Ok, my friend asked me to look at her monte.... she has an 03 3.8 N/A..... She keeps smelling like a hot smell under the hood, so i checked the tension on her belt cuz it smelt like rubber/plastic. I put the wrench onto the pulley to push it down and it WOULD NOT BUDGE!! Yes, i was on the right bolt and yes i was going the right way lol. So... unless Im missing something... should she have her tensioner replaced? so there is not a high constant tension on her belt all the time? Any imput would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

Sounds like the bearing froze, and she is smelling it because the belt is being drug over the pull, instead of spining on it.

 

Would the engine run normally though besides the smell??

 

yeah it will end up literally melting the belt and pulley. replace that thing ASAP. i had this exact thing happen to me on my 2000 grand am gt once. bearing seized up on the pulley and it was all down hill from there. even parts of the melted belt got in the grooves of all the other pulleys, plus i was stranded 3 hours from home at the time but luckily i had some tools and a parts store within a couple miles and i could get it fixed up.

 

Well if its the tensioner pully, that serves no purpose for powering, or driving anything, so yea I would image it will run fine. But that smell she is smelling is the rubber on the belt burning (at least this is what is sounds like to me). Pretty soon she will end up chewing through the belt, and it will snap, then nothing will work. She needs to get it fixed NOW, and stop driving it until its fixed. Every mile she drive, its is probably chewing the hell out of that belt, not to mention, the extra load on other accessories as they are forced to drag the belt over the frozen tensioner pully.