Timing Belt Tensioner Removal/Install, without removing A/C Bracket

Just wanted to share my experience after doing my water pump/timing belt.

MOST of the threads and how-to's say to take the A/C compressor and bracket out to help removing and reinstalling the timing belt tensioner.

My truck has 270K miles of Chicago winters on the clock and seemed like an unnecessary pain to go thru all of that.

Removal was quite simple, 12mm ratcheting box wrench on the front bolt and 1/4 12mm socket, swivel head and 2x 6" extensions snaked up thru the front right corner of the oil pan.

After I got it out, I discovered the TOOL would never have worked, the piston in the tensioner had moved enough that the holes did NOT line up for the pin the tool has...

Took the rubber boot off, readjusted the piston shaft for the holes to line up. And into a vice.

NOW, the tricky part, reinstalling this thing...after many trials and failures. Needing some sort of mechanical advantage as this little part is heavy and hard to keep aligned to thread one of the bolts.

Back into the vice,

I used a hex key set to hold the tension off. This ALSO gave me a handle to hold the tensioner in place while I got the front bolt threaded. Literally, a 20 minute reinstall, versus the hours I spent trying to hold it in place with simply the bolts thru the housing.

Hope this helps someone else taking this on...