Someone please save me from my own stupidity...
 

Well, I'm swapping in my "new" aircon compressor this evening. All is going well, until I notice that the other belt is a little loose (they were both changed about 5K miles ago, so I was not surprised). I immediately begin cranking on the tensioner bolt... without stopping to loosen the bolt on the idler pulley... and before I realize what I am doing, the tensioner bolt snaps in two. We're talking one or two swings of the ratchet here, and there is not too much range of motion right there anyway, so I have to believe it was already weakened from a previous idiot like myself not paying attention to what he was doing...

Anyway, I can't find a replacement part number on subaruparts.com. Anyone have any ideas? Is this a fairly standard animal that I will be able to find at my local auto parts store? I'm thinking I may be able to get a reverse thread bolt and nut, spin the bolt up to the proper spot and hit it with a spot weld to keep it from spinning.

Any help here would be appreciated. I am itching to get this thing running to find out if the new compressor did the trick or not...

Thanks
Mike

Just remove the entire tensioner pulley and retrieve the bolt from it, it should be loose enough to spin by hand. Good luck on finding a left-hand metric bolt in that length, unless you find an old tensioner to steal one from...;) Actually, you can probably figure a way to tighten the belt without using the tensioning bolt and just cinch down the center bolt to hold it in place.

Thanks, Beav :)

As soon as I got myself out of "panic mode", I had the same thought. A little judicious use of the "broken axe handle between pulley and shoulder while tightening bolt" technique worked out just fine.

The really good news is that the compressor works great. I got a R134A retrofit kit and charged it up, and for the first time since I bought the car, it blows ice cold air from the vents :D :D :D :D

Any long term negatives to using the R134A vs. the R12 as originally equipped?

OK, Mike, now I see why you wanted to practice on mine first.

Ron.