Serpentine belt and tensioner replacement - reassurance for those who're worried

[gjm 0]

On Thursday of last week, Carol dropped me off at work. As I got out of the car I thought I could hear a metallic rattling sound from the from offside of the engine. It went away while I listened for it, so I thought "better look at that this weekend"...

The following day Carol collected our daughter from school and went to buy fish and chips. On the way home she heard a bang and suddenly there were clouds of white smoke from the engine bay and the back of the car. Brake, pull over, switch off engine, hazard lights on.

I got a phone call - "There was a bang, lots of smoke, and it stinks!" - and got in my car and went to see what I could do.

Basically, the tensioner pulley had ceased to exist. There was a small stub sticking out where it should have been, coated in melted plastic. The belt was a mess but, amazingly, was still in place. Even if it was half on / half off a couple of the other pulleys.

Call the RAC. I couldn't recover a VR6 with my car, but they can! Man with an orange van was very quickly to the scene (busy road, nowhere to pull over, lady in car with tearful young daughter gets priority service) and immediately realised he wasn't going to fix it and brought car home.

Now the fun starts. What do I need to fix this? I've never done this before... A call to superVince told me I needed a belt and a tensioner pulley, and that I shouldn't worry as the chances of any damage were minimal to nil. Phew.

Saturday morning and a visit to GSF relieves us of most of £80 for a new belt and tensioner assembly. For those who've not done this before, this really was the most painful part of the process.

About now thanks are due to PeterVR6 for his piece about removing, greasing and replacing the tensioner. If at all possible, print this off and read it before starting work, but do read it. He mentions a T30 torx bit being required, but I didn't need one.

Briefly: Cut off the old belt. Undo three bolts securing old tensioner and (whats left of the) pulley. Spend an hour and a half cleaning other pulleys to remove bits of belt that have melted and welded themselves where they're not wanted (you'll need to lower the plastic cover from under the power steering pulley to do this properly - no need to remove it completely). Fit new tensioner and tighten fixings - don't lean too hard on your spanner or socket when doing this as 18lb ft doesn't require it - use a torque wrench to check appropriate torque. Fit M8 bolt into hole in top of tensioner (as per Peter's instructions) to compress the spring inside the tensioner. Fit belt (slight simplification as this is a bit fiddly but certainly far from impossible), remove bolt from tensioner and check belt is sitting correctly on pulleys. Run engine for a minute or two, check belt is still OK. Put tools away. Hurrah!

No more ratltle. It wasn't until after fitting the new tensioner and belt that I realised there'd been some sort of noise for a while and we'd not paid any attention to it.

All-up time for this - about 2 hours. This includes finding a suitable M8 bolt for adjusting the tensioner, finding my tools, and forgetting to refit the plastic cover for the PS pulley before driving the car - What is that scraping sound? :$ Fortunately there was no harm done and it refits easily enough.

Get out there. Check your belt and tensioner, paying particular attention to the tensioner pulley. Replace as necessary... Before it all goes noisily wrong! And refit the power steering pulley cover before driving away...

Graham

[Ch0yc3 0]

Thanks for the advice.

My VR6 has been making a godawful noise for a few weeks. When the bonnet's open it sounds a bit diesel like. My mechanic who serviced it reassured me that it was unlikely to be the timing chains, but more likely the serp belt needed replacing as it looks cracked. I'm just wondering a couple of things:

- Looking at a couple of forums, it seems the noise may not just be the belt, but the bearing in the tensioner part. Would that just need greasing? I've done quite a lot of miles since the noise started to occur, so would it more likely need replacing?

- If it did need replacing, is the bearing available separtely from the tenisoner as whole. I was looking at parts numbers, but I could only find US sites, none of which sold the bearing separately ones. This seems to be the whole kit:

http://www.pap-parts.com/prodinfo.asp?number=021%20145%20933%20H%20KIT

part number: 021 145 933 H KIT

Is it worth ordering from GSF or better to get it from VW Dealer/Alan Day?

Help!

[SiGainey 1]

Yeah, you can grease it, but it's better to replace it - an easy job either way.

I got a bearing from ebay for a couple of quid

[Ch0yc3 0]

I can't seem to find the bearinf on its own on ebay, or anywhere else for that matter. Does anyone know if it is sold separately from the tensioner as a whole. Originally I was just going to buy the belt for £20 - buying the kit with tensioner included looks more like £80. Where can I get the OEM bearing part?

[gjm 0]

PeterVR6's post tells you all about how to grease the bearing, but if it's started to make a noise it may be past this point already.

The tensioner we used came from GSF - a local VW specialist told me the GSF item is exactly the same as that supplied by VW, but comes in a different box. And costs half the price...

Vince at Stealth told me that the tensioner bearing is available on its own for some VW engines, but not for the VR6. The only option is to buy the whole tensioner. Didn't bother me much as we didn't have any pulley left anyway...

And don't forget the new belt too!

Graham