I am replacing all the belts on the car with new BMW items. The tensioners are a great design, with sawtooth track above the slot and a toothed 19mm 'nut' that walks along the track until the belt is tensioned and then locked off with the 13mm on the other end of the coach bolt that goes through it. All three of my tensioners (alternator, power steering and compressor) had worn sawtooth brackets and damaged toothed nuts so I have been replacing the lot with new BMW items.
Both the reconditioned alternator and steering pump now have all new brackets, fixings and belts but I am struggling with the compressor. Firstly the bracket is no longer available but I got around this by cutting out the damaged sawtooth, carefully cutting out the good section of sawtooth from the old steering belt tensioning bracket and welding it into the compressor bracket. Took all evening but it worked out well and have to say it looks great with a coat of zinc paint.
However, my smug mode did not last long as even with the compressor moving freely AND the adjuster bracket not fitted yet, the belt was a bugger to remove. I had to gently lever it off using a screwdriver! I suspected the belt must not be the right size so opened the packet containing the new BMW belt and found that my old one was the same part but the new one is slightly smaller, due to being new. There is no way I can get this belt on!
As I see it right now, I reckon I have two options:
- Remove the compressor top bolts or the whole bracket so I can tip the compressor to fit the belt (a challenging job with the car on jack/stands and no access to the RHS of the engine bay as it is against the wall).
- Find a slightly larger belt (but this might effect my ability to tension the belt as there was not much left on the rather short adjuster to allow for this.
Thanks,
Ian