Serpentine belt removal

[Fishforthefuture]

Hello everybody can anybody tell me how hard it is to remove the serpentine belt on a 2002 landrover td5 defender and would I be able to do it for the first time and do I need to remove the fan and what tools are required and if the fan has to be removed how does one go about it Thanks

[Psimpson7]

Taking the fan off will make it a lot easier.

Draw a diagram of the path of the belt before you remove it.

Fan is normal thread. 36mm. Hit the spanner hard enough (to the left) and you shouldn't need the other half of the LR tool to lock the pulley still

To remove the belt, get a 15mm(I think) socket on a long bar and fit it to the bolt in the centre of the pulley and pull it way from the engine block to take the tension off the belt.

[Blknight.aus]

no need to pull the fan, and you should only need a 15mm R/oe spanner to lift the tensioner.

dont forget to check the play in every pully.

[superquag]

Make the 15 mm spanner a very long handle, either a suitably sized pipe, or an extra-long spanner. The extra leverage is worth its weight in gold!

And draw the diagram as has been suggested.... even take digital pics.:p

[feraldisco]

can I ask the same question of D2 Td5 belt...I carry a spare and a belt diagram but am dreading ever having to change it on the road. Is it similar to Defender? I've also heard that the belt rarely fails (and I treat mine regularly with belt conditioner) - is this the case?

[Blknight.aus]

Its identical (depending on your accessories) in layout and to change but its a little tighter in the engine bay.

[cols110]

You will find the lay of the belt is quite easily, you just have to remember to put the grooved side of the belt in the grooved pulleys & the back of the belt runs over the flat pulleys, when you look at it like that it is pretty easy to work out which way it goes.

Replacing it with 2 people makes life much easier, but if you need to do it yourself I find it easier to re-install the new belt using a larger breaker bar on the the tensioner, once the tensioner is fully released use a large tie wrap to hold the breaker bar in the de-tensioned state so you can then fit the belt. Even with the tensioner fully released it can be quite tight fitting the new belt so I have started backing off the 4 mounting bolts for the aircon compressor & pivot the compressor forward an inch or so, once the belt is in place re-tension the 4 compressor bolts & release the tensioner & your done. Just make sure it is sitting correctly in all of the grooved pulleys, if not you will probably throw the belt & normally when this happens it wraps itself around balancer between the timing cover & damages your front main seal. So just double check the alignment before you start it up.