Has anyone else had a problem with their accessory belt getting sheared away, one groove at a time? In my case, the belt was climbing off the inside edge of the power steering pulley until it sheered off that groove.

First time it happened, I was never aware of it happening - just happened to pop the hood one day and notice my belt was too skinny. Second time (new belt installed), just two days ago, it happened right at start-up so I heard the racket and shut it down just as the groove was sheering off.

Through these two failures I have had an after-market tensioner installed. Fortunately I had a used backup on hand - a factory tensioner - the one that you can rotate easily with a 3/8" drive breaker bar. I swapped that in and have since put ~500+ miles on the truck without issue.

I can't say I've made a 100% definitive diagnosis, but I will tell you that I'm sticking with the factory tensioner only going forward.

 

I did one time and it turned out the water pump was going bad. Reach down and grab the fan, give it a push and pull; or two, and look very closely at the water pump shaft. It should not move. Other than that you have a pully somewhere going bad or the Harmonic Balancer is going bad. You just have to keep looking.

 

Thanks for the additional thoughts. I have an electric fan, so checking the water pump should be easy enough. I guess the check of the crank pulley/balancer is the same - check for rotational and side-to-side play.

My best guess is that they are fine and it's the after-market tensioner that was the cause, but I don't want to get tunnel-vision and just assume that, so thanks for the additional ideas.

 

Have you been hearing an occasional high pitched squeak when it is running? Sometimes the Harmonic Balancer will make this noise when it is out of place and just starting to touch the timing cover. Also with the engine running look at the Balancer and see if it "appears" to have an unusual wobble to it.