newbie belt question

M

miatman

Guest
hey everyone, I need to get my serp belt off, but im not for certain how to go about it. I can see where the tensioner is, but im not sure how it works, do i just unscrew that bolt in the middle of it? I have a 96 disco

thanks!

adam
 

Tom in MD

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
149
0
Sarasota, USA
Please do not remove the bolt in the middle of the tensioner.

If you haven't done so already, remove the fan cover, you'll need the space. Take note of the belt routing. Draw yourself a picture. Put a wrench on the tensioner bolt and use enough force to remove tension from the belt. You'll need some leverage, so you may want to slip a piece of pipe over your wrench. I used my Hi-Lift jack handle. Once the tension is removed, the belt just slips off. Getting it back on is the similar, just hold the tensioner out of the way and slip the belt into place. Good luck !
 

Hoot

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
234
0
52
Bloomfield twp, MI
just changed mine for the first time last week....

miatman, i just did this last week so its fresh in my mind.

I hope this helps and makes sence. it's easier than my explanation makes it sound.

you need a 15mm socket, and a breaker bar or like mentioned above a length of pipe to go over your ratchet. you may also need an extension on your socket. With the tools i had i needed one because the clearance between the tensioner bolt and the fan blades was not wide enough. so i had to actually rotate the fan blades around to find a spacing between the blades that was large enough. ( the fins on the blade are not all equally spaced some blades are farther apart then others) if you don't see it right away the fan shroud has two quick release latches that hold it on. one on each side.

Just to clarify though the bolt you were talking about taking off is not the one you want to use. That bolt removes the whole pulley tensioner assembley. the one you want to use is to the right. The bolt that is in the center of the actual pulley.

place your 15mm socket on it and crank it clockwise until you have enough slack to slip it off the alternator then you can release the tensioner pulley and remove the whole serp belt.

you will find it hard to get the belt off of the large main drive pulley on the lower front of the engine because the clearances between that pulley and the fan pulley is really tight. I could not remove it while i was looking down on it from the engine bay. I had to climb under the front and twist the belt up so it was 90degrees to the pulley, so that i could wiggle it up and out between the two pulleys.

also definately make sure you make a drawing of the proper belt routing BEFORE you take the belt off. (i kept my drawing in the glove box so if for some reason it breaks i won't have to guess or worse rely on my memory.)

this is also just my 2cents but, if your old serp belt isn't completely shredded or sliced in half you can keep it in the back of your disco along with that 15mm socket and breaker bar, so if it breaks when you are on the road you can replace it with the old one and get home, and buy a new one.
 
C

campbell

Guest
Yeah, I wish I had this information two years ago when my dumbass paid the dealer $120 to change the belt.
 
M

miatman

Guest
thanks for the tips guys! I was able to get the belt on and off just fine. The reason i had to remove it was because i had to remove my steering pump. I dont know how this happend, but the 3 bolts that hold the pulley to the steering pump shaft somehow came out during driving. Actually, 2 of them came off and the 3rd one got torqued in half from the pressure of being the only bolt i guess. So i had to use an easy out to get the little bit of screw out of the hole and then find new bolts to put it back together again. So anyway, apparently i had been driving around for 2 days with nothing but the tension of the belt keeping the pulley on the axle. Phew!

Thanks again!

Adam
 

j_button

Well-known member
Apr 25, 2004
64
0
Dallas, TX
Wow, I guess my dealer was having a sale the day they quoted me $100. The answer was still the same; "No thanks, it can't be that hard".

Great description in the postings I'll order the belt today and get it done.