[Sable93]

I have a 93 Sable with the 3.8 About a month ago a had problems with the serpentine belt, it was running a notch off on the pulley on the a/c compressor, and shredding the belt. The mechanic I took it to said the pulley on the power steering pump was pressed in to far on the shaft causing the belt to runout of alignment with the a/c compressor, he pulled out the pulley on the p/s pump to line up with the a/c compressor, then the alternator was out of alignment also so he put shims in it to line it up also. Since then the belt seemed to be running ok without jumping off a notch on any of the pulleys. I have been keeping an eye on it since then and it seemed to be fine until tonight, when I started the car I noticed the belt was noisy, a squeak squeak squeak, after a couple minutes it quieted down, so I thought it was just the cold weather. But on the way home from picking up my wife at work the stupid belt came apart again! Had to nurse the car home stoping every few minutes to let it cool down. When I finally got home I checked out what I could see in the dark and cold. The outer rib on the belt was shredded and the belt was completly off. The pulleys all seem to be turning ok, but I did notice that the pulley on the p/s pump has some play in it, moves in and out about a 1/8th of an inch, also tried to move the belt tensioner by hand and couldn't move it, not sure just how hard it supposed to be to move. If the tensioner was bad would it tear up a belt like this? Hope the all makes sense.
I would appreciate any thoughts on whats going on, thanks in advance!

 

[biteableniles]

The belt tensioner is spring loaded, it should move back and forth if you put some effort into it. There shouldn't be any play in the pulleys either.

I would replace the belt tensioner if it doesn't have any give in it, though.

 

[Sable93]

Well I took the car back to the garage that worked on my car the first time that I had belt problems. They checked out the tensioner, idler, water pump, alternator, everything looked ok. The only possible thing that they could see that might cause the belt to jump out a grove was the pulley on the p/s pump was moved out on the shaft to far, possibly the last mechanic of theres moved it out to far trying to get the belt to line up with the pulley, or maybe the pulley had worked out on it's own. Anyway they moved the pulley on the p/s pump in farther, so far the new belt seems to be running ok. They said to keep on eye on it, if it moves to far again that i'll need a new p/s pump

Has anybody else had any simular problems? I would appreciate any thoughts on this
Thanks