Just curious to see what brands of timing belts you guys are using out there. Mine just keep slipping and I am tired of doing a timing fix once every 2 months.

Thinking about getting a nice Goodyear belt.

Stock mitsu. I suspect that something else is wrong if you are losing belts every 2 months.

MB

Originally posted by bullettdsm
Stock mitsu. I suspect that something else is wrong if you are losing belts every 2 months. MB

I am not 'losing' them, they just keep skipping a tooth.

I am already using the Parts Dinosaur mechanical tensioner, maybe I should go back to the stock tensioner.

Solid tensioner.

I did my T-Belt job with a Goodyear Kit at 59K miles. Came with the belt, and both pulleys. In addition to a brand new Waterpump and OEM tensioner, I just rolled over 100K a week ago and had no problems whatsoever.

I've used both. Lost tension on the Gatorback only when the stock tensioner started to fail and put slack in the belt. Fortunately, just enough to let it start, idle like shit, then not start again.

Now that Galant, on the other hand, used OEM Mitsu belt. :7

EDIT:
This makes me nervous about the mechanical tensioner. Deadman here in az2gnt switched over to that one and lost the belt shortly thereafter. The jury is out, as we're not sure if it was an install error, but azdave coverted another car to the mechanical.

Did yours regularly fail after two weeks? How many miles was this?

I just bought a Power Enterprises kevlar belt for my TSI.

Originally posted by DR1665
This makes me nervous about the mechanical tensioner. Deadman here in az2gnt switched over to that one and lost the belt shortly thereafter. The jury is out, as we're not sure if it was an install error, but azdave coverted another car to the mechanical. Did yours regularly fail after two weeks? How many miles was this?

Yes do tell! Inquiring minds want to know. I ALMOST decided to use the mechanical on my current motor, but decided to go with tried and true.

MB

Originally posted by DR1665
Deadman here in az2gnt switched over to that one and lost the belt shortly thereafter. The jury is out, as we're not sure if it was an install error, but azdave coverted another car to the mechanical. Did yours regularly fail after two weeks? How many miles was this?

Just got back from Dean Man's where we pulled his motor to see if we could find out what caused his timing belt break. He used the timing belt kit from partsdinosaur with the mechanical fastener.

There was much evidence under the cover of the belt rubbing on the cover and Jon reported hearing a "playing card in a bicycle spoke" kind of noise. I'm not sure how long he heard that noise until the failure.

Jon had properly removed the plastic section of the timing belt cover behind the new mechanical tensioner so that was not the problem. The idlers and everything else looked good. With the belt broken there was no way to tell if it was properly tensioned or if the setting had slipped. My best guess is that the belt broke from loosing tension and slapping as opposed to a tracking issue. That's the only way I can explain the rubbing on the cover. The rubbing looked like it was from a slack belt, not a belt that was trying to walk off the pulleys.

We put a used timing belt on the motor and Jon walked through the procedure he used to set the tension. It was exactly the way I did mine on the Talon and while I'm only at 800 miles since the install it seems perfect.

The only thing that I question is that twice during the tension setting the end of the coiled spring came out of the holding tab. I don't know if that was originally the issue or whether it is now occuring since the belt broke and everything went out of kilter. Jon said it could be possible he tweaked the spring during the initial tensioning setup. No way to tell now.

I have a brand new partdinosaur mechanical tensioner in the garage and I'll look closer at it tomorrow for clues on whether there is caution required in setting the tension or whether Jon just got unlucky and maybe got one with a bad spring? I know plenty of other people are reporting good results with the mechanical tensioners.

Update with pics added:


See the end of the black wire spring that is captured in the slot? On Jon's tensioner, that wire was barely tall enough to touch the bottom of the slot. I think that is the issue. Either it was bad out of the box, or Jon accidently wound it up more onto the shaft while tensioning the belt, thereby shortening the spring tab.


It is very unusual that the spring length on his tensioner was no where near the length of either tensioner I have.

Dave, your's looks just like mine.

