Third day of the new year and it's a mild day outside so I decided to put new drive-belts on the 2004 Tacoma that I've been driving. Noah wrecked our Toyota Highlander last year so Jill has been driving my 2001 Tacoma Double Cab and I've been driving the over 400,000 mile 2004 Tacoma. At least we don't have a car payment since I bought both of these with cash.
I've had a belt squeaking on the 2004 for a while so I figured I might as well change the drive-belts out. As soon as I went to loosen the air conditioner idler pulley the nut just snapped off; nothing can ever be easy. I hadn't even put any pressure on it so I assume this was already "loose". I thought about machining a new bolt, but as luck would have it, I had a bolt and idler pulley from the 5VZ-FE that I put in my stretched Land Cruiser. It was a rusty mess though and as soon as I went to loosen the tensioning rod, it snapped off inside. Lucky for me there was some material to hang onto. I did the blue wrench and oil trick but I literally had to heat it constantly as I worked the remnants of the bolt back and forth. It finally came out after fighting me the entire way. I chased the threads with a tap and then sandblasted the various parts. I slid it all back into place and got things tensioned back up. It only took a half a day to do all of this. In the moment, I sometimes wonder why I have old stuff that needs constant maintenance but after the job is done, I have piece of mind that the job was done right and that I won't need to mess with this part of the truck for a while.
Oh, and I end up with well moisturized skin by way of tapping fluid and grease...
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