f you've ever taken your truck in for service and it has around 30,000 miles on it, chances are pretty good you've heard this, "Your belt is dry and cracked. Would you like us to replace it?" Of course you say, "How much?", and then you restrain from saying the F-word when you hear the price.

Well, replacing a serpentine belt on a Discovery II is extremely easy. It takes about 15-30 minutes. And no, the fan does not have to be removed. To replace the serpentine belt, the following tools are required:

• 15 mm 1/2" socket
• Long 1/2" ratchet
• 10 mm 3/8" socket
• 3/8" ratchet
• Big phillips head screw driver
• 1 bicep (large)

My Disclaimer:

I am not recommending you use these instructions to replace the serpentine belt on your vehicle. My advice is to take your vehicle to an authorized dealer and have the belt installed by a professional.

The following is simply a documentary of how I installed my serpentine belt. If you decide to purchase and install a serpentine belt and end up damaging your car... it's your fault...

Take it to an authorized dealer!

That said... if you are a club member, obviously I'll help you...

OK. Most of the DIIs in the United States have 4.0 liter V8 engines. Well, the 2003s and 2004s have 4.6s, but the belt is the same.

There are two belts: one for vehicles with ACE (active cornering enhancement) and one for vehicles without. "Sherman" does not have ACE, so I bought the appropriate belt from Land Rover Houston for him.

To start, I had to remove the fan shroud (2) in the picture below. I used my phillips head screw driver to remove the four screws. There are two on the front (circled in orange) and there are two more to the rear (shown in the second picture). I gently removed the radiator hose from the top of the shroud and removed the fan shroud from the vehicle.

(Click any of the pictures to enlarge them)

Once the fan shroud was removed, I removed the belt cover (1) in the picture below. The first bolt you can see circled in the picture, the second bolt is shown by arrow D. Both of these bolts are 10 mm.

The pictures below show these same bolts:

Once I had the fan shroud and belt cover removed, I removed the tension from the belt by pulling on the tensioner (C) in the picture below.

The way I removed the tension was to place the 15 mm socket and the long ratchet on the bolt circled in the picture below. Then I pushed the ratchet in the direction of arrow A in the picture below. This takes a considerable amount of "umph." When I pulled the ratchet in direction A, the pulley rises in direction B, which releases the tension on the belt.

While holding the ratchet (relieving the tension), I removed the old belt.

I did have to finagle the belt off around the fan, but it's doable.

Now, one mistake folks make is to remove the belt and not remember how to route it when it is time to place the new belt back on the vehicle. While funny if it happens to someone else, it would suck if it were to happen to me. So, I always sketch a picture of the belt on a piece of paper so I will know how to put it back on.

In this case, I had a diagram, and I've pasted it below should anyone need it. The green dashed line shows how my belt was run because I do not have ACE; obviously if I did have ACE, I would have routed the belt per the original diagram.

Once I removed the old belt, I finagled the new belt on under the fan. Yes, this can be a pain, but I was patient and routed the belt up to the tensioner.

Similar to the way I removed the belt, I pulled on the tensioner again and slipped the belt on. Since this belt was new, it took a little more "UMPH" than what was required to remove the old belt; but again, I was patient and able to get it back on.

Once the belt was on, I reassembled the belt cover and fan shroud in the reverse order of which they were removed.

That's it--one replaced serpentine belt.

Overall this is a very simple installation, but it does take a little strength and patience. If you have any questions or need any help, let me know.

- Bill Mallin