Hello fellow Bonneville drivers! I drive a 93 Bonneville 3.8 SE and my water pump has gone for the 5th time now since we've owned the car. averaging aout every year and a half.. always AFTER the warranty has run out. We have successfully changed the waterpump ourselves thanks to the great help on this website i happened to stumble across. But now my question is how do I adjust the tension pulley so the belt isn't to tight I was told there are 4 different settings but we are not sure of what to do or which to pick. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time

typically, on any car, the belts should be tense enough that if you push halfway between two pulleys, there should be about half an inch of deflection... too much more and it'* no good. shouldn't be too much less either...

matt

Where are you buying the water pump?
Have you ever changed and flushed the radiator fluid?
Tension is controlled by the automatic tensioner, there are no settings. If the tension is incorrect then you have to replace the tensioner.

Alldata shows a diagram with belt tensioner, there is a notch on tensioner with one end of notch being max tension and other end of notch being min tension. This leads me to believe the tensioner is adjustable. I'm not home to look at factory manual to see if there are adjustment instructions included. Alldata seems to be missing some of info that is in factory manual. Anyone else with a manual?

OK, I'll double check in the factory manual.

OK, that min/max appears to be a gauge, not an adjustment. You look at the gauge to see if your tensioner is operating beyond its limits.

wow wow wow you guys are great helpin a lady out like this!!! your getting me closer and closer every time i read the replies thank you so much. next is just finding what to do with this guage

it appears that my belt is to tight and could be causing the water pump to keep going is there anyway that i can loosen it

once again thanks for all your help this is a great site never thought i'd find something like this

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