Watch that belt tension!

[Arcticdude]

Check your serpentine belt tension if you have the older non-self tensioning belt tensioner on your 60’s. I happened to remove my 50DN to do some other maintenance and found both back (front-most in the chassis) mounting bolts not only loose, but damaged. Worse yet, the alternator mounting pads had started cracking and had been repaired with helicoils prior to my ownership. While I had decent tension on the belt, I did not think it was excessive, by any means. How wrong I was!

Going back together, I’m going to decrease the tension on the belt by a lot. Something else to put in your maintenance checks.