If there is anything that I like better than using tools, it is making tools. Even the simplest tool, thrown together in a few minutes, gives me great satisfaction. I felt that satisfaction again today as I used my homemade belt tensioning tool to help me solve a squealing belt problem that had developed on my 1989 4runner. Many times in the past I resorted to wedging a prybar between the engine block or the timing cover and the alternator to try to lever it over to get tension on the belt. Working on my first generation 4runner I just couldn’t find away to make those crude methods work, and so I constructed a tool.

It’s about a simple as things get. I went to the local hardware store and bought a 10 inch turnbuckle. Most hardware stores have them. They consist of a threaded collar that forms the body of the turnbuckle and a pair of screw eyes, one at each end. One of the screw ends has a reverse thread. This allows the turnbuckle to become longer or shorter when the body is rotated. If both had a conventional thread the collar would simply move along the threads without changing the length of the turnbuckle. By having two different threads, turning the collar causes each threaded eye to move out of the collar or go deeper into into it depending on which way the body is being turned.