hey guys whats up? i was just outside and i was checking out my motor bay for any fuel leaks (just cleaned my TB unit and reinstalled it) and i looked down at my belt and the tensioner was moving up and down.... the AC was on at the time too.... could this just be a simple belt tensioner gone bad? or may it be something more serious? thanks for the help in advance......

 

come on guys....

 

The tensioner moves up and down in a way. That's how it adjusts the tension of the belt. How much was it moving?

 

a noticable amount, i guess if you measured it maybe 1/2in. - 1in.... is it correct that these should be changed every 50k miles? cause my car has the stock one with 92k miles...

 

If you turned the A/C off, did the tensioner stop?

As was mentioned, it's an automatic tensioner and needs to move to apply constant tension since it's sprung. You should be able to grab the belt and tug it and the tensioner will move with it, it shouldn't be ridiculously hard to do this, but not ridiculously easy either.

I ask about the A/C because I had a car once that had a bad blower motor....well I was looking in the wrong part of the system to find this problem. What would happen was the A/C system would get real hot, and without the blower motor functioning, the high-side pressures would SKYROCKET, causing the compressor to start dragging, which in turn causes the belt to slip and flop all over the place as the tensioner was moving over an inch, trying to keep the belt from being thrown. A new blower motor solved the problem.

 

blower motor as in the AC compressor, or as in the blower motor in the box on the firewall? cause my vents blow out as hard as they can and the AC isnt THAT cold but its cool, maybe i need a recharge on my system?