1990 190E 2.6

Today I decided to clean my idle air control valve and replace the brittle hoses with fresh ones. I noticed my belt was loose so I loosened up the 19mm bolt and tightened the adjusting rod. later on that last night I started the car and the belt was screeching. turned off the car and checked it out and the belt was loose again. Unfortunately I only have the one car and no garage and I work, so I decided to see what real issue was. I heard of the spring in the tensioner failing so I removed the belt and pushed the tensioner down some....the hydraulic shock appeared to be the problem (although the spring may be toast too). Not wanting to drive sound with a screeching car, I cut a piece of hose that I had left, then I cut out a length of the section so now it is a halfed-hose. I then extended the tensioner shock all the way out and put the hose around the extended tube and used nylon zip ties to bring the hose together and wrap around the extended tube of the shock. I then managed to get the belt back on and it is now nice and tight with no more screeching. This is obviously temporary, but it worked great. Does not take long to do either once I figured out how I was gonna fix the problem. I had to only remove the fan shroud, fan blade, and the pipe to the water pump.

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1990 190E 3.0L