Whilst doing a cambelt yesterday I came across some poor previous work that should really not have been left as it was, the zed had been to another garage ( unknown non specialist) and had a fair bit of work including the cambelt and new pulleys and belt adjuster ( expensive).

 

As you can see in the picture the adjuster piston is not in the set position and is totally closed, this effectively made it a manual non automatic adjuster, the cause of this is simple, the back plate of the adjuster has slotted fixing holes and is designed to allow you to dial in a set amount of pre-tension so the piston does not come out too far when a new belt is set.

 

In this case the settings had been to harshly set and the piston had not even started to come out and the belt was way too tight, a simple slackening of the fixings and allowing the piston to come out 5 mm or so would have been a 10 second job. However as the pump had failed it all came off again and was replaced with a new belt even though the previous belt was only a couple of months old, but a new belt each time is a must do.

 

The upshot of the adjuster been set incorrectly is a noisy belt in use ( no controlled slack) and a belt likely to last much less time / mileage than if set correctly, when making a quick acceleration move of the engine ( revving suddenly) you need a little bounce in the belt to stop it suffering from sudden whipping of the belt as the engine revs suddenly rise, not only that but after purchasing such an expensive parts for it to not be set correctly is a waste.

 

 

 

With this all hidden once the job is done always use a garage happy to take pictures of the job and we have always done, its so much nicer that way to check how work has been completed.

 

Jeff TT

Another useful post.......

 

Cheers Jeff, we're going to miss you when you're away in the sun mate....!!

 

Richard:cool2:

 

logo o jouney ao sol

 

Adeus

 

Jeff TT