To replace the serpentine belt on your Altima It’s easy. You will need to lift the vehicle, remove the serpentine belt, remove the tensioner pulley as well as carry out a few other steps. You can carry out this tutorial of 13 chapters in 80 minutes. Bring your 17mm offset wrench and your 12 mm socket and let’s get started!
80 minutes
13
4
$150
Lift the vehicle
Loosen the stud bolts on the front wheels. Lift the front of your vehicle.
Place the vehicle on the jack stands. Don’t forget to put the wheels under the vehicle!
Disconnect the battery
It’s also safer to disconnect the battery.
Informations
In order to change the serpentine belt on your vehicle, you need to take off the wheel on the passenger side to gain full access.
Remove the mudguard
Now you need to remove the mudguard.
Using a fork, remove the 4 plastic cover retaining rivets.
Using a fork, remove the two mudguard retaining rivets.
Using the Phillips screwdriver, unscrew the screw holding the bumper cover to the mudguard.
You can now pull back the mudguard.
Tips
Before proceeding with the replacement of the serpentine belt, we recommend taking a picture or to draw the path of the belt around the different pulleys, in order to position it correctly later.
Remove the serpentine belt
Using a 17 mm offset wrench, loosen the belt by turning the serpentine belt tensioner clockwise.
Meanwhile, remove the belt from the tensioner, then from the various pulleys.
You can now remove the belt.
Remove the tensioner pulley
When changing the belt, you should also replace the tensioner pulley. Using a ratchet and a 12 mm socket, unscrew the 2 retaining bolts of the belt tensioner. Then remove the tensioner.
Install the new tensioner pulley
Take the belt tensioner.
Put it back in its place, then screw the bolts back in roughly by hand. Then screw them back in with a ratchet until they make contact.
Finish the tightening of the bolts with a torque wrench.
Put the belt back
Take the new serpentine belt.
Pay careful attention to which way up you use it. The writing on the belt must turn clockwise.
Slide the new belt around the different elements respecting the layout from the initial assembly. To fully put it back in place, lift the serpentine belt tensioner in order to wind the serpentine belt onto all of the pulleys. Then release the belt tensioner to fully extend the belt.
Before starting your car again, check that the belt is properly positioned in all the pulleys.
Put the mudguard back in
Put the mudguard back in place. Then put the rivets back in place.
Then, retighten the retaining screw.
Put the plastic cover back
Replace the plastic cover. Then put the rivets back in place.
Put the vehicle back on the ground
Then, you will be able to put the wheel back on your vehicle.
Put the car back on the ground and block the wheel properly.
Reconnect the battery
Reconnect the battery.
Operation complete.