Changed the serpentine belt on my 2013 JKU

I have just over 100k miles and I will soon be making a long road trip, so I decided just as part of regular maintenance to change the serpentine belt on my 3.6 Pentastar engine. It looked a little daunting but it really was not too bad. It took a total of about 40 minutes.

It is helpful to remove the plastic air dam under the Jeep so that you can see the tensioner better. I have read that people had trouble compressing the tensioner.

If you do not have a serpentine belt tensioner tool, get one. It is long so it gives you a lot of leverage to compress the tensioner. 

I got under the Jeep and got the stud on the tool inserted into the square hole on the tensioner and it was pretty easy to compress. I used a ratchet strap to hold the tensioner compressed while I got on top of the engine to remove the belt.

From up top, you must remove the alternator to remove the belt. The way the alternator bracket is made, you cannot get the belt out or back in unless the alternator is removed. 

But it is easy, there are just 4 bolts that hold it on. Oh, you need a 15mm socket to remove two of the alternator bolts. It is not usually included in a socket set so make sure you have one when you get started woing this work. 

So you remove those bolts and leave the wiring connected and move the alternator out of the way. You also need to remove the air intake duct from the throttle body to the air filter box so that you can get to the belt. 

Then just work the old belt out of there and work the new belt back around the pulleys. Once the belt is correctly around the pulleys, you can release the ratchet strap and let the tensioner put tension on the belt again. Then reinstall the air intake duct and the plastic air dam and you are done.