P80 1999- serpentine belt install 6DK1841 9458376, 30731808, 9471981

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Sneers at you -1998 wankers struggling with that 3/4 square block tensioner…

I did a lot of serp belts bringing 4 1999- cars up to 50k PM this year, and did find a quick way to both Route and install serp belts.

Part numbers in title, both Volvo and Continental
I used a 14 mm wrench and a 2 foot long broom stick or tire iron.

Make an upside down U with the belt. It’s ribbed on both sides for your install pleasure.

Now squeeze the top of the U under the tensioner pulley and drop the two loops - one under the crank pulley, the other under the AC

Use the stick to seat the ribs in those two pulleys

Now you separate the top of the U, and the lower part goes over the alternator pulley. This turns backwards on 1999- and will only charge turning ccw

You know have the top loop last, and it will just reach the power steering pulley but not quite Go on.

With the14 mm wrench, pull it forward to ease tension on the belt and slip it onto the PS pulley.if it won’t go, you usually have some ribs thst have slipped off a ribbed pulley somewhere. Mmmmmm, ribs….

Voila!

Picture of 1999- belt routing attached

[FireFox31]

All of this gets foiled by the darn T60 Torx bit required to slacken the tensioner. A long, flat socket bar like the CTA A875 is mandatory for getting the large bit into that tight spot. Worked great for me.

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It’s a 14 mm hex head on my tensioners. Are we talking the same place?

[ThaddeusTheBold]

I just bought the Volvo tool for 22 bucks. It works fine.

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Update. I have 4 1999s

Two of them have 14 mm tensioner holds

Two have T60 tensioner holds

[amblerman]

My 99 has the torx. First time I did this, I ground down the torx portion of my socket a bit for room.

Second time I bought one of the thin dedicated tools and used it with a fresh T60. Worked much better than my ground down bit

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1999 replacement interval is 60,000 miles. I’m guessing the MTBF is 120,000 miles or more