the things back in their own order so I was looking at them,
okay, there we go, there you are, I think he said to turn clockwise, clockwise,
leave the tension on the belt, not there it goes, okay, got the belt loose, isn't that cool,
this first time I've ever done this job, so I'm learning as I go but the, okay, so the belt tensioner
has a very strong spring apparently and you use this tool to relieve the pressure temporarily so you
can loosen the belt, so now my next step is to pull the belt off and it goes in a complicated pattern,
so it's called the serpentine belt, okay, hey, all right well so far so good, I got the belt off,
hopefully it'll stay up, that was the misses, coming around to get some belt, okay now the belt is
free of all of the thingies, got to get it to come off around this side of the fan,
oh isn't this interesting, the fan is kind of delicate so you don't want to,
I don't want to pull on it too hard or anything,
yeah, I almost got it, oh my gosh I did it, I got the belt off, sweet, I'm going to inspect it now,
it doesn't look so bad but I think what I really need in this whole job, the part that's the most
critical probably is the idler pulley or the belt tensioner, one of those two has, I suspect has
bearings that are going bad, that one when I spin that it sounds a little bit rough and
this one for that really spins doesn't it, so I'm spinning the belt tensioner right now
and it just goes and goes and goes,
I wonder if you can hear that if I put the microphone down there and I spin it again,
that to me doesn't sound like the squeaking part but it might be, who knows when it's under load,
what it's going to sound like, that part really spins and I don't know about the,
the idler put, I mean the belt tensioner, well let's see,
I see something down there that concerns me still, the old, the old belt tensioner has the same
connector thing that the new one does, which is a, it's not exactly a hex bolt but it's a,
it's like a star bolt, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get that off, I might have to use,
hey I'm going to see if I can use my hex key to get that off there but I might not be able to,
I guess the first thing to do is get the idler pulley off and that is what, 15 millimeter,
let's, let's see, yep, that's pretty tight,
I might need, I think I'm going to use a longer socket, I mean a ratchet,
okay, got that,
so we're ratcheting off the old idler pulley,
looks like probably that's a, takes a while, we'll get that bolt out of there, doesn't it?
Let's see if I can get my fingers in there to turn the bolt now, it's a very tight space to work in right
here,
almost there I think,
but I think I can still use this thing,
I might have to call my buddy Mike to see if he's got the right kind of tool to get the belt
tensioner off, he does quite a lot of mechanic work, okay, I should probably use my hand now,
and I bet he's got something I could use for that, I have to give him a call,
probably means I'll have to stop my recording for a little while, I don't know how early on a
Sunday morning I want to try to call him, I like when there's not enough room to put my hand in,
that's nice, okay, there we go, I bought some mechanics gloves at the auto part store too,
protect my hands, not only for, okay, I got it off, sweet, all right, so I have the idler pulley off,
and hard to tell really, whether it totally need a replacement or not, but I don't know, it's about a $20 part,
so whatever, can't hurt,
let's get up the new one, you know, this does not look the same at all,
this is much smaller,
yeah, very curious, I don't know if I want to put this on there, it's like, it's not even the same,
I might have to make a run to auto zone, see what they say about this, and also ask them about
the part, okay, so I think I'm gonna pause and come back in a little while,
okay, all I'm back, I just went to auto zone where I returned the wrong part, they gave me,
when I bought the part before, they gave me a replacement for the belt tensioner pulley instead of
the idler pulley, so that's why there was a discrepancy in the size, I took the old one off and
compared it with the new one, because it was totally the wrong part, so now I've got a new
idler pulley, and also got the tool that I need to remove the belt tensioner,
so the belt tensioner in the video that I watched, it was attached by way of a bolt with a,
like a hex head on it, but somehow in, in my truck, it was a slightly different year of truck,
so the one in the video was a 2002 and mine is a 2004, and I guess that accounts for the difference,
mine has a bolt, but it's attached by, I mean, it's turned by a star bit, so I bought a T-50 size star bit,
which has a, you can put it on a 3-inch ratchet, if I can get the darn thing out of the packaging that
it came in, shish man, I'm gonna paint in the rear, this is stupid, I can't get the star bit
tool out of the packaging, I'm not gonna have to go use some different tool to pull this out,
that is so dumb, I'm gonna get a pair of pliers or something,
let's see, I'm gonna get a pair of pliers,
I can't get it out, this is so dumb, I can't get the, so the tool that I just bought is
held on the shelf by this plastic card that hangs on a little hook, and I can't get the thing out,
I'm trying to get it out, there it comes, I just broke it off, I broke it,
I dominated it, yeah, we shall see, I have to drill it out or something, man that is so dumb,
nice job, out of zone, I'm gonna have to drill this out,
