I have 137k miles on my '95 Talon, and I'm about to rebuild the head and I was wondering the one's thoughts who are experienced w/ the differen't tensioners, or people who have had their tensioner die on them. I was just wondering if I should replace the stock one w/ a new one.

Poll question: Should your replace your tensioner when overhauling your head?

Poll result (4 votes) Yes, w/ a OEM Hydraulic Unit (4 votes) Vote Yes, w/ a Blackdog Motorsports Solid Unit (0 votes) Vote No, It's Uneccessary (0 votes) Vote (0 votes) Vote (0 votes) Vote (0 votes) Vote

VERY,VERY important, and IMO the blackdog solid tensioner is for people who like messing with the timing belt

it needs to be manually adjusted quite often. IMO the solid tensioner is for someone who really knows what they are doing and will have no problem checking/adjusting the tension.

hydro is the way to go for everyone else, and yes you better replace it

Well I do know what I'm doing, but I was wondering from a performance point of view if it was practical. Also, should the pullies (tensioner & idle) be replaced at only 137k?

Technically, all of that stuff should have been replaced twice already. That is all part of the 60K mile service. Not all of it will necessarily need replacing, but you need to check it all to make sure it is in spec according to the FSM. If you still have your original tensioner and pullies on, then it is definately essential that you replace them all if you don't want to replace valves instead. As far as performance is concerned, none of the mentioned parts in this post will do anything for performance. They are all there to take up slack and put the proper tension on the timing belt. You can order the pullies and the tensioner from bob kise at forum dodge in Fenton MI for a damn good price.

I was just wondering though how the pullies wear out? Does the bearing just go bad?

*bump*

*bump* ;(

Is there a reason people are replacing there pullies then?

yea, it's the bearing. metaljim was working on getting the size of the bearing so we could get it's equivalent from mcmaster. that way we could just replace the bearing cheaply as opposed the whole pulley

I replaced mine due to one of the pulleys coming apart. I did not replace the tensioner though. Maybe on the next timing belt...

I went ahead and ordered the tensioner ($91.54 - ouch!), tensioner pulley and bracket ($59.28 - :/), and idler pulley ($28.46) from Bob Kise.

I just bought 2 idler pulleys and put 1 of them on the tensioner.