2010 Chevy Cobalt Serpentine Belt Diagram

Chevy Cobalt 2.2L Serpentine Belt Tool, Removal, Change The Belt.
I have a 2005 Chevy Cobalt 2.2L engine and I changed the serpentine belt with this low profile slim tool from the bottom and the top of the engine.

The tool I got at O'Reilly's Auto Parts a low profile slim Power Torque 3/8" Drive Ratchet Part #GM6179 cost $20. Harbor Freight also sells a longer slim low profile drive ratchet that is double headed 3/8' and 1/4".
STEP ONE: From The Top
Simply remove your air box and put this tool in the middle of the belt tensioner where the square hole is and turn up counter clockwise. That will make it so the belt can be removed. You have to keep pressure on the tensioner while you get the belt off and lowering the tool is awkward because it hits the metal car frame and slim piping there so it is not easier but recommended to do from the bottom.
STEP TWO: From The Bottom
Remove left side tire and mud guard use jack stands for safety. Have someone there when putting the belt back on to be standing on the top side to keep the belt on the alternator while you're below and ratchet the tensioner up. It is a very tight space to reach up from the bottom basically can't be done so you want the person on the top to keep the belt on and maybe slide their hand down and nudge belt under tensioner if required. Mine I was told fell in place once I had pushed up enough on the tensioner. I tried several times from the top side to get it on but could never get it over the pulley wheels of the alternator, crank, and ac compressor until I figured out how to do it from the bottom....

….So to mount a new belt. Put the belt over the alternator (located on the top) first. Put the belt around the ac compressor (located on the bottom right) and then wrap the belt around the crack (big black wheel on bottom left) as far as it can go, about 9 on a clock if the crack wheel pulley was a clock. Then put tension on the tensioner with the ratchet and the belt will go over the rest of the crack easily and should fall in under the tensioner which has no edges like these 3 pulleys wheels do. Let go of ratchet and the belt is changed. I can't 100% guarantee it will work for you since when I did it I couldn't see anything going on beyond the crack as I worked the ratchet, but I was told by the person I had at top they didn't really need to push the belt under the tensioner, saying it just fell in place. So that is the million dollar question will it fall in place for you? Because I know you can't reach up into the space much or see much. So you'll want an pair of eyes up top to make things easy.

Install I did from the bottom. Removed the passenger tire, I used jack stands and glad I did cause the jack failed and lowered itself. (If you see oil on it, it will fail. Mine was brand new and failed.) Removed the mud guard on the inside of wheel well. This is a tricky thing to do because the flat top plastic retainer pieces have endless fins on the backside so you basically have to brute force them out breaking them as you twist and or clip them (unless you have a tool.) There is also a few phillips head screws to undo 2 facing the wheel and one facing down towards the ground at front of wheel well. Lastly there is another hidden screw up inside the front bumper under the other wheel well mud guard that runs up under the bumper. You can pry it back to get access to see the screw location but is pretty tricky to reach it so just let the smaller engine mud guard fall flat to the ground unless you want to get under the front of the car laying under the radiator area and reach backwards into the crack between the 2 mud guards. Not really worth it.

I did buy a special bent tool service departments use to do this work of putting tension on the automatic belt tensioner but I couldn't get it into the square hole from above and didn't bother to try from below. Maybe my motor mount is the cause because it is just slightly over hanging and all I needed was that much more space or more patience to force push it in somehow with a screw driver on the backside to nudge it in. That tool is the Kent Moore J-44811 Belt Tensioning Tool it is about 12 inches long. Is a special dealership tool and cost twice as much as the low profile ratchet.

Please note this is a 2.2L engine 2005 chevy cobalt serpentine belt not an SS engine supercharged it has a different belt. My belt number is 12634320
my tensioner part number is ACDelco 24430296

This is the AC Compressor do not remove without draining ac system of freon. The black wheel on the front is the AC Clutch and can be changed without removing the entire thing.

The Harbor Freight tool is pittsburg pro 3/8 and 1/4" slim ratchet item 67994.

Final Notes:
1.) They say change your belt every 60-100k miles. Local shops wanted around $200 at 1.5 hours work. Belts range from $15-$50 and more.
2.) They say to change the automatic belt tensioner on the chevy cobalt because it has a spring in it for the tension. It has a single bolt holding it on and an access hole in the wheel well. I didn't get around to that yet. My Haynes manual just says to unbolt it no socket size shown.

3.) Be careful when replacing the top of the air filter housing because it is stubborn and if drop dirty dirt from the housing it can get onto the top of the filter and then pulled into the engine.
4.) Clean your throttle body while doing this since it is there and easy to unbolt. Buy can of cleaner. Wear heavy protection gloves and shield your eyes with goggles. The cleaner makes the oil build up evaporate basically and you will likely use the entire can.
5.) If you value your shoes put a bag on your left foot because you will be getting sideways as you remove the mud guard.
6.) Don't touch your MAF Sensor. That is the slim electrical thing plugged into you air tube it's bigger than a credit card sort of and is a block, it's an electrical sensor made of plastic housed in your air intake filter tube. Image search it is the thing between the airbox and the engine in the black tube. Don't touch that with your finger prints on it may interfere with its abilities to sense airflow. That's the MAF sensor. The MAP sensor is above the throttle body.
7.) Some have taken off their motor mounts to change serpentine belts or used a wood block to raise the tensioner. A $20 slime low profile ratchet gets the job done.
8.) The metal pipe I bought at Lowes for some extra leverage worked great and was sold in a plastic bag but I handled numerous pipes that day and so be sure you wear gloves handling pipes as your mouth will taste like metal if you don't from whatever coating they put on them I guess.

Posted by: hyehyesarkodiee0274935.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.yourcobalt.com/threads/chevy-cobalt-2-2l-serpentine-belt-tool.102550/