Serpentine belt gen 3 3.8l

[The Viper]

Im going to e replacing the serpentine belt on my monty this weeked and i have a few questions

1)it looks like i have to remove the fan and shroud to route the old belt out and new belt in, correct?
2)funny there is no routing diagram on the hood, whats the easiest way to route this thing, ie where to start the routing?

 

[nckwltn]

I have to pull up a picture from the FSM to do mine. I don't think it matters too much where you start...


To make it easier, you probably want to remove the fan. there are 4 10mm nuts that hold the fan onto it's pulley. With the belt in place there is enough tension to undo the nuts without having to hold onto the pulley.

 

[The Viper]

funny, i was just looking over the fsm and saw you do have to take the fan off, which i assumed. The nice thing is this serpentine replacement looks like a piece of cake job as long as you dont mess up the routing

 

[cacattack]

Fan removal is not necessary

 

[The Viper]

mitsubishi has some well thought out engineering...fan removal isnt necessary, but they made the upper fan shroud easily slide out with no tools necessary, which allows you to slide the old belt in and old belt off around the fan. The addition of a little hole in the tensioner assembly (stuck allen wrench in) made it easy to keep the tension off while you route the new belt in. Starting the routing around the ac pulley seemed to be the best way of routing, ending at the top by the tensioner. I also made a quick diagram of the routing before i began. I just wish my hands and forearms were smaller.