This is strange, maybe I'm just worrying too much, but both my new balance shaft belt from paragon and my Gates cambelt I got from ebay look worst than the old cam/ balance belt.

First the new cambelt , you can see the cords from teh side, they are not covered by rubber in some spots (not the top or bottom of the belt but the sides), on the old conti belt all teh sides are covered by rubber.

then I looked at teh teeth closely and one of the tooth on the gates belt, half of it is just bare rubber and not covered by the hard protective material that covers the rubber teeth.

Now I look at my balance belt from paragon and again in some spots the sides are not covered by rubber so I can see the cords unlike the old balance belt.

then like 6 of the teeth on the belt look odd. the very top of the tooth has an extra flat raised spot kind of looks like two parts of the hard cover that covers the rubber teeth have overlapped at the top of the tooth. Not sure if this is okay.

for the timing belt I did not want to use the gates so I ordere the OE porsche belt from Paragon, hopefully this one looks better (hopefully it's a Gates which is what I want).

the Gates timing belt look like it's a higher quality belt than the Conti I think I'm just having bad luck and getting crappy belts.

the balance belt I"ll use.... It pisses me off though , the old balance belt looks way better with no raised parts on the teeth and no cords showing anywhere.

 

Also just ordered the Arnnworx 920x cam belt tool to tension my cam belt. I think I'll just tension the balance belt by hand as it is not as critical if it skips or becomes too loose.

Is this okay? Is it risky to tension the balance belt by hand? like if you overtension a new balance belt or leave it too loose can it snap or come off?

 

one more question, I installed all my new sprockets (cam balance shaft) and today when I was working on my car it was raining outside and I noticed rust forming on the new shiny sprockets......

so I guess my new sprockets are steel, no wonder they didn't look like they had a protective coating.

are replacement sprockets usually steel?

 

if the belts look weird, call up paragon and explain it to them, im sure theyll exchange them out for you. I tension all belts by hand-

 

I try to buy Porsche parts and be done with it. Something like a timing belt on an interferance engine is not where you want to save money.

Harvey

 

I use only Conti..........

 

It may be that Porsche dealers now well Conti????

H2

 

I have a brand new belt that has been sitting in my room for 2-3 years, i got a new one and compared it to the one i have. There is a difference, small, but a difference, the new one was 'thicker' by 2mm. Stuck with the new one, or maybe i just had an old style one?

 

well I never cheaped out, I wanted the best timing belt so I got a Gates which I could only find on Ebay and it looks good except on of the teeth is partially covered by the "hard" surface which covers the rubber teeth so part of it is just bare rubber and it looks risky to me.

I ordered the 38 dollar OE timing belt from Paragon a few days ago and I think it's also a Gates but I'm hoping this one won't be like the one I got.

Paragon only has one type of balance belt for sale and I ordered this one. I'm not really sure if it is a bad belt or if it is still okay to use.

like I said the very top of some of the teeth is not smooth but has a raised part (hard cover over the rubber teeth).

I'll try and take a pic of this on teh balance belt but I'm not sure if you can see it with my cameral.

 

i dont know, ive raced my porsche for three years now and run nothing but Conti belts on it w/ no problems. Besides that- go to porsche- and they will give you a conti....

 

I know I am supposed to use the 968 belt on my "S", can the non-S cars benefit from this belt as well? Did they just supercede all the 944 series t-belts with the 968 belt?

 

too long-wide

 

Yeah, I hear that alot.........

 

well I tried taking pics of the raised top on some of the teeth ont the balance belt but my camera is too crappy to show that detail.

the very top of the tooth has a 1mm wide x ?long flat strip of material on the top of the round teeth. so it's like 1mm of the tooth is flat instaed of round and this part is raised like 1mm above the tooth.

sorry this probably made no sense at all without showing a pic.

also on most of the belt you can see the cords in the belt from the side, I can post a clear pic of this.

I think I might use this belt as I don't feel like shipping it back and waiting for another to come in.

the balance belt doesn't have much load on it so if it rips a tooth off it won't be a huge deal as long as it doesn't completely break and take out the timing belt....... again I doubt this is likely unless you put too much tension.


I got the OE 38 dollar Porsche belt from paragon so I'm hoping it is NOT conti because then it will be a rip off as the conti belt is 12 bucks. Paragon told me they have no idea what it can be all they know is that it comes in a box with Porsche writting on it... I hope it is a Gates in better condition. the gates belt is a little thicker than the conti and and much more flexible and rubbery.

yeah my porsche dealer wanted 40 bucks for the timing belt and when I asked what brand it was they said Conti.....

hopefully the Paragon OE is not also Conti, not that it is a bad belt but it would be stupid to pay 3 times the cost of the aftermarket conti and get a Conti in a nice Porsche box.