I went to unbolt the tensioner because the pulley bearing is shot and the darn Torx head stripped on my first try. Mind you, I didn't just blindly start wrenching. I researched it here, got the proper tools, took my time to get a good hold on it. Who ever came up with the Torx anyways? So what are my options? Even unbolting the engine mount at this point to get a little more clearance is probably useless. Can I have someone weld a socket on there and take it off that way? I was also changing the idler pulley, but the "correct" pulley I got was too big so now I have to go find the right pulley before I can put the belt back on! Any insights would help greatly.
Can vice grips grip the bolt?
this just happened to me, I had to take it to a shop. ran me $137 in labor cause they had to jack up the engine and drill it out. good luck
If it's the lower one, you should be able to grab the head with a small pair of Vice-Grips. If it's the upper one... (this is going to sound pretty "Neanderthalic"...but) you can use a cold chisel and strike it on top of the head in a counter-clockwise direction. You probably wont find a cold chisel long enough, just put it in a socket and put a long extention on it. It should break it loose enough that you can use what's left of the eaten-out Torx to remove it the rest of the way. "Aero-Kroil" is the best available penetrating oil for hard to remove parts. Replace the (Lame-A$$) Torx-heads with standard hex-head bolts.
Just to close the loop on the topic, I ended up cutting a small square in the strut tower hoping to get a clear path to the screw. First with a small Dremmel, then off to Harbor Freight for a 3" air cutter (yea, new tool)! Despite my best efforts, it wasn't very direct. But I was able to get an extension with the T40 bit in there a little misaligned (what the hell, it's already stripped). Got a pretty good leverage, but it slipped again. So having failed that, I beat on it with a screwdriver some more (I had already chipped away the plastic surround and cut a horizontal slot and was trying to chisel it before I decided to cut the hole). By golly, it started moving. It was all downhill after that.
Once I removed the tensioner, wouldn't you know it, the pulley they sold me is the wrong size (as was the idler pulley). So several stores are selling wrong sized idler and tensioner pulleys out there to the unsuspecting public who's thinking why doesn't my belt fit any more?
To make a long story longer, I now have a new tensioner assembly and is working on the alternator (working, but noticed it was cracked, might as well do it now. That's another story, and already started another thread in the E. Great Lakes.