I have a 94 deville sedan with the 4.9l engine! 2 major problems i need help with.(1) the drive belt fell off the other day and my car is sitting in a parking lot! i tried putting the belt back on myself but the belt is about 6in!!!! too lose! what happened! could the belt of stretched! or is there a tensioner that i need to adjust (but a 6in gap is large)! i didnt buy a new belt becasue the one that fell off was purchased a few months ago and is in great condition! look brand new i inspected it after ti fell off and looked fine it is just too big. should i buy new belt and then take it to a mechanic? i dont want to pay to get the car towed! and second (2) the radiator has problems it was leaking and it got more sever and sever! about a week ago it stopped leaking! there was two leaks. one was at the bottom of the radiator the other was on a connecting hose that began to squirt radiator fluid all over. during the time period it was squirting i don't think any coolant was getting to the engine. the engine started smoking from the exhause manifold and i could smell oil burning! i stopped driving the car! the oil is full but it is EXTREMELY dirty i needed to drive the car as an emergency and thats when the radiator stopped leaking and everything seemed fine untill the belt fell off.... whats going on? the car isn't worth much and repairs are being avoided as much as possible. what should i do to keep it running and dependable for at least another month. any help would be great! Thanks!
Surge

The 'gap' in the belt means you missed a pulley when putting it back on. Look at the stickers in front of the radiator for the proper belt routing. It may have fallen off due to the tensioner sprong wearing out or a bad bearing in one of the driven components (water pump?) causing the pulley to be misaligned with the others.

So, the radiator leaked and you kept driving until it stopped leaking? Great. It stopped leaking because it RAN OUT of coolant. You may very well have blown a head gasket.

Your post was very hard to read.

I believe posts like that should be ignored. If the poster does not care to use punctuation and whole post looks like one poorly composed sentence why in the world we should care to help?

I believe posts like that should be ignored. If the poster does not care to use punctuation and whole post looks like one poorly composed sentence why in the world we should care to help?

It does makes it hard to help the person and follow the course of troubleshooting but I can get past that.... What REALLY kills me is seeing a nice car ruined or an engine destroyed due to simple automotive naivety. :nono:

some people shouldn't be allowed to have a car if that's the way there going to treat it

Sorry about the poor post. It was last minute and I just moved to a new city so I have been living basically in and out of my Cadillac and haven't had access to internet much so the post was rushed. I appreciate the help, but the Radiator Fluid was always kept full even when the radiator was leaking, always added radiator fluid before and after driving the car. It was only driven under when absolutely needed until the belt fell off. I followed the diagram under the hood and it is not missing any pulleys. The belt is simply just too long (all of a sudden). I can't explain why it doesn't fit anymore. The radiator has stopped leaking and and the radiator fluid is full and has stayed that way since a week or so ago. The engine ran fine until belt fell off despite the radiator problem.

**ignore the "under"...

Also the belt fell off while i was at a red light. I heard a grind and a pop! under the hood. People looked over and I knew something was wrong. I didn't expect it to be the driving belt since after I took off from the red light the car ran fine, except the power steering was out. It was so weird that the car was able to run at all not to mention move when I gave it gas. I pulled over at the next parking lot and notice the belt was off all of the pulleys and just sitting there completely intact.

I believe posts like that should be ignored. If the poster does not care to use punctuation and whole post looks like one poorly composed sentence why in the world we should care to help?

Yeh,it's a little hard to read,but I've seen far worse than this, he did use
exclamation mark between sentences to break them up.

I appreciate the help, but the Radiator Fluid was always kept full even when the radiator was leaking, always added radiator fluid before and after driving the car.

Well thats good. You may be in better shape than I thought.

Serpentine belts have a number of nylon cords molded into them and they are very rigid. Theyre about as elastic as a seatbelt so I really cant see one stretching 6 inches or even half that w/o breaking. Something is definitely out of whack. I would buy a new belt for your car and compare the sizes. Youll need one anyway after all the abuse the previous belt has been through.

How does the automatic belt tensioner feel? It should be almost impossible to pull it up by hand. If the spring inside is loose or broken, it would definitely let the belt fall off and would make it appear that the belt is too long...

When the belt is off, check all the accessories by hand making sure they are all tight. Try your best to see that they are all lined up straight.

Check the water pump pulley especially - the belt wraps around it on its flat side plus the pulley itself has no guides to keep the belt from slipping off. If the pulley is misaligned just a tiny bit, that belt will easily slip off. Make sure the w/p pulley spins freely and smoothly... If the bearings are bad it can cause the pump to lockup briefly, possibly chucking the belt.

Radiator - the lack of coolant flow from the belt slipping off may have over pressurized the cooling system and that extra pressure will find the easiest place to come out. Normally that place is the radiator pressure cap but if the cap is old and frozen shut it wont do its job so the pressure found the next easiest spot to blow out.

Get a new radiator cap for your car they're cheap. I believe you need a 16psi but look it up anyway. And very importantly, go get 2 tubes of Bar's Leaks Gold Seal powder and put them into the radiator(not the plastic tank). All the leaking and refilling has probably thrown the mix out of whack. You might be running straight antifreeze or straight water depending on what you were topping it off with. Dont ever put city or well water in it, theyre full of deposits, chemicals, and minerals that can attack the metal inside. I would change the thermostat also just to be safe and inspect the upper and lower hoses and clamps. Theres no room to f**k around with the cooling system on these cars.

Once you get the belt problem sorted out, drain the coolant from the entire system, and refill with a 50/50 mix of DISTILLED water and GREEN antifreeze. Then add 2 more tubes of gold seal powder.

Good luck....

You didn't put the belt on right if its too long. The way they put the picture is confusing so you probably looked at it the wrong way. They have it twisted sideways or something. I had the same problem before with it being too short or too long and there are a bunch of other posts around from other people complaining about it too.

Thanks for the help. I still have to check the belt and the radiator again! I know however that I did put on a new radiator pressure cap less than a year ago. I would say in March it was changed. I don't think I would need a new one already. As for the sealant that you recommended, thanks.