cnoke Posted March 21, 2022 Report Share Posted March 21, 2022 hey. Ive had my Dodge Journey now for going on 2 years. ive replaced brakes tires wheel bearing battery. and was fine for awhile. (BESIDES ALL OF THE RANDOM ONE TIME ELECTRICAL ISSUES THAT MAY HAPPEN ONCE AND THEN NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN). So one morning I went to start my car and it started fine. As I was walking my wife outside to the car to leave, we noticed the vehicle was dead. After charging the battery, the car ran fine the next day and for about a month until this week. My wife came home from work. the car was now making permanent squeal noise along with battery light in dash. She shut off the car when she came home. I went to start it and it would not start. I checked oil. bone dry. wheewww. Added oil. charged battery. the car started fine again. I took volt meter to battery after charging. 12.85v. during start 11.3. and after start only ran 12.6 or so. The car was not charging. I hurried to auto zone and bought an alternator and serp. belt. during the process of removing alternator, I went to loosen tensioner pulley and it would not move. I turned counter clockwise (which is what my hours of research before lead me to believe). The pulley bolt came lose and came out and now I can not screw pulley bolt back on to tensioner. I believe my tensioner arm is STUCK causing my serpentine belt to be tighter than it should. which put stress on my alt. bearing eventually ruining it. my belt has been making a sound for awhile, but the day my wife went to work it was a higher pitched squeal and permanent throughout rpms. please help!!! my family has one car. I can provide pictures if necessary! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John/Horace Posted March 22, 2022 Report Share Posted March 22, 2022 (edited) Constant squeal could have been a bad belt, or bad bearing on one of the idlers (or even bearing inside alternator seizing up). Which engine, 3.5 or 2.4. How many miles? Make sure surpentine belt idler pulley and tensioner pulley bearings are good, should spin easily with no roughness and minimal noise. Are you sure the threads on tensioner bolt is good, clean up end with sandpaper and make sure no burrs on threads at end. If it’s opposite threads, remember it’s not rightly tightly when installing. It’s the other way. Try starting bolt by itself without the tensioner assembly so you can see if bolt is starting properly. Also clean all the pulleys well before putting on new belt. Edited March 22, 2022 by John/Horace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnoke Posted March 22, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2022 (edited) 3.5L V6 2 wheel drive roughly 190,000 mi. I was trying to loosen belt to remove alternator. from underneath car I loosened what I thought was the tensioner pulley to loosen belt. Now I'm stuck with the pulley off the tensioner mechanism. and the bolt will not go back in the hole to put pulley back on tensioner mechanism. (I believe the whole Tensioner mechanism is broken) Im replacing alternator and belt I might have to buy tension pulley mechanism and idler pulley. any productive input is appreciated. Thank you!!! Edited March 22, 2022 by cnoke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John/Horace Posted March 22, 2022 Report Share Posted March 22, 2022 (edited) Did the threads strip out with the bolt.? If bolt turned the wrong way, tensioner bracket could be damaged. Pic of threads might help. Often pulley has to come off so tensioner bracket mounting bolt can be accessed anyway. Make sure nut behind tensioner pulley is still there now. Edited March 22, 2022 by John/Horace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John/Horace Posted March 22, 2022 Report Share Posted March 22, 2022 https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/dodge,2010,journey,3.5l+v6,1444632,belt+drive,belt+tensioner,11659 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnoke Posted March 25, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2022 I had no idea that nut was behind there in the first place. THANK YOU! UPDATE: I called a mobile mechanic and he helped me drop the motor enough to replace the whole tensioner pulley mechanism... This was a success. I also replaced the idler pulley (super simple just do it anyway if replacing tensioner pulley.) and alternator which I was doing in the first place anyway. and new belt. We had to unbolt motor mount. on belt side. we also had to unmount Bottom undercarriage brace(forget name of part) too. so motor would drop a little more for access. we tried raising the motor and lowering. and raising and lowering several times. The majority of the problem is accessing the tensioner pulley to remove and replace. Thank you for your input and time and consideration on my problem! John/Horace 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larryl Posted March 25, 2022 Report Share Posted March 25, 2022 Have you changed the timing belt and tensioner? If not you could be looking at major engine issues especially since it was ran with no oil in it ?? That's not good either John/Horace 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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