Serpentine Tension Idler

[fisher972002]

All

Made a mistake, have a serpentine tensioner pulley bearing making some noise, it's rough.. Unscrewed the pulley counterclockwise, now I found out it is clockwise or left hand thread.

1991 LS400 178K miles

Now I have a broken bolt in the tensioner. according to http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/engine/timingbelt.html

It only looks like there are 2 bolts holding on the tensioner.. One on about the 12 o'clock position is the 12MM nut. Then about 4 o' clock on the tensioner, is a bolt, not a nut.. Took both off and the tensioner will not budge... I'm wondering if I have to take off the timing belt cover, are there some other nuts in there that I don't see....

Anybody have any drawing or a procedure in the manual, I'm missing something.. If I can get it out hopefully I can order a new bolt and reuse my tensioner assembly and easy-out the broken bolt.

Thanks

[curiousB]

Maybe diagrams here will be good enough to help you out:

http://www.toyodiy.com/parts/

[fisher972002]

Ah.. found it, You have to take off the alternator bolts, the alternator sits in front of the tensioner, that made it come right off.. I'm doing an ingnition tune up also.. My wires are from 1991.. I tested, most wires are around 8 Ohms, few are 17 ohms... Can't believe they're still good after 178K Miles..

[curiousB]

You can thank electronic ignition. It creates a hotter spark so not as impacted by wire impedance. DC resistance at such low values can be a bit misleading. Be sure to zero the meter with probe wires together so you aren't adding any lead resistance to your plug wires.

[steve2006]

You can thank electronic ignition. It creates a hotter spark so not as impacted by wire impedance. DC resistance at such low values can be a bit misleading. Be sure to zero the meter with probe wires together so you aren't adding any lead resistance to your plug wires.

The 91 model has coils, distributors and rotor arms only the later models like yours have full electronic ignition.

[fisher972002]

CuriousB, yup, I zeroed it out. They pulled off pretty easy, except for #4.. but I tested it and it did not break.. All 8 of my spark plugs are nice and brown.. Perfect.. My motor purs like a kitten. Last time the plugs/rotors/caps were changed was at 78K, so I have exactly 100K miles on them, the dist cap/rotors are a little toasty, she should have some more power I hope!

[curiousB]

You can thank electronic ignition. It creates a hotter spark so not as impacted by wire impedance. DC resistance at such low values can be a bit misleading. Be sure to zero the meter with probe wires together so you aren't adding any lead resistance to your plug wires.

The 91 model has coils, distributors and rotor arms only the later models like yours have full electronic ignition.

I agree coil over designs are even better (replaces distributor and rotor and eliminates another air gap for the spark) but have only become common more recently. Even still electronics on the firing side (primary) of the coil (replaces antique breaker points and cam) do also lead to better spark due to sharpness of edges of solid state switching.

Its pretty amazing how much control and intelligence has been added to the ignition systems of cars these days. Basically you’re getting an optimized ignition computation each firing of the plug. That’s a darn sight better than the old breaker gap setting via feeler gauge days of years gone by.