rlich8

Hi Friends, happy holiday to my fellow Americans, and happy weekend to those others!

I am going back together with things on my front end rebuild. I must say, the value of being thorough, taking your time, and taking lots of breaks during the process is not underrated. I wouldn't have been able to accomplish what I've done thus far without this community, so thank you.

I decided to do cam seals, crank seals, oil pump o-rings, basically all the cheap might as wells.

Now that I am beginning to reassemble the front of the engine, I have finally gotten to the cleaning and the rebuild of the tensioner. The disassembly of it is simple and understandable; I was sure to keep the washers in appropriate configuration. It cleaned up and looks brand new.

My question is this. There does not seem to really be anything that prevents the oil from leaking out of this device other than the front boot. Is this correct? Please note that I do understand that this isn't a hydraulic tensioner. I understand well the operating principle of the device. I checked PET, and it seems that my anecdote is correct. But, I have crappy vision and so I just want to be a hundred percent sure that I did not forget to order a part.

Thank you and happy weekend!!

WallyP

Correct. The later tensioners pump the oil into the block for better heat transfer, but the early ones don't. At this point, don't assume that the conical bimetallic washers were installed correctly. They are in sets of five nested washers, with each set reversed in the stack.

rlich8

Fabulous. Thank you WallyP.

Hilton

Its worth pointing out that you should check the washer orientation is correct per the workshop manual (it specifies the different orientations depending on which variant of the tensioner)

Plenty of 928's have had their tensioners put back together wrongly by dumbass shops in the past.

GregBBRD

The only problem with the early tensioner is that the boot that holds the oil in has been NLA, for many years.

I make a nifty aluminum adaptor that attaches to these tensioners which allows the use of the later boot, clamp, and pin.

928 R Us stocks the kit, as well as us.

rlich8

Greg,

Your ring and the mentioned accoutrements are on my tensioner as we speak.

:-)

James Bailey

you are correct if you roll your 928 onto it's roof the tensioner will leak out all the oil early version specific gear oil for some reason possibly so you could smell the difference if it leaked. Also note there should be no gasket used between the tensioner and block so heat can transfer better...

PorKen

The only problem?

What an entirely useless product. (Lipstick on a pig, comes to mind.)

James Bailey

lets see here 60,000 or so 928s if the average odometer reading is 100,000 miles that is about 6,000,000,000 miles.....the Porsche tensioner works just fine.

dr bob

We need a separate "928 belt tensioner discussion" forum. So the feces-flinging doesn't contaminate the otherwise-informative threads for the rest of us.

James Bailey

Excellent idea but maybe just a dedicated single thread would suffice where any and all would KNOW that it is only for tensioner questions , comments and "humorous" personal insults....

rlich8

I didn't know this was such a sore subject, sorry for asking.

j.kenzie@sbcglobal.net

Hi Rich,
Ken Porken made a very nice product that uses a different tensioner off an Audi, has larger bearings and fewer parts, and adapted it to the 928 front end. It works very well. It does not incorporate a loose belt warning system, which 4V engines had from the factory. Many of the 4V guys think that absence is a deal breaker for Ken. All the other argument is about establishment versus newer technology.
Not your fault,and so far I think there is no correct answer regarding the best tensioner.
Dave