My experience is exactly the opposite. I find the Canadian-made
mechanical de-tensioner to be utter garbage. I've had two of them
fail. One was caught before the belt jumped, the second one, alas, was
not. A much better solution, IMHO, is to use one of the original Alfa
hydraulic de-tensioners with the hydraulic line blocked off (if you
have a mechanical de-tensioner fitted, this has already been done). It
turns out that the hydraulic part of the original de-tensioner is not
needed. It works fine without it. The springs in the mechanical de-
tensioner, due to their clockspring design are subject to popping-out
sideways causing a failure. Also, I have found that lots of mechanics
don't understand how to install them properly to get the proper
tension in the first place. My advice is to stay away.
George Graves
'86 GTV-6 3.0 'S'
On Feb 9, 2010, at 3:51 PM, Joe Elliott wrote:
I was afraid that would come up. I'm using an OEM tensioner with the
oil feed blocked off, which I've previously advocated as
theoretically infallible. (Okay, I never actually said that, but I
was pretty confident it was the best way to go.) I guess I should
also mention that this belt was installed in 2004, and my
recommendation to others has always been to replace the belt every
30k miles OR 5 years, so as far as I know the advice I've provided
is, in fact, infallible.
-Joe
At 3:37 PM -0800 2/9/10, Brian Shorey wrote:
Ouch. Sorry to hear that, but hopefully the valves are ok.
If I may ask, what (de)tensioner are you using?
bs
From: Joe Elliott <[email protected]>
To: Brian Shorey <[email protected]>
Cc: AD <[email protected]>; [email protected]
Sent: Tue, February 9, 2010 6:34:25 PM
Subject: Re: [alfa] GTV-6 engine problem
I came home from work on a flatbed, and the timing belt has
definitely jumped a couple teeth. But it couldn't be a simple
matter of the crank pulley having slipped, wherein I could just lock
down the cams and put enough force on it to skip the other
direction. The right cam was retarded one tooth, but the left cam
is retarded at least two, so I guess I'm going to have to totally
re-fit the timing belt before I can determine whether or not there's
been internal engine damage. Which means driving the Porsche 928 to
work tomorrow with a couple inches more snow predicted; that should
be interesting.
Thanks again,
Joe Elliott
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