Greetings!

W124 - 300CE

After doing a wonderful job replacing my belt tensioner, and going on a test drive, I noticed a strange squeal coming from under the hood. Having done this repair a couple of times before, it shouldn't have been a problem, but as near as I can tell, the squeal was caused by the tensioner being loose and misaligned. It seems I may have screwed up and forgot to tighten the large center bolt for the tensioner and subsequently it stripped the aluminum threads. I find it odd that it only took a few miles of city driving to completely hose the threads.

Now that I'm done being completely upset with myself, I have resigned to the thought that I either need to replace the (I think it's called the A/C compressor mount) or carefully helicoil new threads into the old one.

I rather like the idea of helicoil and have had success using them before on a myriad of other repairs on other things years ago.

And a few questions...

Has anyone ever seen a stripped tensioner center bolt? And if so, what was the recourse? Helicoil or replace?

Any idea what size the bolt is? Threads and pitch?

I appreciate any response and feedback. Thanks in advance.

Michael B.

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Power Generation Specialist.

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We judge others by their actions.