How to Replace Serpentine Belt Tensioner with Pulley 1995-97 Pontiac Sunfire

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Hi I am Mike Green. I am one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I am going to use my 20 plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this, to show you the correct way to install parts from 1aauto.com. The right parts installed correctly; that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video we will be showing you the serpentine belt tensioner replacement for a 1997 Pontiac Sunfire, same as any 95-97 Cavalier or Sunfire with a 2.2L. The tools you are going to need, you are going to need a jack to support your engine because you are going to remove the upper engine mount, but that's not that big of a deal. In addition to that you will need a 15mm socket and ratchet and a flat blade screwdriver.

Underneath here you can see I've got the jack right in under there. First thing you are going to want to do is remove your radiator coolant bottle. That just entails one 10mm bolt that I am going to remove right there. It's also clipped in right here, and we just need to move this out of the way. Just use a regular flat blade screwdriver. Kind of pry it out a little bit. You have to move it out of the way.

Now you are going to remove the bolts that hold the engine mount in. There's five of them; one there, two, three, and then the upper ones on the engine four and five. For that you need a 15mm socket, and you need an extension to get down in there. This line can unclip. As long as you have the engine supported well, when you take these bolts out the engine shouldn't move. Now it's kind of a matter of lifting this whole thing up and off of its studs, which with these lines here it makes it a little difficult. Everything pretty much flexes enough that you could get it off, and then pull these lines off of here. Screwdriver to get this clip off of here; then it's a matter of pulling and working the thing right out. Eventually will get it to lay on its side here.

With that motor mount out of the way, now it's really easy. You put a 15mm wrench right in here. You pull this way on it and you can see the belt starts to loosen up. You can actually pull it off of the alternator pretty easily. Slowly release your wrench. There are basically two bolts. Take your belt off, kind of get it up and out of the way here a little bit. Then there are two 15mm bolts, one right here, and then one right here. You could probably do this without taking the motor mount out, but it just makes it a whole lot easier to get your hands and everything in here and see what you are doing. It only takes a few minutes to get the motor mount out and back in.

That is your belt tensioner out. Here you can see is the old belt tensioner, here is the new belt tensioner from 1A Auto. It's going to go in there and bolt in, no problem. Just is going to be nicer and newer and not make groaning noises. For this car, the old tensioner is actually still in good shape. We are just going to put the old one back in and show you that. It's really easy; just a reverse of the procedure. Start with that bolt first. Just kind of shake it around until the bolt finds its way in. Start it by hand.

Now the belt; your belt diagram is actually right on your hood right there. That helps you get it on correctly. Can give you a little bit of a tutorial here; you can put it over your alternator here. It goes around your power steering over here. I've got to pull it up from the bottom here, and it goes up on top of the tensioner and then goes down and around the crank pulley; then down and around the AC pulley. The AC pulley you can get up underneath and pull it down and around. You know you have your belt correct if it is off the idler. You can see my hand down here; you can see I am trying to pull it on to the idler pulley here.

What you want to do is get on to your tensioner and pull that. I am actually going to pull it with my opposite hand. I am going to reach down in here and pull on the belt. I am going to bring the belt around the idler pulley. Check and make sure everything else is routed pretty well and looks right. Now we can put our motor mount back in. I am just going to speed through doing the installation of the motor mount just because of the YouTube ten minutes. If you do want to see this in real time, just please search our other videos for the Cavalier Sunfire Upper Engine Mount and you can see the installation in real time. Basically, usually if you have gotten it out you can probably get it back in without too much problem.

We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com. Your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Please feel free to call us toll free 888-844-3393. We're the company that is here for you on the internet and in person.