Serpentine Belt messed up

[SuperCrutyPS]

On my way home tonight I heard a weird noise, but it quickly went away. The truck ran fine the rest of the way home. When I got home, I found the heat shield material on the hood was 'scraped' up and a piece of material hanging down. I looked at the belt. It's as if one of the grove ribs 'tore' off leaving the rest of the belt intact.

I had to replace the belt 1 1/2 years ago while on a RV Trip. I had the truck almost 3 years before that belt shredded.

The belt is shifted a groove on a couple of pullies, but not on another one. So...I'm thinking two things:
1.) When they put on the belt, they didn't use a good belt
-OR-
2.) Maybe I've got a worn idler pulley or something like that.

Can anyone who has had belt issues let me know their experiences with what they found and had to fix?

Thanks in advance -

[Highwaywrench]

I second the worn idler pulley bearing.

I just did the tensioner and upper idler on mine, because of bad bearings. It crapped the 8 rib idler on the tensioner assembly out. and the upper idler bearing was just about fried.

Idiot me, I didn't catch it in time.

Our other 1 ton, had the tensioner assembly coming apart on the pivot bushing, and starting to swing sideways, making the belt track wrong.

[SuperCrutyPS]

K - That's along the lines of what I was thinking. I have to wait till Saturday to take a look. It's been raining here and evenings are full. Saturday I can get it into the garage and take my time.

In the meantime, I'm driving the wife's TransAm.

[symbols]

Either way your going to have to pull the belt off. So when you do check all of your pulleys.

[SuperCrutyPS]

Good point. There are more than just the idlers in there.

[SuperCrutyPS]

Got my belt replaced. After getting the belt off, I found the power steering pump shaft was moving in / out almost a 1/4". Got a new pump, installed the new belt and the upper radiator hose. The hose now routes around the belt instead of through. In the event I need to replace the belt again, I won't have to remove the hose to change it. Took a bit longer than I expected due to some 'operator error.' But all better now.