Serpentine belt tensioner V5 Bora

[abreut]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has replaced one of these, mine is getting noisy. Can the wheel or the bearing inside the wheel be replaced seperately or do you have to buy the whole assembly?

Thanks

[qsilverza]

GrunMk1,

There is a thread on vortex under the mkiv section for fixing the bearing's if you act early. Basically you disassemble the tensioner and re-apply grease.

Otherwise it's a very easy job to replace, you need a specific bolt to release the tensioner than the belt becomes loose and three bolts to remove tensioner.

I am planning to do this soon.

This is the process on the V6 anyway.

Regards

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has replaced one of these, mine is getting noisy. Can the wheel or the bearing inside the wheel be replaced seperately or do you have to buy the whole assembly?

Thanks

[abreut]

GrunMk1,

There is a thread on vortex under the mkiv section for fixing the bearing's if you act early. Basically you disassemble the tensioner and re-apply grease.

Otherwise it's a very easy job to replace, you need a specific bolt to release the tensioner than the belt becomes loose and three bolts to remove tensioner.

I am planning to do this soon.

This is the process on the V6 anyway.

Regards

Thanks for that I'll see if I can find that thread. I might take it off this weekend, its getting progressively noisier. So are the tensioners the same as the vr6 ones? I'd love to check one out before I pull this one off, might be able to order the right bearing so its all ready once mine is apart.

[F1rabbit]

V5 Bora Sepine belt Tensioner

Hi

I have just replaced my serpentine belt as well as greasing the idler pulley bearing. I bought a supposedly good one off EBay, but it was worse than mine. I also did not realize that the bolt holding the pulley on is a left hand thread and turned it too far the wrong way and broke it.

I have an earlier model Bora and to release the tension on the belt I had to put a 16mm socket on the nut holding the pulley, release the tension and then put a dill bit in the two holes on the housing that line up when the tension is released.

I would imagine you could replace the bearing by getting the same one from a bearing shop, but it looks a bit tricky getting it out of the plastic pulley. It is simple to grease the bearing. Carefully with a small screwdriver remove the bearing covers on each side of the bearing and apply a small amount of bearing grease.

Cheers

[abreut]

Well I finally got around to fixing the tensioner. Thanks to qsilverza, I found the DIY thread on vortex http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=3928536. An awesome DIY! I didn't bother getting the metal seal bearing, there is no point and the bearing guy recommended against it anyway.

The v5 bora tensioner is a little different than the vr6 one, to de-tension it you need to do something similar to what F1rabbit says above. Just remember that that 16mm nut is reverse thread! I nearly stuffed it too.

Once you remove the plastic wheel its exactly the same procedure as described in the vortex thread. Instead of grinding the plastic I got a stanley knife and cut the plastic lip back enough to reveal the edge of the bearing and then pressed it out. Its hard to get the lip cleanly off so when you press the new one in there is still enough of a lip to stop the bearing easily falling out not that it could go anywhere anyway.

So job done, the bearing cost me $12. Its nice and quiet now. I had a look at the old bearing, I peeled back the plastic cover and it was completely dry inside.

[rhyno]

I found that my Tensioner Pulley was too flogged out to enable a simple bearing swap, so i did a bit of research and replaced the whole pulley and bearing with a metal pulley of very similar dimensions.
The ID of the bearing was the same, as was the width for the belt, but the pulley I got was a couple of mil smaller in diameter; no big problem as the tensioner takes up the extra slack.

It was super easy to change over and is now stronger.
For those playing at home, if you want to do this, go to Bursons and ask for a Nuline pulley #EP026. Costs around $34.00
Its actually made for a commodore

Rattle Gone.

PS. This is in a V6 Bora, AFAIK, it should be the same in the V5

[qsilverza]

sweet thanks guys, This should be added to FAQ for mkiv's