Just looking at the cam belt tensioner on my 2.5 V6. It is the early oil pressurised type. Do people stick with these or is there a later spring loaded type that you can convert to?
If you stick with the oil pressure type are they reliable or do they leak or fail in any way?
From Newbie bobalfa. I recently changed the timing belt on my GTV6 (since sold for reasons not related to the car but to my being an old b**ger) . It had the old oil pressure tensioner which after 100k km still showed no sign of leaking. I put this down to regular oil changing (evry 10k km) using Mr Shell's synthetic oil. I sold the car with a spare bimetallic strip tensioner which I think came from Canada. Talk to Bill Magoffin of the NSW Branch.
OK thanks, since read an article about the bi-metallic tensioners saying that the engine should never be turned backwards (belt jumps presumably) and so should only be used on automatic cars. Might just make sure I rebuild the oil pressure one properly.
An up-to-date step by step guide to rebuilding the oil filled tensioner that seems to contain all the distilled wisdom.
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/alfetta-gtv6-1975-1986/94819-de-tensioner-re-build.html
Your man at ALFAUTO Parts (Mille Miglia), when I enquired about a spare de-tensioner to rebuild, said that if it isn't leaking, don't re-build it yet. Just change the bearing when you do a cam-belt change.
AL.
thanks sounds like good advice