To start off, my apologies to Donald Gibbons for mis-informing him that
the Vibration Damper (which also drives the serpentine belt on the 5
cyl. Eurovan motor), is only held by four bolts with 13 mm. heads to the
crankshaft sprocket similar to how AUDI designed it in their
automobiles. I stand corrected. Part of my visual confusion had to do
with the poor rendering of illustartions in the Bentley manual.
On the Eurovan, the vibration damper is held in place to the crankshaft
sprocket by four bolts with Allen heads, AND the crankshaft center
bolt. Why VW decided to do it this way, I do not know. There is no way
to get to the Timing belt without crossing swords with this monster Hex
bolt. I found that out the hard way last weekend when I tried to replace
both T-belt & S-belt. I was only able to do the S-belt.
The good news however when removing the serpentine belt, is that the
tensioner arm that holds the ribbed tensioning pulley does not really
require the 3299 VW special tool. I read in this forum that someone
successfully used a 10" adjustable wrench instead. Since I didn't have
one, I opted for a vice grip and inserted a 21mm. box wrench on the
adjusting handle for leverage. That too worked fine!
Following are some additional trivia on this repair for those inclined.
1. The 2 smooth surfaced idler pulleys that guide the S-belt are
mechanically identical but they have different mounting depths and
different part numbers. However, the pulley near the A/C compressor (P/N
037.145.276A) can be used to replace the one on top of the vibration
damper by adding 2-3 flat washers to the mounting bolt so that the
S-belt will run centered on the smooth surface. (Sometimes you're in
dire need and your dealer will only have this one because it wears out
faster from load due to its close proximity to the A/C compressor.) This
is not an endorsement, I'm merely suggesting it as an option in case you
wind up in a bind. NOTE: The idler on top of the vibration damper can
ONLY be used at that location.
2. All the serpentine pulleys (both smooth & ribbed) have sealed
bearings that supposedly have extremely long service lives, PROVIDED the
grease inside does not dry up. I found out that the seals on these
bearing can be removed using the thin blade of a Swiss Army knife and
re-installed thereafter. The pulleys themselves have an additional dirt
cover so even if you mess up the seal, it'll still be protected from
dirt & grit by the pulley cover itself! After 120K miles, the grease in
my original pulleys had indeed dried up. I've regreased them using
molybdenium disulfide and from the way they look, I think they should
work properly till 200K miles.
Kit Samson
