The stealership wants like $700 bucks to do this job. Is it really that easy?

 

Easy as pie. Serp belt will literally take you 10 minutes. Rotate the tensioner toward the rear of the car with a 1/2 breaker bar, slide the belt off the pullies, pull it out, route the new belt, around the pullies, let the tensioner rotate back into position and youre done.

Its easiest with an extra person for sure.

 

You don't really need two people. One is fine. Just make sure you 1/2 in breaker bar is not long. My Snapon Wrench is like 2ft long and ended up hitting the oil cooler. Get a shorter one, pretty much max it out as far as you can push it and slide the belt on from alternator ending with the AC pully. It seriously should take 10 min max. Not a hard task.

 

I did mine this morning. It was pretty easy, but I pulled off the crank pulley because I was replacing the pulley as well. With the pulley off, and working from underneath the car, I had it on in 5 minutes. Taking the pulley off is not hard either.

Rock Auto has Gates tensioner pulleys and Goodyear Gatorback serpentine belts. Best prices I saw.

 

Did anyone replace the idler pulley when changing the serpentine belt? It seems the bolt hits the frame and I was wondering if anyone has an easy solution for getting it in/out.

 

I did this today.

Jacked up car.
Took off wheel.
Took off the 2 rear-most clips that fasten wheel well liner, bent it forward out of way resting against caliper.
1/2" craftsman ratchet with 19mm deep socket slipped over the end of the handle with a 1/2" extension attached (my damn HF 25" 1/2" breaker bar was too long) counter-clockwise 10 or 15 degrees.
5mm allen wrench to lock it out (6mm was too big).
A few photos in case I screwed up.
Took off belt, easy
started putting on belt, referred to diagram
started putting on belt again, referred to diagram
Repeat a couple of times.
Realized that some pulleys have lips, others do not, so, get all pulleys that have lips mounted first and then slide the others into place [PRO TIP ]

80 minutes from jack up to jack down.

Used this:

Worked like a charm.

[EDIT 1/13/2014]
Priced at King mitsubishi today, parts and labor on serpentine belt replacement:
1 hour at $99.00/hr + $58.00 for the belt

Even if it was just the labor, I saved $99 and I would have spent a LOT more time driving to the dealership, waiting for them to finish and then driving home again vs. just doing it in my front yard so I saved time too.

THANK you EvoM.

 

You have to drop the motor down, by removing passenger motor mount, to get it out.

 

Any of you guys have a clue if it the belt mentioned would be the same size for an Evo 5?

Thanks!

 

I have no association with this guys but I like the info. maybe it helps somebody else too.

 

Needed to do this b/c I failed inspection due to a cracked belt.

Advance had it in stock and whole thing took about an hour solo (most of that finding tools and the up/down of getting everything aligned).

Thanks again for all the tips guys!

 

I just did this today by myself in about 15 min. Looking at this post I expected the worst, but it wasn't really that bad to do. Now comparatively speaking, it's a lot easier to do on my Eclipse where I can almost change the belt with my eyes closed but the Evo wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just gotta be very patient. Now I have to do Timing belt in about 2k miles, not looking forward to that.

 

So much difference of opinion in how people routed their belts during installation lol

 

This came in handy!