Well, aside from the battery now being dead, its sort of done, temporarily anyway.
Its a heck of a bodge but it works for now.
What i did, after removing the top bolt that holds the tension spring, then fighting for over an hour with the bolt that holds the bottom of the spring to the tensioner which you have to access through a hole in the alternator bracket, and after removing the wheel of the tensioner, i realised that i couldnt get the whole assembly off the car no matter how much i tried because the 19mm bolt that holds the tensioner to the car is too long to come fully out of whatever it screws into, not enough clearence, i even had the engine mounting off and the lump jacked up, not happening whatsoever, so i refitted a longer bolt with a big washer on so it now goes through that alternator bracket and spring straight into the tensioner, no access issues anymore, but no hope in hell of getting the top of the tensioner spring bolted back on, 1 because it nowhere near lines up, and 2 because i lost the special bolt, but this is a blessing in disguise, because the hole behind the bracket that the bolt screws into isnt perfectly lined up with the hole, as its meant to have the allen headed one that sinks below that hole, so as i did it up it pulled the whole assembly at a slight angle, which has then pulled the tensioner over so its not wonky anymore
So i refitted the tensioner wheel and 19mm bolt, got the belt on, and its about the right length, a little loose, but on. Then i got a bar and applied pressure to the tensioner by levering against the bottom pulley, then i realised that i couldnt nip tight the 19mm top bolt at the same time, so used my trolley jack to slowly apply pressure until it was as far as it could go, then went via the top where theres just enough room to get an open ended 19mm spanner on the top bolt, and tightened it up, thats the tension now a lot better, no spring connected, but the 19 holds it perfectly well, i released the jack and all good.
Then the final task was using the small pulley under the tensioner to get a bit more oomph on the belt, as it has that smaller square offset hole in that i ground an allen key down to fit into yesterday, pulling that clockwise so the square drive part is now in the down position got it lovely and tight, so all i had to do then was keep hold of my adapted allen key and nip up the bolt holding the pulley on, job done
No spring connected, but the way ive done it it doesnt need it, its perfectly tight. There is some slap in the belt on idle but just raise the revs slightly and it goes away.
Bodge bodged, on a temporary basis anyway.
