I recently replaced the water pump, thermostat, viscous coupling, fan, serpentine belt, tensioner, tensioner arm and roller and idler roller on my M57TU diesel engine. However, when I came to fit the tensioner, tensioner arm and roller and belt to the aircon compressor, I realised that it previously did not have them and instead used a stretch belt (slightly shorter). Upon inspection though, it does have the mounting hardware and threaded holes to accept the parts that I had already bought! I was just missing 2 bolts to hold the tensioner on. I looked up the spec on realoem and found that they were M8x22 so I ordered some (I went with cap/allen headed bolts as they are commonly used on this car).
So today I went to fit the parts thinking it was going to be easy as it's only 2 bolts etc. But no. There is absolutely no way to get one of the bolts in! It is so far up and obscured by other things that I couldn't even get it started with my fingers WITHOUT the tensioner in place! With it in place, I couldn't even touch the bolt or get a tool in, in any direction! How is this done?! The even bigger concern is that I couldn't get the thread started. The head of the bolt was touching something else and I think forcing the bolt in at an angle so there was no way it was going anywhere. I just don't understand how I'm meant to do it. Is this why the car didn't come with a tensioner?? I bought a stretch belt too (by accident initially) and I could just put that on there but as I have already spent £60 on the tensioner assembly I wanted to fit it. I also don't have a special tool to fit the stretch belt.
Does anyone with an M57TU diesel have any insight into this or can provide pictures of theirs?
I have added some pictures to help illustrate the problem. The blue circle is a little access hole behind the threaded hole. No idea why this is here as the bolt enters from the other side.
