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This thread is a bit old but I wanted to add my comments because I read a lot of different opinions and I'll tell you what worked the best for me. This is the second time installing a stretch belt on my AC pulley.
The first time I did this I used a belt from AutoZone, I believe, And I used those little plastic tools for guiding the belt into the grooves. It was quite easy and I did it really fast. However, this time I used a belt by gates from O'Reilly because I couldn't find any belt in stock from any other manufacturer. I wanted to use the original Delco part but it was not an option this time. I went to use the same tool and installed a belt the same way as previous but this belt seemed to be shorter than the last one. It ended up snapping my plastic tool in half only a quarter of the way around the pulley. I decided to read about it, talk to a couple mechanic friends, and try again.
I was at O'Reilly purchasing something else and I saw that they had a tool specifically for installing stretch belts, and aluminum thing that supposedly clamps to the pulley. In my case with the LS3 it did not work at all and I ended up returning it. The thing that worked better than any plastic tool I had before was four zip ties. I just strapped it to the pulley and then turned the engine over by hand. The first time it went around, on the AC pulley it ended up being off by one groove so I just kept turning by hand using my left hand to guide the belt and my right hand to turn the engine.
This whole process, even with the belt being off by one groove initially, took less than 5 minutes. I was shocked how easy it was. If you open a service manual for this engine and look up stretch belt, you should just see a photo of four zip ties. Honestly, this is the way to do this install. Anything else, any other tool you can use, is more expensive and is going to just make you angry. Four zip ties and you're done.
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