am I supposed to turn it, I'm gonna hurt myself if I keep trying this,
okay, I guess I'm gonna have to drill it out,
yeah, I'm gonna have to drill a hole in it and put a screw down there and then pull it out, I guess,
man this is stupid, okay, I can get the drill,
go up, go up to my shed where I can put this in a vice,
hey, okay, so I think I'm gonna end up being just about right when I watch the video,
the video shown how to do this job, last about eight minutes, and I was telling my wife,
since the video lasts eight minutes, I should probably budget about four hours of time,
and it's not gonna end up being that long, but man it's not far off,
these jobs always take longer than it seems like they ought to,
okay, so I'm gonna stick this thing in a vice and drill down into the plastic thing that's holding it,
and then put a screw into that hole and pull it out by the screw,
man this is so stupid,
okay, so there's a pilot hole into which I'm gonna drill a screw,
let's see if there's one lying around here that I can use,
maybe that one, now that's a little bit too big, we've got some miscellaneous screws over here,
well my ingenuity is something else isn't it,
okay,
put the screw bit back into the drill,
okay, and now the screw is in there,
I'm gonna try to pull it out,
I'm gonna pull the plastic thing out from there,
I think it's coming out, yeah, I did it, I did it, I got it out, okay,
now I can use my tool, what a pain in the rear,
but wasn't that a clever solution I had, I tell you what, I hope you're able to,
imagine that in audio, I'm not able to take pictures while I'm doing this,
but so the way,
oops, I need to leave, you know, I'm just gonna, hang on a second, I'm gonna leave these tools out
here in the shed, the way, the tool that I need to use to get the idler pulley off,
he's held on by that bolt that's got the the star bit thing, and so I bought a star bit where
the star bit is like welded inside a 3-inch drive socket, and to display this in the store,
they had this piece of plastic shoved down inside the 3-inch hole where your ratchet goes,
and it was so tight that I couldn't pull it out, and when I tried to pull it out with a pair of
pliers, it broke off leaving the plastic stuffed all the way down in there, so what I did was drill a
hole through that plastic, the stuffed in the hole, put a screw down in there nice and tight,
and then pulled it out using the screw, and all right, now let's have a see if I can get the old
idler pulley off, or old belt tensioner, sorry, keep getting these terms all mixed up, all right,
that is attached,
oh boy, there's not much room to work in here is there,
not much room to work at all, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to it, dang now,
I might have to take the fan off, I don't want to have to do that, do not want to have to take the
fan off, first of all, I don't know how, and second it'll be a pain in the rear,
let's see if this thing might be the same tool, we'll get the job done here, okay, I'm going to use
the serpentine belt tool to see if that'll give me just enough space, aha, there we go,
okay, now I'll have to use this tool the whole time to get that thing off of there, but I've gotten
the bolt loose, and I would really, really like to use my ratchet right now, let's see if I can
get the smaller ratchet to fit down in there, oopsie, darn, that one's still going to be too fat,
isn't it, yeah that's even better than this one, Welp, I'm going to reach down in there with my hand,
put that on there, so I'm putting the star bit down in here just using my hand to try to unscrew the
bolt, that's going to be difficult to get out, I need to put on my gloves, so I'll scratch my hands all
up, all right, let's see if I can get this thing out, that will not work, hmm, let's try one more time here,
this tool just doesn't fit in this little narrow spot,
there it goes, is that the bolt, hmm, this is difficult,
I really might have to take the fan off, I don't want to do that, okay let's try something else,
I guess I'll just go back to the belt removal tool, so that's the only one that fits down in there,
I'm going to take a wala, what can I talk about while I'm doing this,
this is the kind of thing that I could not have done before I got the second vehicle,
so I mean this is the second vehicle and it's kind of an older one so the wife doesn't really mind me
trying to fix stuff myself, but the reason this wouldn't work if this were the only cars because
I wouldn't have had another car to go get the party, and that would have been kind of a problem,
this is very tedious, this is going to get harder and harder as the bolt comes out to,
because as the bolt comes out there's less and less space to work with,
I wonder how long it's going to be before I can reach with my hand and get it,
boy that's really no more space to work with there,
I'm going to come around here and try to use my hand,
that's not happening, how do I get the fan off I wonder,
is it just a matter of taking those four bolts off of there,
maybe I can just loosen those bolts a little bit and give me just enough wiggle room,
let's see,
where is my eight millimeter socket, I bet that's the one that I need for that,
that is 13 millimeter, over there it is, let's see,
okay, oh forgot sake, nope I can't get that in there either, everything is so tight right there,
that it's impossible to get wrenches down in there, I just need a little bit more space,
I'm going to try one more time by putting this thing in there and using my hand,
