Replacing a serpentine belt in a CR-V or Civic
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Honda-Tech Member
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Replacing a serpentine belt in a CR-V or Civic
Hopefully, this will help someone wrestling with a Honda serpentine belt. The newer Hondas may not have this issue, but mine sure did!
I now have two Honda cars, a 2002 Civic Si and a 2007 CR-V. They have similar serpentine belt configurations on the passenger side with very little room to work on them. The CR-V nad a power steering pump that the Civic doesn't have.
The first time I replaced a belt on the Civic, I spent nearly two hours wrestling with it - there's just NOT ENOUGH ROOM to get most wrenches on the tensioner, and once I got a wrench on it, there's wasn't enough room to move it a more than an inch or so.
I had to put the belt on and off of my CR-V serval times recently, and I finally found a way to make it a little easier, using a tool similar to this:
First I put the tensioner around all the pulleys except the bottom driveshaft harmonic balancer pulley - I put that on with a screwdriver to hold it in place. Next I removed the power steering reservoir then put a 15 mm (yours may be 14 mm) offset box end wrench on the tensioner nut. Then I put the extender on the wrench and using a 1/2 inch drive socket wrench I was able to pull the open end wrench around much farther. I tied the socket wrench off (no helper) and was able to put the belt on the harmonic balancer pulley easily.
The wrench extender is a handy tool, makes it a lot easier to put the serpentine belt on.
I now have two Honda cars, a 2002 Civic Si and a 2007 CR-V. They have similar serpentine belt configurations on the passenger side with very little room to work on them. The CR-V nad a power steering pump that the Civic doesn't have.
The first time I replaced a belt on the Civic, I spent nearly two hours wrestling with it - there's just NOT ENOUGH ROOM to get most wrenches on the tensioner, and once I got a wrench on it, there's wasn't enough room to move it a more than an inch or so.
I had to put the belt on and off of my CR-V serval times recently, and I finally found a way to make it a little easier, using a tool similar to this:
First I put the tensioner around all the pulleys except the bottom driveshaft harmonic balancer pulley - I put that on with a screwdriver to hold it in place. Next I removed the power steering reservoir then put a 15 mm (yours may be 14 mm) offset box end wrench on the tensioner nut. Then I put the extender on the wrench and using a 1/2 inch drive socket wrench I was able to pull the open end wrench around much farther. I tied the socket wrench off (no helper) and was able to put the belt on the harmonic balancer pulley easily.
The wrench extender is a handy tool, makes it a lot easier to put the serpentine belt on.
