Anyone had this happen before?

Hi guys

Had a bit of oil coming out of a pipe near the turbo and had a mate take a look for me. Whilst having a look he discovered one of the bolts holding the alternator in place had sheared off and in doing so sent the belt attached about on inch backward.. not cool.
Took the intercooler shroud and fan off to try and get to the tensioner but it wouldnt budge... Whether he knew what he was doing I dont know, you guys might have more ideas on that but he seemed to think it should spring out to allow us to remove the belt or loosen it at worse to sort out the alternater bolt... No luck couldnt budge it..
Im wondering what you guys think.... Im thinking buy and new pulley/ tensioner kit, cut the belt, fix the bolt then fit he new kit fit new belt and off we go.... Any thoughts?

Looking at your pics I'd be removing the alternator first, and seeing what damage if any that broken bolt has done.

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Originally Posted by threedogs

Looking at your pics I'd be removing the alternator first, and seeing what damage if any that broken bolt has done.

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thanks.... would there be any tell tale signs to look for in regards to the damage.... not terribly mechanical minded but like to try and work things out

if your going to replace the belt anyway then you have to take the shroud and what not off regardless. If that is the case there is No Point cutting what could be a perfectly good belt? certainly fit a new one but if you can strip it down to remove that belt then put it in your rear quarter panel as a spare you may never need ;)

Certainly it looks like someone tightened that bolt and sheared it and its knackered.

Take it off and check its function and have a good look at everything then refit a new belt.

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Originally Posted by MudRunnerTD

if your going to replace the belt anyway then you have to take the shroud and what not off regardless. If that is the case there is No Point cutting what could be a perfectly good belt? certainly fit a new one but if you can strip it down to remove that belt then put it in your rear quarter panel as a spare you may never need ;)

Certainly it looks like someone tightened that bolt and sheared it and its knackered.

Take it off and check its function and have a good look at everything then refit a new belt.

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Good advice.... the only problem is getting the belt tensioner to budge... it may sound silly but we tried everything to loosen it but just couldnt... without being able to loosen this I cant get the belt off without destroying it... I might be missing something but it just wont move for some reason..Is there an actual bolt you have to loosen to enable it to move..... I didnt see exactly see what they did prior to trying to move it... they seemed to think it was a spring type action and simply pushing the tensioner in one direction or the other would loosen the belt sufficiently to be able to remove it.

Do you have a manual to look at, I believe there is a tensioner for the belt, Avoid cutting belt if Poss as MR has suggested.
Keep removing a few things to get a clear view of how things work.

As far as I know is there not another bolt either on the top or side that you have to undo so it can move freely. It could also be locked up on the one the has sheared by the looks of the angle.


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the tensioner should move, certainly enough for you to remove the belt off all the pulley wheels, you have to get at the tensioner from underneath, it all can be done without removing the shroud but its tricky, it is best to remove the shroud completely so you can see what your doing, to get the alternator out you have to remove some of the pipes out of the way up top, (plus aux battery if fitted) unless you have little tiny hands, I don't, that tensioner should move easily, if it doesn't it is probably seized & needs replacing anyway, inspect the bolt as sometimes they fit a shorter bolt but it is not long enough to allow the tensioner to move freely, throw a new belt on but buy an original one from Nissan, keep the other in your truck for a spare, to tell an original from aftermarket the original will have V grooves in the belt & aftermarket have solid square grooves, the difference is the original will allow crap, water, silty muddy water to disperse from itself & the aftermarket will not, often doing water crossings the belt will squeal like a pig, the original will quiten down quicker & stay quite, aftermarket will squeal for ages & usually every morning for weeks until it has defecated the crap out of the grooves

my workshop manual states to remove belt remove lower fan shroud. place a spanner on tensioner bolt and rotate anticlockwise. then remove belt. get a workshop manual like 3d said, they are very handy when things go wrong.

Thanks for all your replies...I will let you know how I go..

Hi Lagooon,

When I did my water pump, thermostate, etc, I got the belt off by just taking the alternator out =] Little bit of fiddling around lining it back up which didnt take too long.

Rob,

loosen the bolt in the centre of the tensioner pulley first, then the adjustment bolt in the top should turn. if you don't loosen it off first you will snap the adjustment bolt.
ask me how I know!!!

Just to give you an update to this drama. The first photo is the tensioner removed and the second is a close up of the adjustment bolt that has been snapped. Liftlid is this what happened to you mate?

Aparently in the 3rd shot that little hole is normally covered up by some sort of weld?? Anyway that was gone so all the oil had drained from the tensioner and thats why it wouldnt work?

All fixed now but the guy also had to weld the bracket that the alternator mounts onto as that had cracked... fell off in two parts when they were adjusting it to replace the bolts previously shown in earlier shots...

Um not sure how to post the photos here... will do it in separate post

Here we go...

You have a different setup than mine so I possibly gave you a bit of a bum steer, but yes I snapped the head off the bolt because I didn't loosen the bolt in the centre of the pulley.
to fix I was able to get a nut with the correct thread for the bolt (bolt is about 60mm long), screw it on to where the old bolt head was and then weld it in place, that was 10 yrs. ago and its worked fine ever since.