Land Rover Repair: serpentine belt and tensioner pulley, serpentine belts, tensioner pulley

Question
man i finally got the seals the head gasket and head bolts delivered to me and its all done except i got the serpentine belt off at the beginning. now i can't get it back on, the tensioner pulley takes too much bar strength to mount back up is that normal? do you know an easy proceadure on mounting? thank you.

Answer
Hi Milton,

are you sure you are feeding the belt correctly?  It should not be that difficult to slip on.  Its times like this that I wish this webservice would allow me to post jpg pictures.  One picture is worth a thousand words...

Here is a webpage that shows how to feed the belt for a Disco series II ('99 to '04):

http://www.roverparts.com/Tech_serpentine_belt_routing_D2.html

Here's the Disco I ('94 to '99) webpage:

http://www.roverparts.com/Tech_serpentine_belt_routing_defender.html


Milton, I am impressed that you did all that work yourself.  You'll have to let me know if there were any tricks or hidden vices that your found.  

As for your belt, take a look at the above webpages.  Be careful with the tensioner pulley.  I lost a tensioner pulley because a mechanic did not feed the belt properly and the force was too much for the bearings.  Also, you can either bruise your knuckles OR the ratchet can slip off and smack into the fan blades.  This happened to me when I was in Miami last summer.  Advance auto had a special on serpentine belts and I decided to change mine for trip back home.  Ratchet flew off and broke off a fan blade.  New fan is $120...ouch.

Regards,

JohnMc