HELP! Nightmare Fan Belt Change

[800Days]

One of the fan belts snapped and so I ordered two new ones from Roughtrax. What is a straight forward change has become a proper mission.

The alternator is loose and pushed down as far as it will travel on the adjusters/tensioners. The unbroken old belt came off easy, but the new belts are mm's too short to push over the high spot on the alternator pulleys.

I'm thinking of un-doing all the alternator bolts (one and the tensioner, I think?) completely, effectively removing it, shifting the alternator at an angle to hook the belts over and then trying to remount it with the belts on the pulley.

Once on the pulley's I should have a fair bit of play in the position of the alternator as the belts will be over the 'high spot' on the pulleys and sat in the pulley valley's.

Is this do-able? Does anybody see any problems with my prospective solution?

Thanks in advance.

[stormforce]

undo the tensioner completely but don't take the alternator off as it will be a pain to put back on.Just make sure its really loose and pushed as far down as possible to get the belts on and then tension it up

[800Days]

undo the tensioner completely but don't take the alternator off as it will be a pain to put back on.Just make sure its really loose and pushed as far down as possible to get the belts on and then tension it up

The alternator is as loose as it gets, the tensioner is completely undone and the alternator pushed as far down as it will go and still the belts are mm's too short.

[stormforce]

Its a case of a bit of elbow grease to get the belts to slide over the pulley's but they will go on

[800Days]

Literally tried everything and they still won't go. I've taken the alternator off (it was seriously tight) and hooked them round the pulley just having a bit of a mission to get it back in.

Does anyone know...?

Where the alternator bolts to the engine, it looks like there is a spacer that pulls tight when you tighten up the main alternator bolt. It would be handy if this is the case so I can make the gap where the alternator bolts to the engine a touch bigger, giving me a little more room to play with.

Can anyone confirm this?

what should be a 30 min job is turning into hours....

[TonyN]

There's no adjustment on the mount, you could file it a little if its tight, but don't make it loose.

Its really the hard way of doing it, I've never been able to not the belts on the alt, the A/C is different... lol

Even the tightest ones you can get them 1/2 on, then turn the crank pully to get them on.

Are you sure there is nothing stopping the alt moving all the way in?

The pivot bolt is slightly behond the belts when its mounted up so they are going to be in the way of gettign the bolt in, as well as the alt being a tight fit in the mount, like Rich said, it'll be a bugger to back on with belts over the pulley.

If the belts just arn't going to go, I'd try mounting them on the water pump pulley, and fitting that rather than the alt pulley, would be much easier.

[800Days]

I had tried everything and they just wouldn't go. In the end took the alternator off and hooked them over and put the alternator back on.

There is a little tightening washer/shim in the front alternator mount that pulls tight up against the alternator when you tighten the bolt. This was pretty much jammed in but I managed to make the gap where the alternator sits a touch bigger by pushing it back in again by tightening a little nut/bolt/washer combo to push it back in.

Everything is back together and the batteries are at the correct charge when the engine is running, so everything is as it should be, just took 4 hours rather than 30 mins.

The air con belt was a bit tight but nothing on the fan belts.

Thanks for everyone's help.

[Hesh]

hijack but it is related..

HELP! whilst doing the same fan belt change .....

when pushing down on the alternator the bar o was using to push it has gone through the vents onthe alternator casing.

not sure if any damage has been done to the coils., when looking in with the engine running i can see orange sparks fromthe coils area but unsure if this is normal and just more visable cos the casing cooling duct is more open.

need to drive the thing to london tomorrow back to work and now i dunno if its safe or not?

[Kiwisurfing]

Too late as you have done it now but....
My trick is a power bar on the main pully so you can turn the engine by hand, pry a little of the belt over the alt pulley and then turn the engine with the power bar and let it roll its self on

DISCONNECT BATTERY FIRST!!!!!!, you dont want sparks from alt or worst case engine trying to fire up from you turning it over by hand with you still holding the power bar!!!!