05 Apr Clio 172/182 (Non Cup) Aux Belt Change
The Aux belt should be changed every 3 years or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first, so if your car does 36K in a year its due after 1 year, or if it does 2K miles a year its due after 3 years.
Its possible to do this job by just unclipping the upper grill from the bumper and removing it and the slam panel, but its so much more fiddly like that we wouldnt recomend it for the first time, so that isnt covered in this guide, we have show the bumper off method.
To remove the bumper, follow this guide first:
http://www.cliosportoc.com/article/16-front-bumper-removal-for-a-ph2-clio-172-182
The other place you have a choice on how you do it, is doing it either with or without removing the headlight, we will cover both options.
The first thing you need to do, is to detension the belt, and remove it (or you can cut it off with a sharp knife to speed up this step).
The tensioner is just behind the alternator as can be seen on this picture with the engine removed from the car:
(please note, this picture is missing the very bottom pulley for some reason, its a picture I found online not one I took so I cant tell you if the person was silly enough to ever run the engine like that!)
In the car, its a little less obvious but can still be seen, there are two ways to detension the belt, the first is to use a tool that goes into the square peg on the tensioner, or use a jubilee clip around the tensioner (considered a bit of a hack, but it works):
Tool method (home made version)
View of tool itself, made by welding a bit of 3/8 extension onto a flat bar and then covered in tape to avoid scratching anything:
Jubille method:
When the belt is detensioned (or cut off if you wish to avoid that step), its time to remove the tensioner, its attached by two bolts, the top one is an E12, and the lower one is a 8mm female hex.
The main 8mm hex bolt:
Which is easiest undone with a long handled ratchet
At this point you will want to put a jack under the sump (make sure you use a block of wood to spread the load) and undo the top engine mount, if your socket set doesn’t have a 16mm then normally it will have a spark plug socket that fits too (same one as used for the plugs on the F4R, normally labelled as 10mm but that doesn’t refer to the bolt size)
If you have the light out, the top one can be undone by lifting the engine slightly to line it up with the hole through the panel:
If not removing the light, you will need to use an E12 spanner instead:
Next job is to remove the bottom idler (the one missing from the out of car picture) which is accessed through a hole in the lower panel:
Then to refit, is the reverse, so fit the new bottom pulley, then the new tensioner, and then the belt.
Its easiest to refit the belt round the bottom pulleys first, and then finish by sliding it onto the tensioner pulley (which has no ribs or shoulder) last.
Note: Once in place, nip up the bottom bolt on the tensioner spring, they tend to be loose when you get them which is easier for fitting but it should be tightened in place once the belt is on)
