How to Replace Serpentine Belt 2004-12 Chevy Colorado

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In this video, I'm going to show you how to remove and reinstall a serpentine belt on this 2004 Chevy Colorado with the 3.5 liter. It's basically the same procedure for either the 3.5 or the smaller 4 cylinder engine. The tools you'll need: You'll need some type of 3/8" ratchet handle, and you'll also probably need a piece of pipe to put on there for some extra leverage.

The serpentine belt, you can see right down in here. Your tensioner is right down here, and you're going to either find a square hole in the center of the pulley or on this one, it's right here in the center of the tensioner body. What we're going to do is take a 3/8" drive flex handle. This gives us the best way to get in there. You can see the flex handle goes right into that square hole. We'll work it right in there. At first, I want to make sure I press that flex handle in there well. I'm going to take a piece of pipe, and that let's me get a whole lot more leverage on my tensioner. Pull the tensioner back, and then pull the belt off.

I realized, after, when I was editing this, it wasn't really clear what I was doing there. With the handle, the 3/8" handle that I put in the tensioner and that pipe, I am basically turning the tensioner clockwise, which takes tension off the belt, and then, I can take the belt off the pulleys. Slowly let the pipe and wrench back. Pull the wrench out. Then, I can take the belt off of the alternator, the idler pulley over here, and off of the A/C pulley, which is way down at the bottom. It comes up from the water pump pulley or the fan pulley and then off the crank pulley. Pull it right up and out.

On these vehicles, you have a diagram right here that helps you put your belt on. The first thing you want to do is make this loop and put it down around the crank and then bring it up around the fan pulley here and down around that A/C pulley. This is a little hard to film so you just have to take my word for it. I'm taking the loop and putting it right down between the engine and the fan. We might have to twist it a little bit to get it down around the crank pulley. It comes back up around the fan pulley. Then, I have to send another loop down. I've got to get it down and around the A/C pulley. I'm turning the fan with my hand as it goes down. It comes up around this idler pulley and put it around the alternator.

I've got the belt pulled up here, but it's routed correctly. It goes down the tensioner pulley, then around the crank pulley down there, comes back up to this fan pulley, goes back down to the A/C pulley, back up to the idler pulley, then the alternator pulley, and over. This allows me having it here like this. It allows me to hold onto it with this hand and then get my wrench and pipe and take the tension off the belt. With the longest handle I have, I take it and pull it. I'm going to put my piece of pipe on it on the other side of this hose. Pull it as far as I can. I take my belt and pull it tight and wrap it around my power steering pump and then carefully let my wrench go. Do a visual check. Do a quick inspection. It's on here correctly, down and around the crank. It comes up. It's on my A/C correctly, and up on the alternator. Everything looks good.

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