really stupid question re drive belt replacement

There should be one wheel that can be moved to tension the belt. Some are automatic and some tou have to push to the side then tighten the bolt. Others may be able to help more, i am not familiar with the car :-( HTH

when you put it round the pulley's, one of them will have an adjuster on it to take the slack up if you don't know what you are doing, you will have to invest in becoming friends with someone who does, overtightening the belt will screw bearings and undertightening it will mean flat batteries and lots of squealing

most common belts have lots of little grooves in them and there is a tensioner wheel that is spring loaded, so putting a spanner or a long power bar on it will move it enough to slip the belt over everything else

if you have the older V belts these need the first method of fitment, as in you need to undo one of the alternator bolts to give it some slack before putting the belt on and tensioning the belt upto spec before retighting the bolts

it is also conceivable that you have purchased the wrong belt, there are numbers on the side which corespond to the length (in mm) the belt is, if the old belt is a lot shorter, this might also be a factor in why it doesn;t fit

let us know how things go :)

The smooth wheel is often the tensioner and that should press on the outside of the belt - so the belt will go round it the other way to the rest of the wheels.

That wheel will either be springloaded or adjustable.

HTH.

The routing is not always obvious to a non mechanic (and on some cars even to mechanics). IIRC for your car:

The belt will go clockwise around the crankshaft pulley and the alternator and the power steering pump, but anticlockwise around the tensioner pulley. Put the belt around the crank pulley, the tensioner and the alternator then turn the tensioner pulley by means of the nut on it, with a long spanner (15mm) you need to apply pressure ( clockwise ) to move the sprung loaded tensioner pulley so that there is full slack available on the tensioner/belt, this allows the last bit of belt to be slipped on over the power steering pulley.

mrcheerful

it's probably spring loaded see if there is a hole in the middle (for perhaps an allen key) or a nut (various sizes) so that you can turn the tensioner they are spring loaded as a rule if they are on newer cars, the bolted and tensioed ones tend to be for the timing belts

I've heard Porsche 928 belts are "interesting".

Si

I heard right:

wow!

I believe the expression is "Ufck that for a game of soldiers!" :o)

Si

I like the bit where it says "remove the front of the engine" :) along with about 500 other things you've got to do :)

We struggled with this for a while and gave up and took it to a garage. Turns out that to get the belt on you have to remove the wheel arch interior and the chasis engine mount strut whilst supporting the engine itself on an engine jack! No way we could have done this at home. Also required a different belt to the one we were sold not a standard belt. Makes you wonder if modern cars are not deliberately complicated to force you to go to a dealership? ali

well, at least you got it sorted then :) just have to ask though, the way you routed it round the pulley, was that the right way or not looking at it now?

Yes we had the right route direction wise it was just we had shoved the belt between the strut and the bottom wheel, turns out the strut had to be removed, the belt put round the wheel then the strut inserted back inside the belt. Without cutting the belt we couldn't have got it into this position and we just don't have the equipment to do all the dismantleing required. Took the mechanic, on a ramp with air powered tools and the correct knowledge a good 20 mins. ali