Serpintine belt adjustment

i looked in my haynes and the procedure or parts do not match up at all.

i have a 96 4.0 Aw4

there is a long bolt that goes from the power steering bracket to the idler so i take it if this is tighetned it will bring the idler up. but how do i loosen the idler so that bolt will move it.

my belt is extremly loose so if anyone knows the easiest way to do this that would be great thanks.

Just reach down in there and loosen the idler bolt. I believe it is 9/16". I have just enough room on my 2000 to get at it. If it is too tight you will have to pull the electric fan to get access.

Loosen the idler pulley bolt, it's a 15MM on my 98, I have a special 2ft long flat ratchet from snap-on for this. You only need to loosen it 1/2 a turn or less. Then do the adjustment, once you have it to what you think is tight stick cricket tension gauge on the belt and check it, what you think is tight will be about 90-100lbs, you need to crank it up to 170lbs. Actually I remember it being 190lbs on a new belt which is one that has been run for less than 15 min, a used belt is 160-170lbs.
If you don't have a flat enough wrench to fit in there pull the electric fan, two bolts and it pulls straight up, have someone hold it, there is not alot of slack in the wire and if you unplug it be aware the connector has TWO locks on it, not just one so don't break it when it does not just unplug, look at the friggin thing and figure it out, it took me a half a coffee and two smokes staring at it before the lightbulb went off :roflmao: Also might want to really pull that adjuster up and put a bit of anti-seize on the threads to make it not squeal so much next time you need to adjust it...but thats a common sense rule of thumb on any jeep, if it has threads anti-seize it. Oh and if you do pull the idler pulley all the way off DON"T LOOSE THE WASHER.

yeah i just took the fan out. got to it fine. thanks

i think next im going to wire a switch in the cabin to turn on the electric fan manually