Tightening the A/C belt...

[Chiketkd]

Okay, I couldn't find this in the How-To Documents and svxfiles explained it to me over the phone, but I can't seem to find the right bolt to loosen.

Can anyone explain how it's possible to tighten up the A/C belt on our cars?

Many thanks!

-Chike

[Hocrest]

Just below the compressor is an arm with a bolt on each end.
The one end will clamp the arm somewhere in the span of the arc. The other bolt is the pivot. Both of these are 12mm.

- Loosen both of those bolts.
- Swing the arm Clockwise and tighten the "arc" bolt.
- Do what you need to the belts.
- Loosen the "Arc" bolt.
- Behind the "Pivot Bolt" there are wrench flats (17mm?). Get a wrench on there and use the wrench to tension the belt
- While holding tension on that wrench, tighten the "Arc Bolt"
- Tighten the Pivot Bolt.

[Chiketkd]

Thanks Dave. I'll be going to Autozone to buy some belt dressing during lunch and I'll give the AC belt a try.

Only part I'm still ambiguous about are those wrench flats you spoke of???? The pivoting arm and the two 12mm 'arc' and 'pivot' bolts are straight forward, but I've never seen anything to tension the belt with behind the pivot bolt???

Is this tensioner directly behind the pivoting bolt or slightly off to one side?

-Chike

[Hocrest]

The "Pivot Bolt" tightens though the center of the 17mm Wrench Flats.
You can't miss it

[Chiketkd]

Originally posted by Hocrest
The "Pivot Bolt" tightens though the center of the 14mm Wrench Flats.
You can't miss it

Merci!

-Chike

[svxfiles]

[Chiketkd]

A picture is worth a million words! Thanks Tom!
-Chike

[svxfiles]

I was not sure if the picture would show up, as Di was talking me thru the process over the phone.
The top Craftsman 12mm wrench is on the pivot "jam bolt"
The middle 17mm Craftsman wrench is the AC adjuster.
The bottom 12mm Stanley wrench is on the AC pulley "jam bolt"

[gsodonis]

Chicketkd,

I just installed a Dayle underdriven pulley yesterday and the belts and I have a suggestion. Do yourself a favor and replace the tensioner pulley jam nut (the one that has the single 12mm wrench in the picture above) with a new one if yours looks even remotely boogered up. The jam nut is in a bit of an awkward place an easy to strip if you're not careful. Mine was so badly boogered (previous owner), that I had to use a pair of vise grips after soaking the nut in WD40 for an hour. These are 6mm nuts and I bought a 6 pack of flanged serrated nuts from Pep Boys for around $1.99 (I replaced the jam nut on the power steering tensioner pulley while I was at it). Since you are installing new belts, you'll have to re-tighten them after they break in and now is the perfect time to ensure that you'll be able to do it easily.

[Hocrest]

17mm, yeah thats what I meant...

[Chiketkd]

Thanks a million Dave and Tom! I was able to remove, apply belt dressing and tighten back both accessory belts in about 25 minutes during my lunch. I would have cut the job time in half if I had ratcheting wrenches with me...

-Chike

P.S. For such a routine bit of maintenance, I'm surprised no one has created a How-To document for it yet...