I'd love to know how the real mechanics do this,
okay, I may have to use a wrench or something,
hmm what'd you make for lunch, David, wow it's beautiful, it is beautiful,
sadly I can't eat it right now,
I don't know what size this is going to be, so I'm just going to get
a few of them, actually I'm going to take the whole tool kit outside,
my daughter has made something involving couscous and, hey that's good,
I just fell on the bottom, that's nice, I like that, and stuff just falls down, it's good,
okay that's pretty tight, I'm going to put on my other glove, so don't hurt myself,
I'm going to try to loosen the fan a little bit, give a little more wiggle room,
that makes a nice sound,
I'll never get those bolts back in there if they come all the way out, I better be careful here,
okay if I've got enough space now,
what I'm doing, I'm loosening the bolts to hold the fan onto this little mounting thing,
hoping that it'll give me just enough extra wiggle room where I can get my wrench down in there,
okay I wonder if this, I'm determined to get this thing done here now, what do I need,
oh this thing,
but that is just too tight, how do they do it, how do they get a wrench down in there,
maybe they do take the fan all the way off, oh I sure don't want to,
I worry about getting it back on if I do that,
I don't want to do anything, the belt to be a whole lot easier to get on without the fan in place,
so we will see, I mean, I'll take it all the way off just because,
there's one bolt, I think I'm just going to take it off,
two bolts, I hope this actually, I hope taking these little bolts off actually does release the fan,
if it doesn't ban, I don't know what I'm going to do, I should probably get my little magnetic parts
bolt from my bike where it can bring it around here, so I don't lose any of these little parts,
and one more, hey baby, I can't eat right now baby, I'm going to finish this first,
but I promise I'm looking forward to enjoying what you made,
oopsie, I dropped one,
oh see where did it go, there it is, okay well the fan did not come all the way off,
maybe that's a good thing, but I think it moved just enough where I can get my wrench down there,
nice and comfy, yeah let's see, oh yeah, there we go,
well I don't know if I can get the fan back on, but I know I'll get the belt tensioner off,
but it's tend to be a lot longer, it looks like they're going to be,
it's coming out,
it's got to be about out by now, come on now,
the belt tensioner is very loose, let me see if the bolt is actually out, okay got it,
if I can maneuver it out of here without breaking anything,
I've got the old one out, now I'm going to put the new one in,
almost dropped it, it is hard to get the hands down in there to do this,
I'm trying to hold this still but of course it's got a pulley on there and that keeps moving,
how do you go, there go ahead babe,
how's that, how it goes, I think that's how it goes, that's just matter of getting my hand down
in there to tighten the thing up,
so we'll try the wrench again,
okay taking the bolt down now,
I'm glad I bought these gloves, I've probably already gotten like ten little nicks and
cuts from scraping my hand against parts in the engine.
Okay, the bolt is nearly in now.
A little ways longer.
I'm not sure how to put, oh I can do that, I was wondering how I'm going to get the
torque wrench in there with this bit, but I think I can do that. I'm supposed to torque it
down to 30 foot-pounds, 25 or 30 foot-pounds, something like that. Okay, now we're getting tight.
Okay, that's very tight. Let me torque it with the torque wrench. Uh-oh, I hate this, so now my problem is
the torque wrench gauge is on the other side. I have to come around here to read it.
That's probably enough.
Hey, Philip, is that you? My god. I'm senior new. Man, that is a badass car.
Oh, thank you. Awesome. It's a challenge. Yeah, that is cool looking. I bought it August 1st, 2015.
Nice, man. Should I add it on a four month mask and my back in through?
See, that's right. I bought it. We had only one car for the longest time. I finally this past summer
bought a truck. It's the 04 Ranger. 4,300. I'm trying to replace the belt and the idler pulley
and tensioner and stuff. It's cool. It's got nearly 100,000 miles on it right now. I paid 4,300 bucks,
so my budget, according to the wife, was $5,000 to get. Pretty much, but this allows me
to try and fix some stuff myself because if I try to fix stuff on this and I broke the only car
we got, I've been big trouble. It's like a computer man. I don't understand it at all.
It took a quarter to five minutes just to explain everything and it took months and then
I was like, just tell me how that worked out. There you go.
Okay, so yeah, the guy that I was just talking to there is the grandson of my next-door neighbor.
I hadn't seen him in quite a long time. I want to say eight or ten years or something,
but he used to come, he used to see him all the time. Okay, so now I'm going to put in the new
idler pulley. That was the belt tensioner that I just installed using that crazy thing that,
whoopsie, don't fall out now. And this is the idler pulley.
All right, I've got to get that down. Good seeing you too. Take care.
Okay, there's a lot of space to do this either. There we go. It's all about getting the right angle
with your hand so that you can tighten these things down.
Okay, now I need a socket.
Yeah, there we go.
So I'm going to seam right here.
Back that off a little bit. Oh, there we go.
