Morning,

I'm going to have my T-Belts retensioned soon (2500 miles) and was wondering if the pulleys and rollers can be changed at the same time. At the time when I had the T-Belt and Balance shaft belts done, the mechanic said they were fine. Now that I've been reading about locked up rollers, I'm thinking about just having them done as a precautionary move.

What do you think? I have an order with Paragon that will be shipped today, so please help!

TIA,
sm

 

Sure...It's simply a matter of releasing the tension on the belt, removing and replacing the rollers and then retensioning the same belt...

 

What about the oilseals?
The garage that maintains my car also changes the oilseals when installing a new belt.

Paul

 

.....adding to this timing belt/roller discussion....

I know the recommended timing belt re-tension after install of new ones is 2500 miles.

I'm having mine re-tensioned after only 2000 Klms (which I think is around 1200 miles). Is this ok? How will this effect the next tensioning at 15,000 miles? I'm only getting them done now cause I heard a curious "squeak" on start-up the other day - I know it's most likely an a/c belt (I don't think timing belts can "squeak") - but I thought I'd better get it done now, just incase.

The mechanic wanted to re-tension them at 500 klms....I thought that was a bit early.

944S Boyeee

 

I just spoke to my wrench and he said to change the rollers and pulleys, he would have to pull off all the belts - much like doing the whole job all over again. Bottom line = over $1000.

He did say that if the rollers were bad when he changed the belt, he would have advised me to change the rollers as well. He looks for wear marks on the "tracks" of the rollers and how smoothly they turn as indicators of worn rollers.

I guess I'll just go with the retension at ~ $90.

How about a T-belt "How To" day in the NYC area???

 

$1000...I don't understand that...I just rebuilt my motor and was diagnosing a low oil pressure pressure problem upon start up...I had the crank sprocket misaligned so I was not getting proper clamping pressure on the oil pump (that's another story)...Anyways, I had to access the belts to realign the sprocket...

It took me about 20 minutes to remove the AFM, tilt up the passenger side intercoller tube and remove the plastic covers...Presto I had access to the belts...I had to loosen both belts as I had a roller on backwards...Flipped the roller around and retensioned them no problem... I could have changed any of the rollers...I had the whole thing fixed within an hour and started it up...

Perfect oil pressure and is running like a new engine should...$1000 for that...EEEEK...Now I know why I do all my own work.

 

Mike, et al -

Can you give me details on how to switch out the rollers? I've done a lot of work on the car myself already, and with proper instructions, I'll do this myself too.

Since I don't have the tension tool, I'll just take it to the mechanic for that and spend ~$90 as opposed to 1 grand.

Thanks!

 

the rollers (4) are around $120 bucks or so. It's not difficult and there are many tensioning helps posted on the web... who knows you may find someone near you that can help you do it the first time 'round. I did mine and so far nothing has exploded -- a good singn to be sure!

and as a side note, the belts sould be retensioned at 2K.

 

Yeah you've got to watch that oil pump drive, I was told to install it with the new seal as a unit. I just did my belts/waterpump/rollers took a week or so, I took my time.

 

$1000 for a belt/roller removal??? I just got nearly my whole engine rebuilt and the labor was only about $1500 and of course new belts seals rollers etc went with that.

The reason for retensioning the belts is that they may loosen with the engine's heat cycles (Aluminium expands quite a bit). Doing the job too soon may not allow for enough stretch to be sure the belts then stay at the correct tension until the job is due again.