Need some advice. TJ problem

was out wheeling here in alaska and my serpentine belt decided to squeal and on my drive back home my check gage light came on the battery gauge went into the red and the temperature begin to heat up and I lost power steering so I pulled over to the side of the road and checked under the hood and the serpentine belt had come off. When I went to put the belt back on using the manual tensioner the belt did not align between the tensioner pulley and the harmonic balancer pulley. The harmonic balancer pulley seems to be further towards the rear of the vehicle then the tensioner pulley. When I bump the motor it kicks the belts off every time. Does anyone have any advice on how I can fix this will post some pictures in the morning. And it is a 2004 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon TJ 4.0 inline 6 automatic transmission with AC. Thanks

The squealing could be the tensioner or idler pulley going bad. It may be frozen or have a lot of drag. Also if the belt is stretched it will be too loose allowing it to jump off. Lastly verify installation diagram and which side of the belt touches each pulley.

I'm guessing the rubber between the crank pulley and hub separated causing the pulleys to be out of alignment

cougarlasch said:

I'm guessing the rubber between the crank pulley and hub separated causing the pulleys to be out of alignment

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I'm thinking that you are referring to the type of pulley that is on the crankshaft of a ford tempo. Where as there is rubber between the part of the pulley that goes on the crankshaft and the outside of the pulley the belt rides in. I think that was an exclusive screw up by ford, and I don't think it is used on other vechicles.

I believe the rubber is used on most harmonic balancers, and I would inspect yours for going bad, causing the harmonic balancer to shift on the shaft.

Ok, that makes sense as to what the problem is. I had thought it was just a ford issue .

Did you hear a rattleing noise just prior to the incident ?

check your timing cover for damage. in extreme cases. the damaged part of the pulley can damage the timing cover.

Have you replaced the belt or just tried to put the old one back on?

You need to determine why the ring failed if it did. There are many reasons but if not fixed it will happen again.
Some items to consider:

Oil leak
Dry rot
Frozen or restrictive a/c or water pump pulley

Did you eventually figure out what the problem was?