I spent all day yesterday and hours today trying to figure out how to replace the alternator without replacing the tensioner again.
Almost everything that I find says to cut off the belt and replace the tensioner, but since my new tensioner failed the same way, this seems stupid.
Some people talk about slipping the belt off of an idle pulley instead of the alternator pulley, which doesn't require as much slack, but still, how do you get that much slack?
Virtually everyone calls the boss a fake bolt or nut welded to the assembly. Some people call it a dummy nut, but it is pressed into the aluminum.
Ever break an aluminum component?
One troll claimed that a guy making a video should have watched a couple of videos first in order to actually know what he was doing.
I watched 15 videos and while different people used different tools to apply pressure to the boss, everyone applied pressure to the boss.
Only Shouty mentioned the possibility of it breaking.
Everyone else was a better mechanic than Shouty?
The thing is, very many people complained they stripped or broke their boss, so this is definitely a problem.
I commented on the most recent videos of 20 car channels. It turns out that you aren't able to comment after that. It doesn't tell you anything, it just gives you an error when you try to find help elsewhere. All that I have received was a useless emojo and people telling me that I was asking in the wrong place.
I have received computer help from Meet Kevin's Discord channel. You just need to find knowledgeable people who are willing to help.
When I replaced the head gasket in my Forester it said to slowly compress the serpentine belt tensioner with a C clamp. I will see if I can maneuver one in there and tighten it, but I just ran across this:
Quote:
It took some serious improvising to get the belt on but used a short flat bar between the water pump pulley and tensioner pushing the bar back towards the firewall to get the tensioner to where I could slip the belt over the alternator pulley.
I had to force the flat bar by pushing on it with a short piece of pipe (conduit) and wedging it between the flat bar and the radiator support.
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I will give it a try!