If you want to know the what kind of strength it has...well let me tell you...

I did something kinda stupid... while my motor is still out of the car on the engine stand, I tried to torque the crank bolt to 105 ft.lbs. by locking the cam gears with a method I have, so all the tension was on the belt while torqing the crank bolt. Well just when I thought I about had 105 ft.lbs. of pressure on the torque wrench, and waiting for the click, I heard a "pop" and sure enough the belt had lossed tension, and slipped. It's because it's not designed to take that much pressure. It's very important the lock nut on the mechanical tensioner pully is torqued to 22 ft.lbs. once you have that wire lined up where it should be.

I still like that design over the hydraulic setup (which uses a tensioner that's held in place by the friction of 2 bolts only) which doesn't apply a even tension across the rpm range.

Originally posted by DR1665
Did yours regularly fail after two weeks? How many miles was this?

I have the tensioner on there for about 150 miles now, and this is the first fuck up with it. The belt does seem to have lost a little tension in it, I guess this is why it slipped.

Interesting to see how some people seem to have had issues with the mechanical tensioner. I'm having my timing belt done now b/c I don't have the time to try it myself and the guy doing it could not get the right tension on the belt with it so I am having to go back to the hydraulic tensioner.

Originally posted by cs82685
I am having to go back to the hydraulic tensioner.

I just put my OEM tensioner back on.

I just dont trust the mechanical one now.

I switched to a mechanical tensioner from Parts Dinosaur when I did my motor replacement, 20K miles later the timing belt went, luckily I heard the noise and happened to be by my house. I turned it off, pulled off the timing cover and the timing belt had no tension. When I got the tensioner off, I looked at it and you could see that the spring had actually snapped causing loss of tension and almost the loss of my head. I have always driven my car very gingerly as well, no redline shifts, etc. I switched back to OEM and will never go back to mechanical. In fact, I think I still have that broken tensioner, I'll see if I can find it tomorrow and snap a pic of what it looks like...I was sooo close to losing my head...Its just not worth it, spend the extra money and get the tried and true method, OEM.

Mattern Tire local shop?tuner lol.. They're guys but I keep an eye on them though.

Owner/Matser tech. told me when He replaced my timing belt everything else with tensioner's,etc.

He said they last for another 80,000 miles. Just wanted to pas this on to yous.

How about GREDDY TIMING BELTS they supposed to real tough/ last longer too..:thumbsup

I have heard nothign good about these mechanical ones as I am throwing mine away because its junk.

I am going back to using the OEM tensioner.

There is a lot of room for installer error doing the mechanical timing belt setup, specifically in the tightening of the tensioner lock nut.

Originally posted by WickedESi
There is a lot of room for installer error doing the mechanical timing belt setup, specifically in the tightening of the tensioner lock nut.

Agreed. The mechanical tensionor has never given me any problems whatsoever.

I've done at least 5 timing belts with Goodyear Gatorback timing belt from autozone (cheaper than oem) and re-using the stock (<120k) hydraulic tensioner. No issues ever.

Parts Dinosaur belt and Mechanical tensioner.

We put it on my car, only to go back the next weekend to redo it.

If you buy the mechanical, trim some of the rear timing belt cover away so that the tensioner is in contact with the block, not the t-belt cover (my issue).

And, I had put a few thousand miles on it with no issues (even a trip to KY and back).

Now the car just sits, but she runs just fine.

This is a very interesting thread. I was considering going to the mechanical tensioner on my next timing belt change, as it theoretically seems safer. But this "snapping spring" thing concerns me. can you post pics of that spring?

I have a gatorback belt. no problems with it after almost 40,000 miles

I'd like to see a picture of one of these springs that broke.

This is really starting to scare me. I've already purchased my mechanical tensioner, and am in the process of ripping the motor apart to do the oil and water pump aswell as some other stuff. I don't wanna have to do this all again and possibly more if this thing fails.

seems to me like its intall error. One of you guys should make a write up Highlighting the parts that COULD go wrong.

