Serpentine Belt
Time for a change
This article will contain information on how to change the serpentine drive belt on a '95 XJ with the 4.0L engine.
This was not actually as hard as I thought it might be. This is the first time that I have ever done this. The guys at Jiffylube said that they thought the belt was getting old and cracked and needed replaced. I looked at it and agreed, but told them not too do it. Can you believe they wanted to charge me $60.00 to do it. I thought that I would explore other options than to get ripped off by them. That is another story though.
I decided to go to the local Pep Boys and get a new belt. I just went in and found that isle and looked up the part number in the book. I located it and noticed that it was one of the more expensive belts that they had. Other vehicles had cheaper belts but I thought the $23.95 was still a lot cheaper than what it would cost to have one put in by a shop. So i bought it and took it home.
I thought that I would try to install the belt and if I had major problems then I would consider taking it somewhere. I decided to include my dad in on this fun. I had read in my Haynes manual about how they recommended doing this. The first thing that it said to do was to loosen two bolts on the back of the power steering pump. Why, because the power steering pump is what is adjusted to adjust the tension on the belt. If it is closer to the engine the less the tension will be on the belt. You have to release enough tension on the belt to slip it off the pullies of the different engine components it drives.
That would be really simple if my hands were as thin as a screw driver and the tools were microscopic. There is hardly any room in that area to work. So we decided to access the holes better we should remove the stock airbox.
Removing the stock air box.
The first thing to do is unclip the two metal retaining clips on the passenger side of the airbox and the one on the rear of the box. The cover slides off the driver's side (you will see what I mean). Then detach the two breather hoses off the top part of the box and pull the lid out of the large airhose going to the engine. Put the top aside and remove the air filter. Then all you have to do is take out the three screws at the bottom of the airbox (13mm I think) and remove the lower part of the box. Now you will have all of the room you need.
Removing the belt.
It is a good idea to spray the bolts on the pump with some penetrating spray such as WD-40. Again the manual says to loosen the two screws on the back and to turn the adjustment screw on the underside of the pump. We did this and the pump did not move. So we loosened two screws on the front of the pump so that it would pivot easier. Well this work wonders. As you turn the adjustment screw right, the pump will move towards the engine. This is needed to take the tension off of the belt. We just kept turning the screw until we were able to slip the belt off. Then we just worked the belt out through the top of the engine bay. The gap between the engine and the radiator is really tight so be carefull pulling the belt out.
Installing the new belt.
Once you have the old belt off compare it to the new belt to make sure it is the right size you need, just incase the book was wrong. The installation procedure is just the opposite of taking the belt out. One thing you have to make sure off it to rout the new belt correctly around all of the pullies. If this is not done right, it could damage the engine causing major problems. There was a little diagram on the fan shroud on my XJ and there is a good diagram in the Haynes manual.
Just work the belt down in the narrow space and feed it around to get it in its correct location. Check and double check to make sure it is routed right. Once that is done you have to tighten the tension on the belt by moving the power steering pump. Just turn the adjustment screw left to move it away from the engine. There are guages that you can buy to read the tension on the belt but we just tightened it to about the tension of the old belt was. Now just tighten all of the bolts on the pump that you might have loosened.
Now just put the lower part of the air box back in and replace the screws. Put the airfilter back in and reattach all of the hoses to the top lid of the air box. Slide the top back on and reclip the lid. Now start the engine to make sure the belt is running right. Leave the engine run for a few minutes to seat the belt on all off the pullies. Congradulations you just changed your sepentine belt.
Reflections
I did not think that this project was to tough to handle. Over all it took us about and hour to install the new belt. If you can turn a wrench and a socket you should do just fine. I would recommend getting a Haynes or comparable manual, because they have instructions and illustrations. Being able to do your own maintainence like this will save you money and get you to learn a little bit more about your Jeep. Doing it myself saved me around $35.00. Not too bad of a savings.
Email me if you have any questions or concerns.
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