Reinstalling Serpentine Belt for Air Conditioning Compressor in a Ford Explorer

Video Transcript

"Today we're changing an air conditioning compressor on a '96 Ford Explorer. In this step, I'm going to demonstrate the proper service procedure for rerouting and reinstalling your vehicle's serpentine belt. All vehicles are going to have one of these. This is what they call a pulley configuration and belt routing diagram. Now as you can see, this is pretty much just a schematic or a snapshot of the front of the engine as if you were staring straight into the Ford emblem on the grill. This is your air conditioning compressor which we've just installed, your power steering pump, water pump, crankshaft, serpentine belt tensioner, idler pulley and alternator. What you're going to do is taking and follow the directions on this guide for the appropriate routing of your serpentine belt. It?s possible to put them on incorrectly causing belt damage or squealing as you drive the vehicle. So like I said, every vehicle under the sun has one of these diagrams either located right here up front or on the inside of the hood. So make sure to take and before you install your belt, give this diagram an eyeball so you can see the exact way your belt goes back on. Alright, the first thing I'm going to do, the first step in reinstalling my serpentine belt, is I'm going to make a loop and reach down and actually stick the belt around the crankshaft. Just like so. From there, I'm going to take and loop it around the water pump. And from there, I'm going to go down and around the power steering pump and from there, up and around the air conditioning compressor. And then I'm going to duck underneath the idler pulley and pull what's left of the slack up towards my alternator just like so. Once you have that accomplished, you can take your three-eighths ratchet and install it into the belt tensioner itself. You're going to take and press downwards on the belt tensioner generating slack in the belt and slip it on top of your alternator pulley just like so. I'm going to go ahead and demonstrate that one more time for you. You're going to insert your three-eighths ratchet into the belt tensioner, push down and rotate the pulley eccentric counterclockwise to generate slop in the belt right there. You're going to remove your ratchet from the belt tensioner and set it aside. That is the proper service procedure for reinstalling your serpentine belt."