Originally posted by Chamuko
seems to me like its intall error. One of you guys should make a write up Highlighting the parts that COULD go wrong.

I am gathering the info to do just that. I have most of the photos. I'm just looking for a few more details.

I too believe that the suspected problems might be installation issues which once understood, could be avoided. These tensioners are used in current production vehicles so they must not be that bad. I've got nearly 1000 miles on my Talon now with not a single noise fromunder the cover. I realise that is very low miles to make any real claims but it's a start.

Two things that I see that could be tricky are the fact that not everyone realizes that the rear of the plastic timing belt cover must be trimmed away partially to clear the center boss of the mounting plate. The second thing is that you can possibly "tweak" the tensioner spring if you over-adjust it or put undue strain on the belt (and tensioner) when you are torquing down the harmonic balancer or cam gears.

I'll be posting back results soon. I installed my mechanical tensioner while the motor was out of the vehicle. I think doing a timing belt change while the motor is in the vehicle makes it much harder to realize these mistakes are happening.

If you have any doubts about the mechanical tensioner and there is a timing belt change in your near future, then use the tried and true hydraulic unit.

If you have already installed a mechanical tensioner, look and listen for obvious signs of belt rubbing, tracking issues or belt slackening.

In my case, it was NOT installer error. If you have any automotive knowledge, its a walk through. I know it was on right, I am ASE certified, not some junkie that slaps on timing belts w/ out knowing what they are doing, lol. It worked for awhile, and then gave out. My opinion, its junk and belongs in the garbage. Maybe I got a shitty one, I dont know. All I am saying is that mine failed on me early on, and I will NEVER use it again risking a $1500+ head to get fucked up on my car, not happening.

I just installed one 2 weeks ago as well. Some issues i noticed is that it is nearly impossible to see that spring and tang that you are suppost to line up because of the frame and body being in the way. the only way i found i could do it was trial and error until i could actually reach my hands in their and feel the grove aligned with the spring.

second thing i noticed is that when you lossened the torque nut on the tennsioner you could spin that disc in the center around and around and it never moved the spring tang at all.

EDIT: i just read another post that you are suppose to be able to turn it clockwise until it stops. mine never stopped, just kept spinning around.

the only thing i noticed is the spring would rise and fall within its grove on the base plate as you rotated it.

i did put it all back together, and you can feel a spring like tension when you try to apply pressure to the tensioner by hand with the belt on. however as i raised rpms from idle on up i start to hear the "card in the bicycle wheel" "rapid clinking" what ever the hell you want to describe the sound as. once i get the sfmu installed i may be switching back to the old hydraulic one as well if that noise is still present after a test drive around town.

umm just an odd thought...but isnt the topic about timing belts and not tensioners? :shrug either way i use a gatorback and havent had any issues with it so far...

I would prefer to use goodyear gator backs but I'm using some other brand that came with my kit like ISM or something right now no problems. I recently installed one in my supercharged MR2, the GB one.

Wow I was gonna install one of those mechanical tensioners on my neon from what I hear I think I'll stick with the hydro one. Expensive though and annoying as hell I've never had any problems with it besides tightening it down and bending the shaft on the pulley >.<

it's not JUST about the timing belt, its about the issue of it slacking up which would involve the tensioner he used. Anyway I use the OEM for both and haven't had any trouble

Originally posted by DSMTalon
umm just an odd thought...but isnt the topic about timing belts and not tensioners? :shrug

As often happens with the question at the start of a thread, there is more than one issue that needs to be addressed. We/they are addressing the possible reason for his slipping belts. That brings us into the pro's and con's of the new mechanical tensioner. And that's where we are now.

MB

Originally posted by bullettdsm

Originally posted by DSMTalon umm just an odd thought...but isnt the topic about timing belts and not tensioners? :shrug

As often happens with the question at the start of a thread, there is more than one issue that needs to be addressed. We/they are addressing the possible reason for his slipping belts. That brings us into the pro's and con's of the new mechanical tensioner. And that's where we are now. MB

Thank you.