Broken serpentine belt, and possible cause?

[Vibrationalmuse]

I recently replaced the hydraulic fan in my 2000 LS with and electric one, and just left the pump and reservoir in. A few days ago, the pulley for the pump broke off and my serpentine belt just kind of fell off. I then decided to just get a shorter belt, and bypass the broken pulley for the now useless fan pump. I got it on and everything ran find until today when I tried to leave for work. The display screen said "Check charging system", which is exactly what it said when the original belt came off. So I got out to find that the new sepentine belt had broken. I used the exact size recommended by someone who did the same thing on this site, so I don't think it was too small. I then realized that last time I was under the hood, I accidentally left one of the sensors running into the air intake shroud thing unplugged. Could that be the reason the belt broke? Or should I try a slightly longer belt?

 

[fudge12]

Could be a number of reasons, but a sensor is highly unlikely to cause the belt to snap. You may have used an incorrect groove count, or more likely have just overtightened the tensioner.

 

[Vibrationalmuse]

I know the groove count was right, I made sure to bring the old belt into the store where I bought the shorter one, there were six on both. I'd feel pretty ridiculous if I just over tightened the tensioner.

 

[Vibrationalmuse]

Is that a pretty common mistake and result of doing it yourself?

 

[joegr]

Could be a number of reasons, but a sensor is highly unlikely to cause the belt to snap. You may have used an incorrect groove count, or more likely have just overtightened the tensioner.

How do you over-tighten (or even under-tighten or adjust at all) the automatic spring loaded tensioner? Is the first gen that different?

 

[Vibrationalmuse]

No it's not that different, I discovered it is indeed automatic. I accidentally put the belt on wrong, and it looks like two parts of the belt were running up against each other until it broke.