I was driving home last night, and notice a strange metallic rubbing/spinning noise from under the bonnet, the same noise could be heard today but intermittently, I was putting it down to water pump, PS pump, or ac clutch sytem.

Anyway my garage just listened with a stethoscope and reckons its the AC Belt tensioner/idler pulley.

Anyone ever had problems with this before? Is it easy to change?
I am going to remove the ACbelt tonight to make sure it is that before i go replacing anything else.

oh and dont tell me AC is for pussies

 

its not that hard to change, its just a biotch to get your hand down there.

easiest way would be to take both plastic peices off and go from there. but do not loose the spring that is with the tensioner.

 

Uhhh, there's a spring on the tensioner? Mine has a threaded adjustment shaft and lock nut; no springs? Please elaborate.

 

There is no spring. Just a pulley on a pivot bolt.

And it is a pain in the *** cause you have to take the lower motor mount loose to get the belt in and out. But irritating more than difficult.

 

I just replaced my A/C belt and there is no spring on mine either.

 

I think Baonest is thinking of the timing belt tensioner. The A/C idler pulley is not that hard to change out, and I have seen a few of them fail. Your approach to remove the A/C belt to see if the noise goes away is the right way, rather than just throwing parts in.

 

I am not too upset about pulling the belt because i need to replace the alternator belt anyway which would involve removing the ac belt. Do I have to loosen any engine mounts to do this?

 

Yep. The lower left mount needs to be removed to get the A/C belt off. Loosening the upper left mount helps get the lower mount low enough to clear the left chassis rail seam.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Asahi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
And it is a pain in the *** cause you have to take the lower motor mount loose to get the belt in and out. But irritating more than difficult.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

if the belt that is on there is fine... you don't have to remove the mount.
just replace the pulley and reuse the existing belt.

the alt. belt can be removed with little trouble (no mount work).

 

Exactly. If you need to replace the AC belt, you need to loosen the drivers side torque mount to put the new belt on. If you want to reuse the belt, you dont. Its just a pain to get your hand down there and match up the bolt to the threads through the pulley when youre putting on new idler.

You wont need to remove the AC belt to change the Alt. belt, just slide it off the pulley. Removing it entails taking the mount off.

Overall, its not difficult. Just a tad uncomfortable.

 

So I tackled this last night, i see why the engine mount has to come off to get the ac belt undone, but i snipped the belt instead my reasons for doing this were :-

1. I didnt have a deep enough socket to loosen the 12mm locknut that controls the AC pulley.
2. The belt wasnt in great shape anyway.

Glad i replaced my alternator belt at the same time my old one was not in a good condition! I also noticed my lower engine mount needs replacing, but doesnt look very difficult to do.

Anyway gonna run it like this for a week and see if the noise stays away.

Thanks HT

Thanks for your help HT people.

 

i thought i was the only one who went through this!
my friend grabbed the idle tension pulley or whatever you call it
with his batting gloves *engine was still hot*
i drove my car with the belt still on with no problems for like a week.
just a lot of slack on the belt.
then i got a really good knife with a serated edge to cut my A/C belt off
since i don't use it.
the car runs a lil better