Did a bit of maintenance on the car during the Easter long weekend. I was getting a lot of oil and road crap build up on the lower tray, and perusing the various threads, figured it was probably the oil cooler seals, and also that test port seal.

Also took the opportunity to swap in a new v-belt.

Everything goes smoothly when you have the right tools! My mechanic buddy brought over the appropriately shaped counterholder, and I had bought a 36mm fan clutch tool, so the fan and shroud came off very easily. If it wasn't for the airpump, the oil cooler would have been off very easily too, but it's quite tight getting the 'lower left' bolt.

Bit of oddness on the belt tensioning pulley though. The WIS says there is a male torx bolt on the tensioner pulley. So you get a wrench or socket on there and rotate counter clockwise to release the tension. But mine wasn't a male torx, it was a security torx. Acquired a set of security torx, but going counter clockwise on that just loosened the bolt. Ending up just manually pulling on the belt and jamming a pry bar to keep the tension off. What gives here? Any ideas?

Anyway, everything went back quite easily, and yep - those three seals were rock hard. Doesn't seem to have been any leakage since (knock on wood) thus v. happy.

Any suggestions on what is up with my idler pulley, would appreciate it.

Next up....painting the whole car! New fenders, new front bumper reinforcement (mine's a bit buggered, and thus the front bumper doesn't line up properly), clear corners and some aftermarket carbon fibre trim for the B-pillars. Current ones are looking quite sad. Also going to remove the interior wood trim and paint those to match the exterior. I'm sure some people will gasp at that, but I just cannot stand wood on cars, at all (except for the Carrera GT with its balsa wood shift knob, but that's another story). My friend tells me that once painted, I shouldn't be able to see any of the wood grain. The initial plan was to wrap it all with carbon look fabric, but that might just turn out looking amateurish.

 

Depends on how old your belt tensioner is. The 3 versions I know need either a 17mm socket, E10/12 torx or T50/55 torx bit to loosen. No major differences between them, just minor changes

 

But is there a proper way to just release the tension as opposed to loosening the entire pulley? If I can't get a tool on the pulley to loosen it, am I just stuck with pulling the belt and wedging something in there again? There was also mention in the WIS about inserting a pin into the pulley to keep the tension off, but I couldn't see anything anywhere.