I just replaced my alternator (easily, thanks to the help offered by people here.) Now I need to install the stupid belt... which I thought would be the easy part!

I don't have a repair manual, and I can't find any detailed information on how to do it properly online. The 1st gen seems to have a different setup, so the writeup on here for that doesn't offer much help.

I was able to find a diagram showing the procedure, but there were no details present.



From the look of that, I'm going to need a pretty long wrench. A ratchet clearly won't fit. The engine mount is in the way, so getting to the tensioner from the top seems to be out of the question as well. It seems the only option is to get under the car, remove the plastic bits, and hope I can move that stinkin' tensioner without dropping the car on myself!

Is there any easier way that I'm not aware of? I'm about to head to Harbor Freight to try to score a long wrench. The tensioner bolt seems to be 19mm. Is that correct?

 

most tensioners have a 3/8 drive square hole in them a standard ratchet moves them, I find the "sparkplug" ratchets with the hinge by the head plus a 4" offset bar will get most of them.

 

Got it on!

It was a pain in the arse, but I managed to do it. Jacking up the car was unavoidable, though I tried my best. Once I got the car up and the front passenger wheel off, I was able to unclip the plastic shield to be able to access the crank pulley. Back up top, I fed the belt around the crank and AC pulleys, and had my fiancee hold it in place.

Using a long 19mm wrench, I pulled the tensioner up and out of the way, which allowed enough slack for me to squeeze the belt onto the alternator pulley. That took some major effort, but once the belt popped on, it was all done.

Hopefully someone will find this info useful, since I didn't find anything terribly helpful in my search,

 

Thanks for the tip, you were right, I think the only way to get the belt on is to pull tire off and do it from below. Fought this for over an hour before pulling tire off. Took just a few minutes with the help of a friend after that.

 

You can do it from the top if you have a skinny enough arm... cause I did it.

- You have to blindly move the belt around the two bottom pulleys.
- Then tuck the belt under the tensioner and over the top pulley. Ignore the middle pulley for now.
- Put a 19mm closed end wrench on the tensioner, add a shaft to the wrench to make leveraging it easier, then push it towards the windshield. Try to start with the wrench angled as far towards the nose as possible so you can move the tensioner as far as possible.
- Once you've moved it a fair bit, hold it with one hand/arm. Then, with your other hand, move the belt around the middle pulley to get it into position.
- Then ease off on the wrench/tensioner and you should be done.

This allows you to do it by yourself... though in reality, there isn't much room for someone to help anyway. Even just having someone hold the wrench/tensioner, puts them in an awkward angle/position while the other person is moving the belt.

 

I also just completed this from the top myself. Only thing I would add to make life easier is remove bolt attached to top left of AC and loosen the bolt attached to bottom right of AC, this will give you extra belt room.

Here's the video that helped me out.