For many years, drive belts, V-belts, multi-vee-belts, and serpentine belts have already been used to transmit power from the engine crankshaft Car Pulley Belt pulley to accessories, such as the power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, water pump, or cooling fans. Toothed timing belts and timing chains, too, are used to transmit power from the crankshaft to the camshafts, and some from the camshaft to camshaft, based on engine design.

The drive belt, timing belt, or timing chain won’t work well, or for lengthy, if, with incorrect tension. A loose drive belt won’t drive the accessory reliably, slipping and making noise. Conversely, an excessively tight belt may cause accessory or pulley bearing damage. Various kinds of tensioner pulley maintain long-term engine and item quietness and reliability.

Tightening or Loosening
Sometimes, maintenance or repair will require tightening or loosening a tensioner pulley. Replacing a drive belt or timing belt, for example, would need you to loosen a tensioner pulley to make room for the brand new belt, as the brand new belt is smaller than the worn drive belt.

You will have to tighten a tensioner pulley, in most cases, after the installing a fresh drive belt, or even to adapt for a stretched drive belt that hasn’t worn enough to warrant replacement. Extend belts don’t need tensioner pulleys but are “stretched” into place utilizing a special tool-always utilize the special tool to avoid belt damage.

Tensioner pulleys generally fall into two types: accessory-integrated (AI) and non-accessory-integrated (NAI). Think about AI tensioners as adjustable add-ons, such as for example an alternator, and NAI tensioners as adjustable idler pulleys. There are three types of tensioner pulleys and several ways to loosen them.
Mechanical tensioner pulleys will be the simplest, many common, and least prone to failure. There can be one caveat, however, as mechanical tensioner pulleys need manual adjustment. This makes them prone to user error, leading to insufficient or excessive belt pressure. Additionally, they have to be adjusted to pay for belt stretch over time.