Removing serpentine belt on Audi A6 V6 2.6 litre (1995)

pull on the belt, see which bit moves, put a spanner on that bit and pull or push to relieve the tension

also most serpentine belt tensioners have a hole through both parts where you can insert a locking pin to take the tension off the belt & help with fitment.

Try audi forums, IIRC you turn the tensioner with a set of grips & stick a pin in the hole to stop the tensioner springing back, if it does, you need a new one. Robert Bentley will sell you the manual,

is the full audi us service manual & for £50 reallt beats Haynes. Or you can buy bits of it from VAGs erwin.

And so indeed it turned out. The belt just slips on and off with a turn of the spanner and the tensioner is self-tensioning.

Now, having removed the tensioner from the car and removed the roller from the tensioner, I am faced with the problem of removing the bearing from the roller. I can get a bearing for about =A312, while a new complete tensioner is over =A3100. It seems that even if I bang out the old bearing, I will need a press to fit the new bearing. So, I may as well find a garage with a bearing press to do both, rather than risk damaging the roller or bearing or both doing it myself.

Thanks, the Bentley manuals are indeed superior. However, it seems the V6 2.6 litre engine (engine code ABC) was never released in the States (they went for the 2.8 litre version), so there is no manual for this car.

Ah, ERwin is not exactly your friend, but it is only about a tenner.

Normal trick is to press it out with a vice & two suitable sized sockets & press it back in again with the old bearings outer race.

Yes, I think a garage press might be overkill. The bearing's only about 1.5 inches diameter. I have a 4 inch G-clamp which looks like it'll do the trick.

A vice is easiest, G clamps don't even approximate to holding things square. Or a bolt & two large washers, if you know any electricians or plumbers unistrut washers work well.

Unfortunately, the roller turned out to be a sealed unit and the bearing couldn't be removed. Still, I was able to get a replacement roller (made by QH) for =A336 from a factor, which is a lot less than the replacement cost of the whole tensioner!