300guy

you know how they say that the old way of tensioning the timing belt on 924's is to grab the belt at the right location and be able to twist it 90 degrees with your index finger and thumb?

Well... is there shotty way of tensioning the balance shaft belt?

I dont have a tensioning tool... and I'm replacing my timing belt (belt broke... got new cylinder head). My shop is WAY out in the country... about a couple hours away from any shop that would have this tool.

Thanks,
Colin

Zero10

If you want to just get it tight enough to have it properly tensioned, yes it will work. If you want to get precise, it should twist around 110 - 120 degrees. Might be best off ordering the kriket tool, many people have had good results with it, and it's pretty cheap.

924martinirossi

Where can you buy the Kriket tool?

Zero10

Hmm, in Canada it's available at Napa (or so I hear), is NAPA in the U.S. as well?

Tony K

Find a Gates distributor. There are 2 Krikit tools - one measures higher tensions - so ask someone on here which one to get. Someone on here probably knows what reading on the Krikit is equavilent to the "4.0 units" and "2.7 units" (or whatever it is) on the Porsche gauge...

It's REALLY hard to fit the krikit into the correct spot to tension the belts on the 944 (esp. T-belt), but Pete (944 Pete) did it successfully, and most likely numerous others...

Cheers,

IceShark

Gates makes the Kricket for NAPA. The one you want is the NAPA number KR1 which has a range of 30 to 160 pounds. But it is still Ok to read down at 28 lbs which you will need to do for the balance shaft belt. It is only about $10.

If you look around you will see tensioning tools priced up in the many hundreds of dollars, including the Porsche one, so this Kricket isn't exactly a high class tool. And you better practice with it to get repeatable results.

Since I now know so many Porsche owners and a couple that have the real tool, next time I do the belts I'm going to borrow their tension gauge and save headaches. I had to tension my balance shaft belt 3 times to get it to stop whining. Not so fun on a turbo with all the air intake plumbing.

Zero10

IceShark, so on the kricket tool, 28lbs is the tension for a used balance shaft belt?
Just curious, but do you know all the other values? (new belts?)
I am doing a friend's front engine seals and belts today, and we're going to pick up the kricket tool, since I haven't talked to my friend that has the real deal in quite some time.

IceShark

Zero, I think 28 lbs is actually the tension for a new belt according to your Countryman BlaszaK. I forget and am not by my files to check. Hope someone can chime in here for you.

Due to belt whine, which is the sign for over tension, what I ended up doing was getting it around 28 and just ran the car with the cover off and loosened it back a bit until it stopped whining. It was still around 27 or 28 lbs when I was done. Glad I didn't lose a finger in that operation!

This was a really frustrating experience and I will take some Rennlisters' offers up next time and borrow their Porsche tool. Not that that would actually solve all the problems as the belt whine is pretty common even when the car comes back from a Porsche dealer. There was a long thread on my trials and tribulations on this. All the result of washing my engine bay. Now you are reminding me of that nightmare straight from Hell.

OH, and with the Kricket, make sure the *** that contacts the balance shaft belt is on one of the teeth of the belt, not between two.