How much belt play should I have? I don't want to put too much stress on all of the pulley bearings and I really don't know how tight to put it. It seems like it is going to end up being almost all of the way towards the loose end of the adjustment range when it is set. I have it all the way maxxed out right now (to the loose side) and I could barely get the belt on. I had to get the belt started a bit around the crank pulley and bump the motor over a bit to get it to go on...is that normal? I figured I'd just be able to easily slip it on and then adjust from there.

Thanks for any help.

 

You can crank it down pretty tight and not hurt anything, its easiest to get the belt on if you do the water pump last and kind of slide the belt on the water pump pulley. Belt length varies a bit and a different belt might slide right on but as long as you can get it on it doesnt matter. I only ran an alternator so I never put much tension on it, you can use the old turn the belt no more then 90 degrees at the longest span rule of thumb or just get it as tight as you feel comfortable with. If its not tight enough the alternator will be the first to slip..

 

I always used a tension gauge tool on manually set tensioners. It usually ended up just tight enough to turn the motor over from the alternator pully nut.

 

They give you a tension to torque it to. I yanked on the torque wrench until it clicked, and tightened it down. It felt perfect afterwards.

 

Thanks for the help guys. kp is a great seller, thanks for the tensioner!