The power steering belt is a piece of cake. For the alternator/water pump belt, you will need to disconnect a coolant hose running from your expansion tank. I usually siphon the coolant from the tank before starting this job. Makes less of a mess. This is a fairly easy job that most do-it-yourselfers can handle. Chip
-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf Of Jim Felder Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 6:42 PM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Replacing Belts
As for your original question, you can do this yourself. I've done it some time ago. Your job will be made easier not having an air conditioner to contend with. Just get the right belts (you can assume yours are stock for your year car if nothing's been modified) and take off the front one to get to the back one. Have an appropriate stick to use as a lever--and a friend if you can round one up--to help retension the belts. A hammer handle works for me. Don't get them too tight or too loose. Pay attention to the bentley manual and to the tension of the belts before they come off, at least you can use that as a "not looser than" guide when the new ones go on. Tensioning belts is something the shop can POTENTIALLY do better than you, but I've never had it done by a shop in my life. You can always retension if they slip or squeal, just don't tighten too much. Jim |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.