gruffalo

Oil pump gear is fine. Cam gears slightly shiny, but I can feel/see no edges.

I'm tempted to just gather the parts and assemble for now.

-new sholder bolt and bushings
-new roller
-tensioner boot
-and a circlip this time!

MM

gruffalo

Dave: well, let me put it this way, now I know what coolant tastes like... not bad! No wonder dogs drink it. But it burns in the eyes, though.

Garth S

Coolant? yeah, it's a lot like Norwegian beer .... That's why my Norwegian friends recommend aquavit to chase it .... kills the taste

Circlip, eh? It was the only way I could explain such a large mistrack on the tensioner roller: Look at the design - without the clip, the shaft 'floats' in the carrier arm - and will walk towards the engine ....

gruffalo

It had only walked about 1mm though. But add a loose bearing and a bent bolt, it all adds up...
Well I hope that was it.

Or else I have non compatible parts.

mark kibort

a couple of things.

first, this looks strangely familuar. Scots car had the early tensioner, and later tesoner roller arm. we had an alignment that looked like that plunger into the arm issue. we ended up with an S4 tensoner, but then the covers didnt fit perfectly, but we made it work. (dip stick had to be modified) Or we could have picked up the right tensioner arm, but that would have ment picking out the right water pump to match!!!

our alignment looked a little more off, and was working fine with the prior engine (just before it blew, for unrelated reasons)

As a side note, ive had the bent bolt syndrome, but the main thing about that is that bolt can break easily, so i go along with the recomendation of replacing that little bitty shafted bolt (10mm type threads with that big 13mm bolt head), with a new one every time!

the play in the bushings and the washer, either the thin one or the thick style depending on your family of tensioner arms, will definitely effect the riding position of the TB. the holbert car has the belt running toward the front of the passenger side pulley. I dont think its an issue.

mk

gruffalo

the plunger in the tensioner sits 27mm in front of the engine block. The same measurement for the plunger hole in the arm (with the arm installed) is 25mm. This should explain why the plunger is not straight. I might not have the correct arn/tensioner combo.

Does anyone have an arm available to take some vital measurements? To compare? I nedd to identify my parts...

MM

JKelly

So what is the final theory as to why this incident happened? Missing circlip? Bent bolt? bent tensioner arm? mismatched components? Which is the initial cause and which is the damage that occurs after the cause?

I am currently doing my timing belt, after the water pump started leaking, and found the IDENTICAL situation:
-belt tracking forward on pasenger side cam gear
-belt tracking less forward on driver side cam gear
-belt tracking halfway off of the tensioner roller
-belt slightly rubbing againt the tensioner roller arm

I haven't taken it all off yet until I can figure out how to go about disecting the problem. I'm taking this reeaalll slow and will soon post the pics in my own thread. TIA

gruffalo

sorry, I can see your post is a month old buy here it goes:
-bolt was bent, I had
-one missing circlip and thin washer, and the
-roller bearing was very loose/sloppy.
-the belt was too tight

Other than that, the arm was fine, and the correct components were in there. I had a new bolt made from a higher grade steel. Got new rollers, and fitted everything correctly and had it adjusted with the Kempf tool. Tracking of the belt is now acceptable but not perfect still.

So in my case it was a combination of several things, but hte bent bolt was the most scary of the mal.

mm

JKelly

Thanks for the reply gruf.

Were the cam gears worn at all? Did you replace either of them?

I've dismantled everything down to the belt, but wanted to order my parts, check the belt tension, and do a little investigation before I took the rest of it apart.

All of my symptoms are identical to what you had. There has to be a reason for the bent bolt "syndrome". Actually, I haven't been able to check my bolt yet, but judging from the looks of it I bet it is bent. I'll check for the other things you listing too:
"-one missing circlip and thin washer, and the
-roller bearing was very loose/sloppy.
-the belt was too tight"

Thanks

JKelly

I just wanted to update my previous comment.
I found that:
- My tensioner bolt wasn't bent, but my belt had very barely started to graze the tensioner arm, which is probably what bends the bolt.
- The roller bearings were fine.
- The circlip wasn't missing.
- The crank gear, cam gears, and oil pump gear weren't worn at all (@74k).
- The tensioner plunger was crooked, the tensioner seal was split, and the tensioner itself was bone dry (had 2 drops of oil left in it).

I also found that some goof-ball had disconnected the timing belt sensor.