My 1982 Wagon had the pulley fall apart recently. It made quite a dramatic show of it with lots of noise. I've got a nice new reinforced pulley and it will go together beautifully except the belts. Had 2 break on the alternator and can't get the new ones into position because there is another belt in front of them. My mechanic tells me that a pry bar over the AC and a socket on the crank shaft pulley turned clockwise will do the trick. He said this would ease the tension on the belts enough to slip on or off the pulleys. But when we tried using the pry bar the whole engine moves.

Has anyone done this? The alternative sounds too complicated. My mechanic has been doing this for a long time so I'm sure there is a trick to it that somehow I'm just not getting.

I've had to use this trick too, on occasion. I don't think it's all that good for the belt though.
I find this trick is a little tougher to do on cars with shorter belts.

Make sure key is off, maybe pull your coil wire too.
Trans in neutral.
Depending on how desperate you are to do it this way, you may want to pull the spark plugs so you can turn the engine over more easily
You will find it easiest if you work on a larger pulley, usually the crank.

To put belt on:
Place belt over smaller pulley (s)
Start belt into groove on bottom of crank pulley, (assuming it is relatively the largest pulley).
Hold belt tight in place on the pulley, using a ratchet, turn crankshaft in direction
that pulls the belt into the groove . The belt must be taut, and firmly grip all pulleys while you do this.
You will still need to adjust it after you get it on.


To take a belt off:
Use a small pry bar to lift the edge of the belt off of the larger pulley.
Rotate the crankshaft in the direction that makes the belt climb out of the groove.

I've done this on occasion by bumping the starter to run the belt on or off, but I'm not recommending that unless you know how to do it safely.

Thanks. But there should be something else in this. My mechanic says to use the pry bar to reduce the pressure on the belt just enough to slip it on or off as you turn the crank shaft blot. It is a longer belt. Appying pressure as I understood him, is moving the whole thing as a unit. Changing belts shouldn't be big deal, this has been a bit of a stinker!

Well normally you wouldn't attemt to remove a belt this way, you would elect to loosen off the adjustment on the driven member and let if fall off. In this case I'm guessing it's your AC that you can't slack off.
I've only had to do this trick when there was no way to get any slack.

loosen the adjustment bolt enough, the 2 clamp bolts & the pivot bolt(s) below it and rock it inwards, then slide the loose belt off. The mech is having you on, or is just a butcher-avoid him if he is the latter. It's really easy if you move some parts out of the way to get better access. Retensioning is just the reverse procedure. Belts should be tight to 1cm play in the longest run with mild pressure. Overtensioning damages belt and all loaded bearings-too loose, & it slips and burns out, plus no function of driven part. The basic mechanism is the same for all belt adjustments except the cam belt, you just have to look around for the components. NB there are2 lock bolts on an aircon pump. The back one is a sod. They are co-axial. There should have been just one long bolt, but........