Gulf SV
Kevin Burns
After reading this thread, I am now officially concerned. I bought the serpentine belt kit from Europarts. It came with the Litens tensioner , two INA grooved idler pulleys , and a Conti belt. I was planning on changing everything tomorrow, Friday, 3/21, but now I'm wondering if the the idlers are worthwhile and both supposed to be grooved, and if I ought to go find a Gates belt.
The Sprinter is at the storage place, so I'll probably head there tonight to see if both pulleys are grooved. But feel free to tell me if I'm wasting my time with the INA parts and the Conti belt. I hate doing a job twice.
Thanks.
So I decided to go ahead and work on the belt and pulleys with the parts I had. i got into the job for two reasons. 1, the truck is clocking nearly 192,000 miles, and without accurate maintenance records, I had no idea if and when anything had been done, and 2, I was getting some squealing on startup the past few starts, especially when it was really cold.
I mentioned in another thread the tensioner was acting like it was locked up when I tried to release the tension. A few good pushes finally got it to move, but it would remain in position when I released the breaker bar. I worked it back and forth a few times and it freed up nicely. So checking it and the idlers, it appeared everything was in good working order. Now I have a set of spare idlers and tensioner. Even the belt looked good; no splits or cracks. It was however stretched slightly, so it goes in the spares kit also.
The old belt looks to be rubber and without any type of reinforcing cording, and the top of the ribs are sharp like an inverted v. The new Conti belt is reinforced, and the the top of the ribs are flat. I had looked online and found three different Conti belts for Sprinters. They may be different constructions as the prices were different. However, nothing was mentioned about the construction. And there was no number on the belt telling me what Eurospares had sold me. So, time will tell. The job is done, and I'm off to New Orleans next week for a race, and won't be wondering about the belt and pulleys.