It was not centered quite right. It was in danger of messing up the bearings if I kept on
tightening with it like that. This is much easier to get to than the belt tensioner.
All right, now let's check the torque on that one.
It's not too tight. I've got 20 foot pounds.
Okay, there we go. Now I've got to get the fan reattached.
Actually, you know what, I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to thread this belt around
there before I reattach the fan because it's going to be easier that way.
One of the hard parts of getting the belt off was getting it around the fan.
So if I've got the fan loosened up, this is going to be easier.
Oh yeah, that's much easier. Clever me.
Okay, get on down there.
I wonder why I don't just hire a mechanic to do this.
It's kind of fun. What I don't like about hiring mechanics, well, I like how they do the job
and I don't have to do it, but what I don't like is having to leave my car there and
having to make an appointment and get the car there and then get to work because they're not
going to do it on a Saturday or Sunday. They'll only do it during the week. So then I've got to
get myself to work after I drop the car off, either by putting my bicycle on the back of the
car and riding it from there or by some other means. And here, this is kind of fun.
Well, presuming it turns out all right, it's kind of fun, but then also I don't have to leave my car
anywhere. Let's see if this can be... I'm sure we'll get in the belt under the bottom of the fan there.
There we go. Okay. Now, now I can put the fan on.
I'm sorry, I can't eat right now. I'm neck deep in this job. It looks wonderful.
I promise I'll eat it very soon as soon as soon as I'm done putting this stuff back together, okay?
Thank you, hun. My daughter's so proud of the lunch she made. She wants me to eat it right away,
but I just can't. Okay, so the trick now is going to be kicking out one of the hicks
to put the... okay, there. To put the little bolts to get the fan back on.
Okay, I found one. Good, yay, yay. I think it's going to work, yo.
Okay, so I've got one bolt started. I wish I had a way to hang my super awesome flashlight
in here so that it could light me up while I'm doing this.
Once I get the second one in that will provide guidance for all the rest of them.
There.
Tricky trying to get these little bolts in there. You can't see very little,
you can't move your hands. Okay, second one is started. Yes.
Okay, next one should not be hard to get in now that these two are in,
tighten that one down a little bit more. Okay, two more to go, and then tighten them down.
Hmm, it's a lovely day to do this in South Louisiana. It's about 65 degrees and sunny.
Okay, and one more.
I wonder how much the mechanical charge me to do this job if they had to take the time.
I mean, they can do it faster, but still they charge by the hour end by the parts.
Okay, now I've got all four fan bolts in and hand tightened. Now it's time to tighten them down
with the wrench or with the spanner, if you will.
I wonder if I should have waited to put the fan on until I had the belt routed the right way.
I might decide this was a mistake to put the fan back on at this point.
Without the fan attached, you definitely have more room to work in there.
Okay, tighten them down. I'll do the final tightening now and one more.
Okay, all right, fans back on. Now, time to route the belt.
There's a little diagram on the top of the truck here when you open the hood showing how the belt
is supposed to be routed. And so that's what I will follow. Goes around these two.
Under this one. Over this one.
And it goes up and around there. Boy, that's going to be hard to get to.
Okay, here we go.
Hmm, something is messed up here.
Okay, this all goes around like this.
How do you get it around that thing?
Oh, I see. I see. But still, how do you...
Gotta go it around there.
Okay.
I wonder if I'm going to have to go around the fan again.
Let's see. I've got to think about this. It'll be fascinating radio.
Okay, it goes down around that one.
Oh, I see. I see.
Yeah.
It's just really hard to reach, is all.
Yeah, okay, I see how it has to happen. I just don't know how I'm going to do it.
Okay.
Maybe I'll get it off of there first.
Okay, up and around that.
This is hilarious. Okay, it has to go down around that one.
I'll be sure this thing is long enough.
Ah, there's the rest of it.
I'd love to see a professional do this.
I'm sure it'd be a lot quicker.
Oh, getting there, getting there, getting there.
Oh, okay, this is not going well.
I think I put the fan back on too soon.
Yep, I'm taking the back off.
This is crazy.
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
This isn't going to go out to the next generation.
All right.
think I've got everything ready now gonna start it up to see how it sounds well
that was a pain yo okay here we go all right well engines running go over here
buy it and see if we hear the squealing sound no I don't hear the squealing
anymore I think that's it yo let's take a little
okay let's take a little leap of faith to turn the engine on after that
because I've never done that kind of thing before I'm backing into my driveway
here and it seems to work just fine pulling back into the parking place engine
works break squeak they don't know what's up with that I just replaced the
break that's not too long ago well I think that's it tensioner idler pulley belt
all replaced that's it for me y'all I'm ready for some lunch this has been John
Culp and Lafayette Louisiana for Hacker Public Radio bye you've been listening
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