I was just doing my weekly check-up on the truck and noticed the very bottom of my motor and skidplate was wet. I looked closer and the a/c belt was all shredded up. Then, I noticed about 1 1/2 ft of it was wrapped around the crank snout up into the seal and that it was oil that was on the bottom. I got a small hook tool and gently pulled up on the belt and unwrapped it from behind the pulley/seal. Checked the oil level, about 1 quart low, made sure that it was leaking. Started it up for about 5 minutes, lifting up on the throttle cable to see if oil was going anywhere. From what I could gather by looking, it looks as so maybe the seal is kinda pressed in from the belt and when the engine is running/reving oil is slowly spinning up towards the crank and making it wet. Not 100% sure yet, I'm gonna look at it some more. It was a good year gator back belt, 2 1/2 months old. What would cause this? Should I just remove the waterpump, take out the timing cover bolts and move it foward to check for anythingbehind the seal and then push it back to see if it sets properly? That's if its actually leaking.

 

i would get a new seal and check your tensionor and make sure it has a stop tab on each side to limit travel they are bad for braking!!!

 

might also want to invest getting your a/c compressor checked out
they have a tendency to lock up intermittenly

 

There was actually a TSB out about the compressor doing some wierd stuff. You might have it checked out. One of the symptoms of the compressor going out was the tensioner messing up.

I say pull the cover and put a new seal in it and be done with it.

 

replace the tensioner.... its worth the money.... just do it.... cause the bearing couold be bad too...

 

Anybody know how to replace the seal? Is it hard to do? How does the old one come out?

 

It comes out from the back. You will have to remove the front cover, knock the old seal out and press a new one in. You can either use a rubber hammer or some kind of soft blow hammer, or a piece of wood and a regular hammer. The key to getting the new one in is to make sure you get it going in EVENLY.