I removed my 96 Monte's belt tensioner to replace the bearing as I had great success in doing this with my 1985 Corvette.
I could not remove the bearing and pounded on it pretty good, it would not budge any at all.
I did not hurt the bearing. Rotated just fine and installed it back on the 96 Monte.
Guess I will have to buy a complete replacement belt tensioner one day.

 

Nowadays, those things aren't made to come apart. Only Fall Apart! Did you check for any leakage that my have gotten on the belt or pullies and you other pullies as well? Cause if the spring and bearings are good in your tensioner, I for one can't think of anything else that would cause the belt to Pop off like that!

 

You can replace the pulley on the tensioner, but as for the spring/bearing, it's all sold as a complete unit last I knew.

While you were messing with the tensioner, is it holding the belt "tight"? Did it feel weak at all? If you run the car and watch it and the belt, any signs of issues?

And as JC asked, any signs of any fluids getting on the belt?

 

Update on my car. I checked the tensioner and its broke, no fluids other than the normal that I see. But there is a pulley that is frozen, idk what part it is but in the pic its the bottom right pulley basically under the tensioner that is stuck.

 

That big pulley under the tensioner looks like your crank pulley. You won't be able to turn that big hand. It's connected to the crank shaft. If that guy is truly stuck, the engine won't run.

But, hearing that you found the tensioner is broken sounds like the source of the problem. Replace that and you will hopefully be good to go again.

 

ok lol idk why i didn't think of that, gonna get the tensioner and go from there. ty for the help guys.

 

Just a side note, when this happened in my saturn I managed to weld togethor a couple wrenches and put the tensioner pulley back into place and drive it back home from camping in the mountains. Fixing it is a much better solution. Good luck and glad we could help

 

Got the new one on, the old tensioner looked bad, even the solid part of it came apart. now just waiting on my battery to charge. thanks again hopefully she will start.

 

As to the high idle until the engine is warm, that is coming from the intake gaskets. Common prob on the 3.4 X code engine dual overhead cam.
Once the parts warm up it seals itself off.
You might could get by and just change out the upper plenum gasket but you might as well change the lower intake gasket also and flush that dexcool crap out and be done.

 

My car is back running, so in about a month or so I'm gonna try n change these intake gaskets. Its sad to say but I've been driving it with this high idle for well over a year.