Project Big Horn

[Senor_Taylor]

Who knows, maybe the alternator belt is just loose.

[Deceus]

The alternator on my 2011 Challenger with the 5.7 went out around 50,000 mile as well. They've had a couple recalls regarding alternators now so it's not surprising.

[Ryan T]

Forgot to ever update this. I took the serpentine belt off and cleaned everything up, along with the contacts on the alternator. Put the same belt back on and no more problems. Been a month and no more charging issues.

[Ryan T]

Forgot to update this thread back when this happened in November. So the truck has about 62k miles on it now and I’m still really happy with it. Over the month or two prior to this happening it had started to develop a light whining sound. I checked all the pulley’s and such and didn’t find anything of major concern, but I tried to keep my eye on it. On November 12, I was going to meet some coworkers for a movie in Bristol, about 10 miles from my house. As I was coming up the hill to the exit I heard something let loose and bounce underneath the truck and out the back. My first thought was, “well, that isn’t good” and about 10 seconds later my battery light came one. I turned the radio down and heard some squealing. If you’ve ever heard a serpentine belt squealing in the rain before, imagine that, but 10x louder. I was about a quarter mile from the exit so I went ahead and got off the interstate. I could smell something rubber burning coming through the vents. My coworker lives about 1/2 mile off the interstate and has a big covered drive under carport (it was raining). I limped it there, left it, and we went to the movies. When I came back I opened the hood and saw a serpentine belt about 1/2 the width of what it should be. I also saw a belt tensioner pulley missing. The pulley had disintegrated and left the belt spinning on just the bearing the pulley was mounted on. It had shredded about half the belt, but amazingly enough of the belt stayed in tact enough to run everything else. Never lost AC, power steering, or anything else. My coworker drove me to autozone where I bought the belt and pulley and we replaced it at his house in about 30 minutes (after several shots of vodka), and I was on my way. It’s run great ever since and the whine is gone.

Here’s a picture of the bolt that the failing pullley took a bite out of, the bearing that it spun on long enough to create enough heat to change colors, and the outer housing that somehow hung on and didn’t fly out the back at 80mph. The metal above the bearing in the pic is what was shredding the belt. It almost ripped it all the way off, not sure how that small area managed to hang on, but it did.