My favorite belt remover/installation tool is my hand, bwahahaha... just did the most annoying one yet a few days ago and once I was able to actually have access to the pulleys it was a smooth process.View attachment 121537
Stretch belt removal and installation tool. Never bought one because I was always told they were a gimmick. I kind of believe that after today cause it doesn’t really work that well the magnet is pretty weak. It was free to me though so I’m not complaining. Dad bought this thinking we could get the serpentine belt on with it. Definitely wrong lol. Still fighting with the serpentine belt. It matches up perfectly and is routed correctly but I think the issue is the tensioner is not going down all the way but I want to confirm that before we throw a new one on. We cannot for the life of us get the belt around the smooth water pump pulley. My brother in law tried too he is the strongest guy we know he couldn’t do it either. He couldn’t ever get his on either and had to have it towed to his buddies shop. I’m not one to give up though so I won’t let this defeat me. I probably need to replace the tensioner as my stupid head decided to use a 12 point socket at first and partially rounded it off then I remember I had my Gearwrench serpentine belt tool lol. Didn’t have a 6 point 19mm shallow 1/2 drive or even 3/4 to use except at work and the 3/8 wasn’t enough. Probably about time for a new one anyway as it’s original from 2004. Since I have Toyota resources again I’m going to search for known problems with these as this isn’t my first rodeo with these. We really don’t want to sink tons of money into it as it’s worn out but we can’t afford a new car right now if we can’t get it out from the dust comes our Jeep or Van.