Fan belt tensioner 1.6 HDI

[Peter Palmer]

Is there a special tool or something that releases the fan/aux tensioner? I've been having a go at repairing the air con on one of our vans, turns out the wiring was snapped on the clutch pulley so I've taken it to bits and soldered 2 new wires onto it and it actually worked for a couple of minutes but then the electro magnet started smoking and overheating so I guess its faulty.

My problem is getting the belt off, the notch where you put the spanner on the tensioner is right under the engine mount so I ended up having to remove the whole mount just to get the belt on and off, and I'll have to do it all again when the new pulley turns up. It seems crazy you have to do all this just to get the belt on and off, and the mount sits behind the cam cover so technically that should be removed as well but I managed to squeeze it in just. I could do a belt on an escort or cortina etc in about 5 minutes, madness.

This is on a 2018 dispatch, I've watched videos on it and on things like the Berlingo you can get to the adjuster without removing the engine mount.

You can see the problem in this vid about 9:20

[Steve Walsh]

I made this years ago, works on most of them. When you have the tension off there is a hole for a locking pin, about 4mm dia