For many years, drive belts, V-belts, multi-vee-belts, and serpentine belts have already been used to transmit power from the engine crankshaft pulley to components, such as the power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, water pump, or cooling fans. Toothed timing belts and timing chains, too, are used to transmit power from the crankshaft to the Car Pulley Belt camshafts, and some from the camshaft to camshaft, based on engine design.
The drive belt, timing belt, or timing chain will not work well, or for lengthy, if, with incorrect tension. A loose drive belt won’t drive the accessory reliably, slipping and producing sound. Conversely, an excessively limited belt may cause item or pulley bearing damage. Various kinds of tensioner pulley maintain long-term engine and item quietness and reliability.
Tightening or Loosening
Sometimes, maintenance or repair will require tightening or loosening a tensioner pulley. Replacing a drive belt or timing belt, for example, would require you to loosen a tensioner pulley to create room for the new belt, as the new belt is smaller sized than the worn drive belt.
You’ll need to tighten a tensioner pulley, generally, after the installing a new drive belt, or even to adapt for a stretched drive belt that hasn’t worn enough to warrant replacement. Stretch belts don’t require tensioner pulleys but are “stretched” into place using a special tool-always utilize the special tool to avoid belt damage.
Tensioner pulleys generally fall into two classes: accessory-integrated (AI) and non-accessory-integrated (NAI). Think of AI tensioners as adjustable components, such as for example an alternator, and NAI tensioners as adjustable idler pulleys. There are three types of tensioner pulleys and many methods to loosen them.
Mechanical tensioner pulleys will be the simplest, the majority of common, and least susceptible to failure. There is one caveat, nevertheless, as mechanical tensioner pulleys need manual adjustment. This makes them susceptible to user error, resulting in insufficient or extreme belt tension. Additionally, they need to be adjusted to pay for belt stretch over time.