All,

Being a proud owner of the aftermarket belt tension tool, I took it for a test run this weekend and found my belt to be on the loose side.
Question is this, in order to remove the fan shroud the instructions call to pull the oil cooler line off and move it out of the way. I want to know if removing the upper radiator hose will accomplish the same thing and give me enough room to manipulate the shroud out.

This will give me the excuse to change the hoses and the same time . . . .


-Nick
'88 S4 5spd.

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Hi nick

perhaps an other option.. and I'm doing it now on mine as I retension my belt. Instead of removing the whole fan shroud and perhaps oil cooler lines and placing stress on them, i removed my lower bell housing (i'm catless, so its easy) then i used a large flat blade screw driver and rotate the engine to TDC for the tension check using part of the flywheel housing as leverage. I just have my dad watch the timing mark on the front of the crank and he tells me when to stop. It may be a bit more time consuming than getting a
deep socket on the crank bolt, but I JUST HATE PULLING THAT FAN SHROUD AND
STRESSING HOSES..JOINTS..ALL IN THAT AREA.

Tony
1987 S4 Auto 83k

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i just did my belt again last night...some things/tips i found

If you use a small wrench you don't have to remove the fan shroud at all. I used a small adjust able since I didn't have a small wrench in the size needed.

Once you get the engine to TDC, go under the car and  mark another reference line underneath somewhere on the balancer and the lower part of the center belt cover. This way you can sit under the car with a wrench and turn the motor to TDC with out the hassle of the fit with the shroud from going at it from above. Once i got close to the mark, I approached it from above where there is JUST enough room to get the deep socket down and on the crank bolt to turn it the small "fine" amount need to precisely line it up.

my belt was set at 5.2-3 ish when i installed it 2000 miles ago...it checked at 3.5-7 before i re-tensioned it. In a past experiment i found the warning to come on at a 3.0 reading (under a static condition/engine not turning) in other words, retensioning is very important !

Tony
1987 S4 Auto 83k