Preventive maintenance always sounds good, but when you have a failure of a worn-out part you want to be careful and review other items that might have been damaged or stressed by the initial failure.
In my case, the serpentine belt broke while on the freeway. With the battery light on, the temperature skyrocketing on the temperature gauge and the steering feeling like a lead wheel of death, I somehow managed to get to the next exit safely and found a quiet side road to wait out of traffic for the tow.
Once all the parts were in, I got to work anticipating that it might take a few hours for the repair.
Seeing that my hazards had drained my battery while waiting for the tow, I put my battery on a trickle charger. Since the coolant was older and had been stressed while I was exiting the freeway, I decided to change the coolant, as well. I checked the steering fluid and found that it had somehow seeped out of the top and left the reservoir very low. All of this was to be addressed along with the broken belt and pulley wheels.
Now my 2001 BMW 525i wagon has 139xxx miles on it, so the AC belt was replaced along with the main belt at some point, but the pulley wheels and tensioner were very hard to spin and would need replacing.
Here is what I did:
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Start by disconnecting the battery and removing the fan and fan shroud. I always find that to do a job well, it is best to go ahead and buy the correct tools. In this case, that meant I had to buy the 32 mm wrench and the water pump wrench (BMW Fan Clutch Holder Tool), this tool allows you to hold the water pump pulley in place while loosening the radiator fan. Without these two tools, the job would have been nearly impossible.
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I used a vacuum to clean out the shredded rubber and fibers from the belt. I also made sure to get all of the debris out of the alternator vents and the area near the exhaust manifold.
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Remove the bottom engine cover so that you can access the screw on the bottom coolant hose clamps and allow for the fan shroud to come out with ease.
This is the lower engine cover with all of the fragments from the serpentine belt that was destroyed.
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Drain and flush the coolant from the engine and radiator.
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As for the tensioner pulleys, do one at a time, and be sure to line the belts up correctly.
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Drop in the battery and connect the correct connections after the trickle charger shows the battery is back to 100% charged.
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Fill the coolant system with 50% coolant and 50% distilled water with the heater turned to maximum. When the system is 90% full, run the motor to help get out the bubbles.
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Burp the cooling system once it is 100% full. Use the bleeder screws to verify that there is no more air in the lines and that coolant comes out of the bleeder valves.
Once the job was done, the BMW fired right up and I was back on the road. It's frustrating when something goes out on your car, but if you take your time and peak around at other items while you have your nose under the hood you might be able to save time and future headaches by replacing those other items before they fail. Which leads us right back to “Preventive maintenance”... it does sound good
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