Car Fix DIY Videos

John David Rhoderick says:

For anyone reading this, I did this in 2-3 hours solo and I'm new to working on the CRV (2005). I've tried to cover everything as much as I could in this comment, after watching several videos and reading a bunch and putting it altogether for you.

First, I turned the wheel to one side so I could get in and unhook the splash guard (be careful taking these two plugs out that connect the splash guard, they can be damaged easily), which made pulling the old belt out and arranging the new belt at the bottom easy peasy. Don't try to take the splash guard completely off. Just removing the two plugs will allow you to pull it away so you can work. There is simply no reason at all really to jack the car up and remove the tire except it makes it even easier, but just turning the tire to an angle to give you room is more than enough imo to make it easy to work from the bottom. I'm not a big guy though so your results may vary.

There is one bolt on the ps pump (two total to take it off) that's a little difficult to get to, but if you position a light in from the front and peer in thru a crack by the radiator, you can see easily to get a deep socket on it to get it off. There is no need to remove any hoses, only the reservoir and the ps pump need to be disconnected and moved for ease of working. The reservoir lifts up and off easily and you can move it to the side, out of the way. I suppose you don't have to take the ps pump off, but I think it will make setting up the new belt alignment a lot easier and taking off the pump is easy, so that's what I did. Plus, while I had room, I took the liberty of cleaning up some of the grime and filth in that area around my alternator that I could reach. When you put the ps pump back on, just put that tricky bolt through the hole on the pump and again look thru the front to guide it in to the hole it screws into, then it's fairly easy (I have small hands) to turn the bolt a few times to get it started.

The hardest part of this job (for me) was aligning the belt on the final ps pump pulley. For finally getting it on, I made sure the belt was mostly aligned on all the other pulleys (use a long thin tool like a long screwdriver and of course a strong light source is a must-have to be able to see what you're doing) then I pulled the breaker bar with one (left) arm and got the belt on to the ps pulley as best I could from the back side of the pulley (because the breaker bar/tool will be in the way if I tried to do it from my end), then I used a screwdriver to turn the power steering pump wheel by putting it thru the holes of the wheel and using the power steering pump itself as a brace to pull (with right hand) towards me to turn the wheel. In this way, I was turning the pulley and slowly could work the belt on to the pulley. This was a pain in the ass, so you need to pull that tensioner back as far as you can (you should be able to pull against the ps hoses without damaging them, but keep an eye on it so you don't) to get enough slack to work it on. I had my doubts when I began to do this and it started to get frustrating, but I eventually worked the belt on. I did all this by working from the front of the vehicle (for leverage to pull the breaker bar) and not from the side. But the key to getting this job finished was that I needed all the slack I could get from the tensioner. Once I finally got it on the ps pump, I noticed the belt was slightly off from one of the pulleys below, so again I had to pull back as much as I could on the tensioner and I used a long screwdriver to push the belt onto the pulleys correctly, also using a screwdriver again to turn the wheel of the ps pump to pull the belt into alignment. Two people would make this much easier, but one person can do it for sure. Make sure you do not damage the belt trying to get it on (eg using a screwdriver to poke and prod at it).

Good lighting and the right tools will go a long way. At first, I tried one of the serpentine belt removal tools from Auto Zone, but imo these tools are not good for this job on my Honda CRV because the tensioner bolt is recessed a bit, and the tool can slip off too easily… and you definitely do NOT want to strip this bolt. I opted for an angled 14mm wrench and a simple breaker bar, which fit on the bolt very well and did not slip once and made pulling the tensioner easy. Also, some people will say you have to remove a ps hose attached literally right next to the tensioner belt. With an angled wrench, you will not have to remove this hose at all and it will fit on nicely without even coming close to the hose. Whatever you use, be careful that you don't slip and/or damage this hose when working there.

Lastly, when I was done and I thought the belt was good to go, I turned the key in the ignition on for a split second, then shut it off. This was so the belt would turn a bit, but not actually turn over the engine and start everything spinning. Then I would go check the belt and make sure it was aligned everywhere. I did this 4-5 times, and when I was satisfied the belt was not coming out of alignment anywhere, I turned over the engine and found that it was all good and there were no problems. You do NOT want the belt coming off because it's not aligned properly when you turn the engine over. lol

Overall, a little challenging, but if I could do it, most people could. Beats paying for labor.

Good luck. If anyone has a question, hit me up and I'll try to help.

Al R says:

Nice video. Good work!

Kevin Ray says:

suggestion: when showing people how they can do mechanical work, it'll save them a lot of time if you say exactly what size wrench you are using rather than just "a wrench"

Nancy Anderson says:

Thanks Always learning even at the age of 70 . Thanks again

CycleMind says:

how do you keep the wrench from falling off the bolt when pulling?? Mine keeps slipping off

Rajah Muthaiah Solai Tr says:

2005 Honda crv belt number?

MrStoneycool69 says:

You can route the belt from the top to bottom onto the crank pulley, I did that recently on my mother's Honda Accord Euro.

Lebron Jordan says:

I'm having difficulty installing my belt… do you really have to remove the power steering to gained more slack to loop the belt on? Please help!

B A says:

2002 Honda CR-V. So I removed the tensioner pulley, due to noisy bearing. My problem is now the pulley bolt won’t thread into the hole it came out off… strange. I tried threading the bolt back in without pulley, and there are no threads in that hole!!! Wtf?!?! So I came back here to double check everything, and it all looks fine, identical to what I’m seeing here: the 14mm bolt, the washer, the way the new pulley goes back on. Q: could there be anything else I’m missing? What could be keeping my pulley bolt from threading in? Thanks in advance.

Paul Hartley says:

Thanks for the helpful video. I wasn’t able to install the new belt without removing the right front wheel and the plastic shield inside the wheel well. I also had to remove the p/s reservoir to compress the tensioner during installation. Still, the job took about two hours. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon.