[ebne0018]

A little helpful hint for anyone doing there serpentine belt-

When you go to release the tension on the belt with a 1/2 inch extension there is a small hole on the backside of the tensioner where you can put a small allen wrench to hold the tensioner in a "relaxed" position.

This way you don't have to hold the tensioner when you are trying to put on the new belt.

This might be in the haynes manual but it isn't in the help guide on this site.

 

[jefspg]

I just did this tonight and I have some problems with the Haynes procedures.

first it says to rotate the tensioner anti-clockwise. This is incorrect. You have to move it clockwise. Second it says to use a 6mm drill bit, for me it would only take 4mm. :roll:

I ended up breaking the tensioner mount right off as I was pushing in the wrong direction. ;oops:

Luckily there was about 2mm left so I could still compress the tensioner and replace the belt.

I had to make a special tool to replace the tensioner pulley. It's very tight in between the bolt and the fender. All-in-all not too bad since it only has to be done every 60,000 miles!

 

[ebne0018]

I also broke the socket on the tensioner pulley used to remove the tension. Mine broke because we could not get the belt on and someone was constatnly pulling on the socket with a 1/2 inch extension.

In the end, we had to remove the pulley from the car, bolt it to a workbench and use a expandable pliers to rotate the tensioner and then get a allen wrench in.

After we got the tensioner back in the car we had to use the pliers again to move the tensioner so we could remove the allen wrench.