Well, I was doing a little preventative maintenence, changed the serpentine belt on my wife's liberty(75,000 miles). it was a peice of cake easy to get to, easy to route. It had a few weather cracks, but a lot of life left. Then decided to change mine on my truck(86,000 miles). Got the Dayco from Advance, like 32 bucks. I probably shouldn't have changed mine. Once I got the the breathing tube off I could see it looked like brand new. I went ahead and changed it anyway. I used my torque wrench to move the tensioner pulley as it had the longest handle of any ratchet I got. It is tight in there to get the new belt in and route it. So be aware of that if you do this job. Otherwise not bad. My old belt was the original and it looked great. Not a crack on it. Like I said I probably should have just left it. But I had already bought the new one and was in the mood to do it, so I did. I usually tend to err on the side of doing preventative things like that earlier rather than later.
I may put a new idler pulley on it. The one with the grooves seemed to be really moving side to side a lot when I started it up. I can get it from advance for 18 bucks.
Not really a point to this story I guess, just decided to share. have a good one guys!

 

I also put one on mine a couple weeks ago, with the same belt you got, it is a little tight. If i recall i had some scraped up arms from rubbing against the fan shroud.

 

Yes you are right!! My right arm is scraped up and a little raw today. you do have to rub your arm against the fan shroud to get it off and get the new one back on. How many miles you got? And was your old one wore?

 

My truck has 103k on it, i dont know if the belt was original or not, it looked like it could have been. The belt wasnt bad, just had alot of weathered cracks in it.

 

Just a piece of advice if you didn't didn't already think of it. Put the one that was replaced in your truck. My brother had replaced a fan belt in a van he owned and we went to Las Vegas, NV from NM. On the way back, the new one shredded up in the pulleys, not sure how or why. He told me for some reason he had a gut feeling to keep the old one and put it in his van. Thank God. The belt broke just outside of Bullhead City AZ. It was around 100 degrees and he and I were under his van trying to cut the new belt out. About 3.5 hours in this heat we finally got the new belt out from being jammed up in the pulleys, put the old one back on and we able to make it all the way back to NM. Could have just been a coincidence, but I learned a valuable lesson there, keep the old belt if still in good shape just to be safe.

 

I think i already trashed mine.

 

I always keep the old one and put it in the tool box if it isn't too bad. Ya never know if you'll need it out on the road somewhere.

 

Word to the wise... I am pretty sure the Advance Auto pulley will be plastic... The Ford one is metal - I simply pulled idler - then pressed the bearing out - found out the size. Then I ordered on one ebay for like $5 (about 35,000 miles ago) and well - it is still working fine! $5 is better than $18 all day long

I have the bearing part # at home if you want it