I'm thinking of doing the pully install myself using Randy's directions. I was wondering if anyone out there has done it themselves. What problems did you run into? How long did it take? Any additional tips or advice? If I don't attempt it myself i'll be off to boston for the Pully party in November.

thanks

Amit

 

Hi Amit,

Good luck with your pulley install. I bought my Alta pulley from Randy and a buddy and I installed it.

The instructions (the second set) are very good. I recommend doing it with someone, I think it helps unless you do it with your eyes closed like Randy can. There is a helpful post that I think Davebret may have posted that shows how the belt gets properly fished around the internals, you may want to search for, and then print it out. The belt can look a little like spaghetti when you're trying to figure out how it snakes back in there.

My sincere advice is to go ahead and do it yourself, but not without the proper pulley removal tool - way too much stress. If you can arrange for the pulley tool, go ahead with it - take your time and have fun with it. It's a really cool feeling to work on the car yourself, it's amazingly straightforward.

You'll be able to arrange with a vendor like Randy to put a deposit on the pulley removal tool designed for removing the stock pulley. I was unable to coordinate this around Randy's pulley parties and my friends availability, and it took us 5 painstaking hours to get the stock pulley off. I have read posts where others have done it in less without the proper tool, but I wasn't taking any chances. I wound up dremeling it with the equivalent of a dentist's bit. The normal three prong pullers just rounded the supercharger side of the pulley over - completely ineffective until I had 'broken' the tension by creating a thin channel with the dremel. Not fun, a little stressful. All in all, not a recommended pulley removal method. I might have waited, but after a couple of attempts with a three prong puller, the stock pulley was shot, and I was 'in' for the ride (or not!).

The car came apart in about 45 minutes, including jacking the engine up, and went back together in 30-40 minutes. I am a relative neophyte, my friend is a decent shade tree wrencher.

Best of luck,
Ravenwhyte

 

djafactor,
I did mine myself using Randy's How-To's second method pulley installation. Be sure to copy all the added posts on that thread, a lot of good comments and tips that will help.
Be advised you need the proper pulley puller or you will be using a dremal tool or gringer to get the mangled pulley off and could do harm to the supercharger or yourself. It can be rented from some of the suppliers of the 15% pulley. I used ALTA's pulley which I think is the best, but I had to have a pulley puller made since they didn't rent one at the time(maybe they do now?)
Using Randy's directions made it an easy job, taking my time only 2 1/2 hrs with lunch break included. I could never compliment Randy's contributions enough for what help he has been to all of us out here in Mini land.
The only thing that I would caution you about is take your time use the instructions.You'll be fine.
The thrill you will experience when you take your first test ride when you DIY is something beyond description. You will know what I mean when you feel it.
Good Luck and be sure to let us all know how it went. Best Regards, Itzamazn..
oh, I almost forgot, contact any of us on the Forum if you need any help.

 

I just did mine last thursday, thanks to Randy and his wonderful removal tool. The Alta pulley is no that difficult to install. Although I did not push in the pulley all the way on the initial install I had to go back and fix that b/c the belt was rubbing. I was able to jack the car up and fix the rubbing in approx 45 min. So that might give you an idea for the ease once you have read the how-to.



Peter

 

Go for it! I'm always here for advice if you need the help. Now that I've done a few, I use two jacks to help with the alignment of the gearbox side bolt when lowering the motor. This helps quite a bit. As far as the tool goes, I have a few I use for loaners, and I don't charge anything unless you don't return it, then I have Vinnie head out to your neck of the woods to retrieve it

Randy
720-841-1002

 

~~~make sure you don't catch the power steering fan casing with the rear edge of the jack as you are jacking the motor up,

Yup! I caught the edge of it! BAMM! It slipped of the edge of the jack with a heck of a bang. Thought I busted it!

 

Thank you all for the wonderful advice. I think i'm going to try it out. I'm a big do it yourself kind of guy as I used to do a lot of my own work on the old 88 M3. Randy, your how-to looks really detailed. I did your airbox mod and found the instructions flawless. I'll give you a call to order the alta pully and borrow the pully remover. I'm going to start looking over the how-to in detail and i'll give you a shout if I have any questions. I'm going to do the work at the end of this month. Thanks again guys, this site is amazing, I hope Mark can fight through the legal issues that are going on, MCO is like MINI petrol for my body.

take care

Amit

 

I see this thread is old but I will try anyway. Started to try to remove stock pulley today with Alta puller with crow's foot puller as per a lot of the instructions I have seen on this site but after several attempts and one broken crow's foot puller I gave up for the night. It is on the shaft ridiculously tight and my puller hardware (bolts going through crow's foot and screwing into pulling points on puller) tend to come out of parallel as I tighten more and more. I tried to keep backing off and re-sqaring but no good. I talked to someone who used an impact on the main center bolt (pushes on supercharger shaft as you tighten) but I am not sure if this would work. So I am thinking for tomorrow to rent an impact and air compressor OR what about a little hydraulic cylinder jack and a 3 prong puller??? This would have less issues lining up. Any suggestions out there?

 

http://www.outmotoring.com/deluxe_su...oval_tool.html

lube the threads before you use it.

 

I have seen this one before. I would expect that this would work better than the crow's foot type puller since everything is in close to the pulley and there is less chance of cocking the hardware.

Early Apex,
Have you personally used the Outmotoring puller