eris2krat

Hello All,

I am posting this here to give back for the all the information I received through this forum. This is not a how to, but notes on what I came across while doing a tune up on my Lebaron. Particularly, this is information I had to find because it was not in the repair manual. There is also a link that I found on this forum which was helpful with the serpentine belt replacement. I will post later in the K car forum regarding an issue with the belt. Please note I am not a mechanic not even close to a shade tree mechanic. My qualifications are limited to having a set of wrenches and not much money to give to a mechanic and the ability to search forums and find the information I need. I also have a very excellent mechanic around the corner from my house who I can call when I get into trouble. That is very important as this car is a daily driver.

I started with replacing the belts. The AC belt needs to come off first, but there is no information on how to do this. I loosened the the front nut on the idler pulley assembly as little bit and then loosened the top bolt on the assembly which caused the pulley to lower and relieve tension. See the attached image "Engine Drawing". I believe the top bolt is a mm socket. I then followed the Serpentine belt removal and installation instructions in the manual and watched the video linked below. Though there are plenty of posts on how to do that, I will say I used the Serpentine belt tool with a mm socket because I could not fit any other tool. When the belt is removed, the tool was wedged against hood and fire wall so I could not remove it until complete. I lined up the power steering pulley on the belt first from under the car then went to the main crank pulley. See the attached image "belt shot" for routing.
http://www.daycoproducts.com/daycoweb.nsf/BeltNoiseVideo!OpenPagev
Next I replaced the distributor and rotor. I unscrewed the old rotor and left everything connected so I could easily follow the routing for the new cap and wires. There is a bolt under the rotor that needs to be removed and reinstalled. I noted the direction of the rotor and put the new one on in the same direction.
Next I replaced the plugs and wires. I did this one at a time. The spark plug socket was a 13/16 and needs to have the universal joint to fit. The #1 plug is rally hard to get your hand into for removing the spark plug boot and reinstalling it.
I replaced the air filter when reinstalling the assembly.
I added some fuel injector cleaner to the gas tank.
I took it for an oil change as it was considerably less expensive than doing it myself even before factoring in my time.
Thank you to all the people who took the time to post and answer questions on this forum on how to for the tune up pieces.