bashracing
ClioSport Club Member
Righty I replaced the aux belt and pulleys here's a basic guide,
The pic below may look a little drastic but gives you better access to the pulleys by removing the offside plastic wheel arch liner and the single bumper retaining screw then the 2 front grill retaining clips , then simply pop the offside of the bumper out and remove 3 bolts holding in the headlight in place. then I removed the drivers side engine mount by putting a trolley jack under the sump with a piece of pallet wood on it to protect the sump and removing the 3 x 16mm bolts and 1 x 16mm nut holding the mount on,
then remove the sound deadening mat from in front of the aux belt held in place with 2 plastic clips 1 up near the alternator pulley and the other near the crank pulley accessible from under the wheel arch (trim removal tool helps),
and the you will have this view,
my tensioner had seized up (I found this out by braking off the 3/8 square drive on the old tensioner when trying to slacken the belt)
so I just cut the old belt off instead
this left me just the e torx bolts to remove from the tensioner spring itself (10mm spanner will fit these)
A freind of mine told me that at Renault where he was a mechanic they used to drill the holes out in the metal plate behind the headlight to 13mm to speed things up as access with a socket was then possible,
the main body of the tensioner can be removed with a 8mm allen key socket by jacking the engine up slightly out of the chassis,
I then removed the power steering pulley (the one with the green paint on the bolt on picture above) 3 x 10mm bolts to give space to get the old tensioner out of the engine bay,
Then into the wheel arch area and simply remove the small idler pulley that sits next to the crank pulley (this comes on the belt kit too and can be seen on the far right in the pic below) its held on with a single 13mm bolt
I found a deep swan neck spanner or socket wrench made it easier to undo,
then refitting is just a reverse of the removal apart from the tensioner spring which i found was easier to compress before i refitted it to the pulley with a jubilee clip (a proper jubilee clip is strong enough a cheapo one will break!) then re route the belt and undo the jubilee clip,
then lower the engine onto the subframe and do 2 full rotations of the engine and check the belt is properly aligned before putting the rest back together,
just to give you an idea of time required This took me 3 hours in total on my back on the drive but i would say i could do it faster if i did it again!
This is a picture of the tensioner i removed it was 36k miles and 3 years old and was completely seized on the collar pointed out in the picture which is a very good reason to listen to renaults advice on the changing of these at 36k,
this is the kit I got off ebay to replace it and included everything i needed, 1 x belt, 1 x idler pulley 1 x tensioner
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151414113879?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
The pic below may look a little drastic but gives you better access to the pulleys by removing the offside plastic wheel arch liner and the single bumper retaining screw then the 2 front grill retaining clips , then simply pop the offside of the bumper out and remove 3 bolts holding in the headlight in place. then I removed the drivers side engine mount by putting a trolley jack under the sump with a piece of pallet wood on it to protect the sump and removing the 3 x 16mm bolts and 1 x 16mm nut holding the mount on,
then remove the sound deadening mat from in front of the aux belt held in place with 2 plastic clips 1 up near the alternator pulley and the other near the crank pulley accessible from under the wheel arch (trim removal tool helps),
and the you will have this view,
my tensioner had seized up (I found this out by braking off the 3/8 square drive on the old tensioner when trying to slacken the belt)
so I just cut the old belt off instead
this left me just the e torx bolts to remove from the tensioner spring itself (10mm spanner will fit these)
A freind of mine told me that at Renault where he was a mechanic they used to drill the holes out in the metal plate behind the headlight to 13mm to speed things up as access with a socket was then possible,
the main body of the tensioner can be removed with a 8mm allen key socket by jacking the engine up slightly out of the chassis,
I then removed the power steering pulley (the one with the green paint on the bolt on picture above) 3 x 10mm bolts to give space to get the old tensioner out of the engine bay,
Then into the wheel arch area and simply remove the small idler pulley that sits next to the crank pulley (this comes on the belt kit too and can be seen on the far right in the pic below) its held on with a single 13mm bolt
I found a deep swan neck spanner or socket wrench made it easier to undo,
then refitting is just a reverse of the removal apart from the tensioner spring which i found was easier to compress before i refitted it to the pulley with a jubilee clip (a proper jubilee clip is strong enough a cheapo one will break!) then re route the belt and undo the jubilee clip,
then lower the engine onto the subframe and do 2 full rotations of the engine and check the belt is properly aligned before putting the rest back together,
just to give you an idea of time required This took me 3 hours in total on my back on the drive but i would say i could do it faster if i did it again!
This is a picture of the tensioner i removed it was 36k miles and 3 years old and was completely seized on the collar pointed out in the picture which is a very good reason to listen to renaults advice on the changing of these at 36k,
this is the kit I got off ebay to replace it and included everything i needed, 1 x belt, 1 x idler pulley 1 x tensioner
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151414113879?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
