Auto news on Youtube Nov 28 2018

Rev up your engines, today I'm going to show you how you can replace

a part that goes out often in modern cars, the automatic belt tensioner, now older cars

like this 94 celica, they didn't have automatic tensioners, there were nuts and bolts that

were on the alternator in different parts and you'd have to loosen them to tighten the

belt and then tighten them down to make sure the belts were tight, but on all the later

model cars, there's one serpentine belt, it goes around everything and it has an automatic

tensioner that tensions it, with the one belt system it's almost impossible

for a human to adjust it correctly if it's a manual adjustment, you're either going to

get it too loose or too tight, these automatically do it some have springs,

this has a little shock assembly with a spring inside that pushes it up to make sure it has

the perfect tension, and like everything else, eventually they

wear out, in this case, it actually broke, because the factory one was a cheap pot metal

and the adjusting bolt that you put the wrench on to make it get loose so you can put the

belt on and then let go when it tightens up, it just snapped right off, there was a design

flaw in these toyotas, as you can see right here, that part is snapped right off, that's

suppose to be where the bolt is and it snapped off because it was cheap pot metal so we have

to replace it now, and although it's kind of hidden in there,

there's only one, two bolts that hold the whole thing in so I'm going to show you how

you can change it yourself, now in this case it's easier to access through

the bottom, so we'll take the tire out of the way, then we can access the bottom bolt

on that little shock part of it and take that off,

so we take that nut off, then you put a wrench here on the other end from the top, from the

top of the engine, and then loosen it up here from the bottom

because there's not any working room from the top but there's plenty of working room

on the bottom, then you wiggle it until it comes out,

here's the old broken one right here, you can see this part it broken off,

it was just cheaply made, you can see that nub has broken right off and this one is much

more solid piece, then you slide the new tensioner back in,

then you put the wrench on the bottom where it reaches to the top bolt and get that nice

and tight, and then put the bottom bolt on too, get that

nice and tight, and now of course you have to put the fan

belt back on, well I'm a mechanic so I've got data systems that can print out a picture

of it so I know where the belt goes, but if you're not a mechanic you got a phone,

before you take it apart and remember this before, take a picture of the belt then you'll

have a picture to see where it goes, because it goes over a bunch of pulleys and it only

goes one way, and the way you get it on is this, I get a nice long bar with a 19mm socket

on it, and the socket, it goes right over the adjuster nut so you can push it down and

get slack to get the belt on, and you pull down on the pry bar, and then

snap the belt on and voila it's now fixed, the old one with the broken piece on has been

replaced with a new one, the belt doesn't squeal and the alternator charges, just don't

forget to put the wheel back on, so the next time your automatic belt tensioner breaks

down, why not replace it yourself, even if it is raining outside, we all got umbrellas

somewhere, so if you never want to miss another one of

my new car repair videos, remember to ring that bell!