Alt/water pump belt tension

[Cyberkreig]

I need to relax the tension on the waterpump/alt belt. It looked simple enough, one bolt above the altinator, one bolt on the left of the same bracket.. but there seems to be one bolt, like a bottom piviot bolt underneath the car near the drain plug.. the thing simply wont move.. is this the right bolt?

[pgt892]

I need to relax the tension on the waterpump/alt belt. It looked simple enough, one bolt above the altinator, one bolt on the left of the same bracket.. but there seems to be one bolt, like a bottom piviot bolt underneath the car near the drain plug.. the thing simply wont move.. is this the right bolt?

The pivot bolt is on the bottom of the alternator. There should be a bolt on the face of the alternator facing the radiator, however, on mine I had to loosen the nut on the back of the pivot bolt which was on the rear of the alternator facing the firewall. It was a real biatch to do but it had to be done. If yours is the same way you have to crawl under the car and take a wrench to the nut and loosen it a little. Let us know if that works.

[Cyberkreig]

ok.. that is the bolt i am talking about.. it is being an absoulute Beeeatch. I've got a decent angle on it it is just on there way way tight.. i hit it with some wd40 and now i am having a soda break

[BuudWeizErr]

There is a bracket that has two bolts on it. One bolt tightens faces the radiator and the other faces the framerail. They are both "above" the alternator. Loosen the bolt on top that faces the radiator, then loosen the one that faces the framerail. The more you loosen that one, the more you can move the alternator back and forth.

[Cyberkreig]

I did that buud, but the thing wont budge.

[Cyberkreig]

This shows the two bolts i got loose as per buuds instructions.

here is teh bolt on the bottom that wont move.

[Cyberkreig]

I just un did the water pump pully bolts and ripped it strait out.. something tells me that wont work for re-assembly..

[BuudWeizErr]

Wrong.

[BuudWeizErr]

Loosen the one on the right, then loosen the one on the left. The more you loosen the one on the left, the more the alternator will move around. The one on the left faces the frame rail.

[180fan]

well you might have to losen the bolt that's holding the alternator at the bottom for it to move around. my sr was having that same problem, loosened the lock and the tensioner bolts but it wouldn't move around. so loosened the lower bolt on the alternator and it moved around freely.

[Cyberkreig]

Buud - Thanks smartass. Look at the picture again. It clearly shows that both of the circled bolts are ALREADY loose.

[Touchdown038]

Cyberkreig: You're talking about the long through bolt with the odd-shaped nut on the other side right? That thing was a biatch on my car also, but a 24" or so long torque wrench finally busted it loose. Crazy weird shaped bolts.... ugh.

EDIT: Sorry didn't see this was for the SR, might be the same though.

[pgt892]

Yeah that bolt on the bottom was a real biatch for me too. I finally got it loose after much swearing, bloody knuckles, and brute force. I just got under the car and used an open ended wrench, it slipped off a couple of times and I was worried that I was going to strip the nut, but it eventually came off after I figured out which way was loose. I tightened it up the first time I turned it, but got it loose the next time. The way I was laying on the concrete and the force I was using to move the nut left my shoulder and back sore with a couple of bruises the next day.

[BuudWeizErr]

You guys are seriously having this hard of a time getting it loose? Didn't you at least take the belts off when you were swapping the motor in?

[MojoMan]

Ya'll are forgetting about the bolt on the backside of the bracket above the alternator just on the backside. You can undo the one facing the block and the one facing the firewall all you want and its not going to budge until you losen it. Its very simple once you figure that part out. I did the same thing the first time.

[180fan]

it shouldn't be too bad to loosen that bolt, go under the car and with a pipe put it to the back of your ratchet and pop the little bugger off. fun stuff the breaker bar. I was at the junkard one day and saw a guy walking around with a caddy driveshaft that was cut so it was basically a huge pipe. He picked up a car with the fork lift, started cutting stuff apart with a huge knife on the underside then crammed a crowbar above the fuel tank. Then he put the driveshaft on the crowbar and plowed that sucker out. When it fell my jaw dropped along with it and on his face was a big satisfied grin. Now I never go to the yard without my pipe aka breakerbar. hee hee hee.