Help! I'm trying to replace the serpentine belt on my '97 4.6 and am having difficulties changing it. I have the Chilton Manual but they are pretty bleek on info. Do you have to take the radiator shroud off to gain more elbow room around the fan blades or do you access the tensioner from underneath the truck? They couldn't have put that tensioner in a more inaccessable place. Any help is as always greatly appreciated.

 

When I changed mine the last time I just slipped the belt off the drive pully for the alternator first and didn't bother with trying to get it off the tensioner first. I just threaded the new one around all the pulleys according to the diagram on the fan shroud, took the tension off the tensioner with a breaker bar and pulled the belt back over the alternator pulley last. I'm not sure how the 4.6 is configured but I guess the point I discovered was that I didn't need to slip the belt off the tensioner first, just any of the pulleys I had 'easy' access to... Easy being somewhat of an axymoron since I had a heck of a time getting the tension off the belt to begin with... Maybe I needed to use the right tool for the job...
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Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the come back. I went back out there and fought it out 1 more time. I didn't have a break over bar long enough to get any leverage so I taped a pipe on the end of it. My problem was routing the breaker bar in between the fan blades and being able to take off the tension. I found that the only way was to run the breaker bar over the top of the fan shaft since I would be pushing down on the bar to release tension. Once I got this far, it was a piece of cake getting the old belt off the water pump pulley. Thanks again.

 

Glad it worked out...
My tensioner is on the pass side of the motor near the top. getting a bar on there was easy, taking the tension off the belt was not... I had to really push on the bar to get it to even move.

The other day I saw that Sears has a "Serpentine Belt Tool" that has about a 36" flat steel bar and several fitting that go on the end for releasing the tension off the idler/tension wheel. May ask for that from Santa for Christmas...
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Yea, that Sears tool sounds like the ticket. On my 4.6, the tensioner was on the passenger side but buried about 1/2 way down. What a pain. I got 60,000 miles out of the first one, hope this one lasts as long. Wouldn't want to do this every day, but it will be easier next time.

 

I'd like to get my hands on some of the engineers that design some of this stuff and give them a good yelling at. They must have never heard of common sense.
Man, they put some stuff in the strangest places.
What a way to try and get us to cry uncle and bring the thing into the dealer so they can screw the thing up even more.