bigmac

The Toothed Belt warning flashed upon my dash yesterday.
The car is 12000 miles and 4 years post Belt replacement.
Just turned 50K miles in total.
Is it fair to assume that the belt needs tightening? Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks, Mac

Stromius

Check the tension and grounding wire too WYAI

SeanR

Agreed, check the tension.

If it comes on again soon it would tell me you have a gear or roller that is wearing down.

StratfordShark

At 4 years a new timing belt is due anyway, even if there is a small chance that the warning system is at fault.

Does the warning come up regardless, or only after stamping on the throttle?

If it's a valid warning then yes the belt in theory needs tightening, but at this age you shouldn't tighten a belt to defeat the warning or you can cause damage to other components at best, and at worst have a catastrophic failure of the belt!

So it looks like a new TB is indicated.

dprantl

Porkensioner time? Although only 12k miles on the belt, it should be good for at least 1 more year. Was it ever retensioned 1,500 miles after replacement?

Dan
'91 928GT S/C 475hp/460lb.ft

bigmac

Thanks, will check tension and plan on a Porken.

WallyP

Be sure to fill the tensioner with engine oil as well. A pump oil can and a piece of tubing attached to the outer/upper bleed nipple, both nipples open, and pump oil in until it comes out of the bottom/inner nipple.

James Bailey

Porsche never stated a time limit on timing belts. But most believe that 5-6 years 50,000 miles is about as safe as you can be with that belt. The Porsche belt from the factory is considered better by some than the more common aftermarket belts. So check and set the tension fill the tensioner with oil and it should be good for another couple years....the old very brown 1980 stripped teeth off the belt after I owned it for 8 years many thousands of miles and more track days than I can remember and I have no idea how old the belt was when I got the car Being a none interference engine I was not worried about changing it until it needed it !

dr bob

My 'luck' with Jim B's method almost always includes a flatbed ride from some far corner of the universe. I hate getting stranded by "stupid stuff". Of course, the very black S4 has more at risk on a belt de-cogging than the very brown car. Still not a fan of the flatbed ride though.


Watch how much oil the tensioner takes before you get a return flow. If it was pretty dry, it's very likely that you saw a transient reading from belt flutter that's very typical under hard acceleration; the oil in the tensioner dampens out a lot of that flutter and suppresses the warning signal. When you check the belt tension, if the reading is out of the 'window' on the Kempf tool before adjustment, it's time to start gathering parts and pieces for your TB replacement project. I can't send you to Jim for parts anymore, but can recommend that you have Tom put together a 'care package' with all the fiddly bits you'll need for the project. Bearings, rollers, circlips, WP, new bolts and factory gasket, plus oil pump seals and o-rings, cam seals, tensioner rebuild parts, belts, hoses, coolant reservoir cap, PS filter/reservoir... Lots of stuff ends up on the floor and should likely be renewed while it's all off.

oz928s4

I love the way it just rolls off the palate..."porken time"
Sounds so insignificant ...still doing mine....mission

Mrmerlin

I have found that a a visene bottle filled with STP oil treatment works better for filling the tensioner. ( drill the tip out to an 1/8 drill bit, the tip will fit perfectly into the the hole after the bleeder nipple is removed, remove both bleeders while doing this)
First it is harder to overpressure the tensioner while filling, and thus cause the inner sealing clip to unseat and second since the STP oil is thicker it takes a lot longer for it to leak out of the tensioner.
Also since most already have some kind of oil in the tensioner I have also found that refilling the tensioner with STP will push the lighter weight oil out of the overflow hole.
Ideally a Porkensioner would be a better thing to install