Hello again Brickboarders,

My question concerns the pivoting tensioner pulley (not the fixed one) in the timing belt area. There's a nut (13 mm socket) inside the pulley, and I'm hoping it's on a stud that's WELDED to the bracket (or a bolt that is anti-rotated). If it's a loose bolt that has to be held on the back side when replacing the pulley, I'm screwed because I can't remove the bracket - the pivot point has a useless T45 torx with hardly any depth to it - I tried but no way I'm gonna get that off.

So ... anyone know for sure if the pulley stud is welded or otherwise anti-rotated on the back side? If it's not, I'm leaving the pulley alone because the bearing feels reasonably tight, and I don't want to risk not being able to re-tighten the nut.

Thanks
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1998 S70 T5, 5-speed, 203000 miles

Well, upon closer inspection, the tensioner pulley bearing was not as good as I thought ...

So I removed the pulley, and sure enough, my fears are confirmed: the stud is actually a loose bolt that requires a socket on the back side, inaccessible without removing the bracket, which I can't do because the torx head pivot bolt is all bunged up! I put the new pulley on, and the nut will not tighten because the bolt head is turning. Just as I thought. I tried a split lockwasher under the nut, as I've had success with this method to stop bolts from turning - but still no luck.

An air ratchet would probably solve my problem, but ... don't have one of those, so I'm going to try a bolt with a serrated flange. Gonna be hard to replace that bolt, but do-able I think.

Any other ideas, please let me know.



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1998 S70 T5, 5-speed manual, 210000 miles

Solved. Was able to remove the bolt, placed an external tooth lockwasher under the head, and she locked right up.
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1998 S70 T5, 5-speed manual, 210000 miles