Pboden

After a refurbish on the tensioner clamp on my - 87, and reassembly it back to the car, I found that two of the belleville washer was left behind. The poor ones was laying all alone on the table
What is the consequense of my goof ?
What are these washers function ?

Thanks

GlenL

The washers provide a spring and temperature compensation.

It's not immediately deadly. The gap can be taken up with the adjuster, I'd expect, and the belt tension is correct.

If it were my car, I'd put them in a safe place and fix it at the earliest convenient time.

StratfordShark

Are the washers you have put on the tensioner stack arranged correctly? There don't appear to be enough changes of orientation as in this photo. The washers expand.

The washers are bimetallic. When they heat up they flatten out. This effectively shortens the piston so detensions the belt as it pushes against the tensioner nose.

docmirror

Almost no consequence. You will lose 0.05% stiffness factor in the stack(that's a joke, I say - a joke son), and your adjustment thread will be able to go in another 1.45 turns to adjust the tension.

In short, ship it. Drive it. Worry about the other 3000 things on your car.

Jerry Feather

My advise is take it out again and orient all of them correctly. They should be placed five in each direction alternately.

GlenL

Is that two washers or two stacks of washers?

mark kibort

even i would say , two stacks of washers would be way too many missing!

jcorenman

The larger problem is that the washers are not oriented correctly, which means the compensation for engine block temperature will not be correct. There are 35 washers in seven groups of five, with each group of five oriented the same and acting together-- and reversed from the next group of five.

With your arrangement the belt will become too tight as the engine heats and expands. This can cause damage.

Here is the picture from the Workshop manual (pg. 15-22):



A better picture is found in the Service Tech info for '85 when the alarm was added for the 32v engine:



The important thing is seven groups of five discs, alternating. This needs to be correct. Sorry!!

Mrmerlin

also note that with two washers missing,
the piston will bottom out on the centering rod thus making the rest of the washers ineffective.
IE once they warm up then there will be no reduction in tension as the rod will be pushing on the piston

Remedy install the parts as pictured

linderpat

I agree with the others that suggest fixing it now. I have never presumed to be smarter than the engineering team that designed these subsystems. There is a reason why there are that many washers and why they are configured a certain, very specific way. From your picture, both things are incorrect. The timing belt system is too critical to do less than what is specified. The WSM has the correct stacking order of the washers. I would correct it sooner rather than later if it were my car.

Ad0911

Sorry to hack this thread. But my question seems to fit in well. I have my old tensioner apart and I am still strugling with the question if I should reuse it or use a PKT tensioner. Just to check if all the parts of my old tensioner are there I tried to restack the bimetal washers. I read from the above that there should be 35 bimetal washers in stacks of 5. I found I have 38 washers not counting the support ring/washer. One of them seems flat and the same thickness as the others. See picture. How can this be? There are some more f*ck-ups in my car, created by the PO but this seems not to be one of them because I doubt if he took this apart when changing the distributin belt. The boot cover was totally worn and had some rips.

Can it be that some of the early (1978) cars had more bimetal washers?

FredR

Ad,

There are two tensioner designs -the original one and the later one introduced in 1983 or thereabouts. Yours is the earlier version. For reasons I do not understand there were two configurations of the early tensioner- one with a 40 washer pack and one with a 35 washer pack. The tensioner bolts are different for each option and the 40 washer pack has a bolt with a lower sequence part number suggesting the initial builds perhaps had the 40 washer pack.

That you have 3 spare washers suggests to me your tensioner should have the 40 washer config and appropriate tensioning bolt. These bolts have a locking compound in the threads that goes off when tensioned or so I understand. As to what you motor should have I do not have a clue but it would seem some more investigation is required.

Came across these details in the WSM when I was investigating how the Belleville pack actually works and what it does- very clever piece of kit or so i concluded.