I recently had to change an alternator and the hardest part was removing the belt, in order to do so, the engine mount needs to be removed. I took the alternator from my parts HHR and cut the belt, because it was all cracked anyway, and I had the alternator out 5 minutes. When my son mentioned his Cobalt will need a new belt, we realized it was the same as the HHR, so I made a tool to release the tensioner to remove the belt. It now takes 2 minutes rather then an hour.

Here it is in place on a spare 2.2l engine, you slide it on and simply lift to re;ease belt tension.




Here's just the tool, the 3/8 breaker bar doesn't go in with ease, because the mount is in the way, so it's been replaced by the tool I made, that will slip on in a couple seconds, between the frame and engine.

 

Could you provide a dimensional drawing, for those of us who would like to make our own.

 

Here you go, a pencil drawing and one more pic to show the step to grab the bottom of the tensioner arm on the back side. You don't really need the top 10" section, I just figured I already had it and it gives a great leverage advantage.

Any questions, ask and I'll do my best to explain.



This pic shows the step I welded to grab the tensioner from the underside.

 

The mother of invention!

 

You couldn't just weld a bit of 3/8 square stock (at the correct angle) to a lever?

That's the problem with the available tools, the darned angle is wrong. If the 3/8 was set at 45 instead of 90 to the tool it would work, better if not well.

Not criticizing, just commenting. If it works, it works. I do not have a welder.

 

I thought about welding one at a 45º, but you still need to find the hole blind and push it in, which can be a challenge in itself! lol! I figured if I do it as a slip on, as I did, it only takes a fraction of the time with little to no aligning anything blind.

 

As I'm sure you know, her name is Necessity...

 

Amazing what we can do when we set our minds to it:)