Nissan Repair: Serpentine Belt Removal, serpentine belt, belt pulley

Question
Hi Calvin,
I need to replace the serpentine belt on my 01 Sentra SE 2.0.  The car has A/C and I just wanted to know how involved the job is?  I was told that the car has two belts, which i thought was odd.  Anyway, it's starting to squeak/slip a bit and if it's a quick job(don't have a garage and it's below freezing here)I'd do it now instead of waiting until it gets warm. Thanks much..

Tim

Answer
Hi Tim -

If your vehicle has a serpentine belt, it requires only one. There should be a diagram somewhere in the engine compartment that displays how the belt is installed. Please study it before removal. If you do not have that diagram, I would draw how the belt is installed on a sheet of paper. Once the belt is off, it gets really comfusing. Whether you have a serpentine belt or not, there should be one pulley that has the adjustment. The serpentine belt pulley is spring loaded and can be pried with a lever or breaker bar.

If you have regular drive belts there should be more than one of them. Agagin there should an idleer pulley to loosen and the belt can be removed. The job is relatively simple with the only difficulty being the access.

Hope this helps -
aloha
calvin