I did the 17% supercharger pulley installation last night, and wanted to make note of something. I had the WMW pulley, and their free rental tool. Yes, all of the instructions note that you should have the OEM Belt Tensioner Tool, and I just figured that this would not be an issue (I was working in a friend's shop, and generally he has every SnapOn tool you could imagine). Then we got to this point in the install, and kinda hit a stopping point for a second. We did not have a tool that would do this. I could not imagine that this is a tool that everyone on here buys, even if they are religious about changing the drive belt every 30K.

Searching on here for 15m did not exactly lead me to a solution (I found some non-descriptive work arounds), so if if this is a double post, forgive me, but that's why I figured I'd keyword the subject to something that other's would find.

(see attached photo) I put a socket on an 8" extension and connected it to the front most tensioner bolt. I put the largest allen wrench that would fit into the tensioner holes. Then I took a 2' pry bar (though any long, sturdy rod would work, even a crowbar). With one person holding the 8" extension w/ socket in place, I applied tension with prybar between the extension/socket and the allen wrench gently. Once the tension had been taken off, I inserted another allen key into the cutout to hold it untensioned, as documented in all of the installs.

And it worked flawlessly, and was EASY. Not sure why you would ever want to buy this tool unless you did not have a second hand around the garage to help you with this process (because you would not have been able to pull this off alone).

Good luck, hope this works as flawlessly for you as it did for me.
Erik

 

Well, I am one of those idiots who bought the belt tensioner tool. I did a WMW 15% pulley over Chrismas vacation, but when I was planning it out I could not think of a way to get the tensioner to release without the tool. Way to go, Erik, you are way more creative than I was. Wish I had seen this last week.

 

There are a couple of posts in the DIY section about doing it this way

 

The tensioner tool isn't a waste of money at all You'll be happy next time you change the belt. Sure there's other ways around, but it's the safest and easiest of them all. I've managed to change my pulley/belt with an home made tool, because the oem tool was in the second box I didn't received yet, but I wouldn't do it again without the tool

 

Yes thank you! I just bought the 15% sc pulley from wmw, thinking I could get the rental for the pulley puller already, but guess what?! So at least now I have one thing I can improvise. Anyone know of any cheap ones from hf that might work?

 

just pick one up... look around, you can get em fairly cheap

 

you can do a belt without the $100 tool...
BUT the SC pulley is a different story...
a STD pulley will deform the SC pulley....leaving it unusable...and STUCK.
Then you must CUT it off with a grinder.....not much space to work...Doable...but tight...and messup...nick the shaft...turns a 15 minute job into a $1500 mistake.
I have seen a pro do a r53 pulley change, belt tensioner change, and belt install on a lift ( my car) in about 45 minutes....may have been possible in under 30...but we were talking. Air tools do make things go fast...not to mention practice!!
some shops will quote you 3 hours or more for an install....IMO that is just to cover the $$ of buying a tool.....
one extra tip...
doing a pulley change on a r53 stick is a bit easier than on a r53 auto...the transmission on the auto caused mini to SLIGHTLY change the engine location...so there is less space to work with the puller.