Auxillary drive belt

[Phil her up]

Hi

I am going to replace the auxillary drive belt on my 1.9D Alhambra (52 plate). I can see the tensioner clearly enough at the top of the engine - does anyone have any advice or tips on doing the job please. Dare I say it - at a glance it looks as though it should be fairly straight forward?

Thanks

Phil

[Phil her up]

Well I got the job done ok and for those that may be interested: -
As with many jobs, it is much easier done on a ramp.
Firstly I removed the large plastic tray under the engine/gearbox etc. by removing four bolts (two each side) and removing two nuts. Each of these nuts (located at the rear edge of the tray) screw onto a 'cotton reel' rubber mounting. If you are careful enough you can hold the bottom of the rubber mounting with a spanner (there is a thin piece of metal right at the bottom of the mounting which can just be felt through the rubber that you can get a spanner on. The rubber and piece of metal is hexagonal for this purpose). If you don't hold the 'cotton reel' you are likely to twist and damage (split) the rubber. It is good to learn from other's experiences - I now have two new cotton reels lol.
Then I put a spanner onto the square of metal that protrudes on the top of the belt tensioner assembly and pulled on the spanner (towards the front of the car) to release the tension on the belt (it is sprung loaded). At this point it is useful to have a friend remove the belt from below (we chose the crankshaft pulley) but be sure to tell your friend to not put any fingers between the belt and any of the pulleys because if you were to slip or let go of the spanner you could trap their fingers quite badly (we had no mishaps hehe).
Fitting was simply a reverse order of the above with me holding tension against the tensioner as the belt was placed over the last pulley - again we chose the crankshaftpulley.
I am sure it could be possible to pull on the tensioner with one hand and remove the belt from the alternator with the other but I had help at hand so chose the easy option.
I hope this helps someone with the same job someday and maybe someone can comment if they have approached the same job differently.

Phil