Hello and thanks for reading this post. I am replacing my worn serpentine belt; the belt was not in stock at my local Ford dealer so I used an Auto Zone belt. The belt did not fit...no big deal so I get another belt and this time from Car Quest. Again the belt does not fit. I've got maximum tension on the tensioner with another pair of hands to assist in holding the tensioner. Has anyone experienced this problem with their '98 - '03 3.0 Ranger? I bit the bullet and ordered a Ford serpentine belt and new tensioner and expect to get these parts in the next few days. Hopefully this will take care of my issue. Thanks for any input to this post.

 

Welcome to the forum

There is more than one way to route the belt around the pulleys
Are you following the diagram on the rad support?

Found this diagram, not sure if its the same as yours: http://serpentinebeltdiagrams.com/wp...ranger-3-0.jpg

There are TWO different belt lengths, with Air conditioning and without, without is a shorter belt

 

Thanks RonD for replying. I'm routing as per the diagram on top of the radiator. I will look at your posted link to see if there is a difference. When I get the belt from the parts counter I make the parts tech aware I have AC. I took one of the belts that did not fit and cut both that belt and the old belt coming off my Ranger. The new belt is about 3/4 of an inch shorter than the belt coming off my Ranger. That's not a big difference but just enough to keep me from sliding it over the idler pulley. The Ford serpentine belt I ordered did not make it in today so I won't have an update to this post until later next week.

 

The old belt will be slightly longer due to use and stretching. The new one is most likely correct. If you hold the tensioner correctly, you will have better luck making the alternator pulley the last one to slip it on to.

 

Update: I picked up my parts from the Ford dealer.
A new belt and a tensioner and pulley. The belt fits so that's good.
The Ford parts department tells me this is an 89 inch belt and when I look at the two previously purchased belts from Auto Zone and CarQuest these belts are labeled as 88 inches so that was most likely the reason for the belts not fitting. I now have a new issue with the tensioner. I tried removing my entire tensioner that is held by an 8 mm bolt head. Holy cow is that thing stuck on there. I broke two sockets trying to remove it and ultimately gave up on replacing it because I did not want to break off the bolt head and deal with that nightmare. Looking at the new tensioner bolt I see it is not a reverse thread so I don't have to worry that I am tightening instead of loosening the bolt. The new tensioner has a T50 bolt head so there looks to have been a production change and I can understand why. there's not a lot to hold onto when attempting to loosen a stuck 8 mm bolt head. If anyone has any sure fire methods to remove this bolt or personal experience with this tensioner bolt I sure would like to hear from you. I may start a new thread for this issue.