Just a thought while looking at other things, but my cam belt seems fairly slack to me - quite alot of laxity in it. The tensioner was fitted aboiut 480 miles ago with new belt and there's a telltale paint mark which show it hasn;t moved, but is there a way to see how tight it should be?
thanks

ps Zetec 2 lite silvertop

[Edited on 3/3/09 by edspurrier]

About 90 deg twist on the longest run is a good guide.

David

Some of the early silvertop Zetecs did not have a tensioner spring but should have been modified by now with a new spring and locating bolt . Did you fit one? Easy to adjust tension but I would recheck timing just in case, Make sure you turn the engine over a few times and recheck.

90 deg check works in 99% of cases.

I'd definitely go with testing a few turns by hand before you start it to check the timing is OK.

I had a Laguna that the timing belt went slack on and it managed to jump a couple of teeth. Short story is it cost about £1000 to put right, and that was doing it myself

JB

As above, the original belt was fitted in the factory and tensioned by machine without the need for a spring to be fitted as per the book of lies (by some Haynes Manual bloke). Cambelt kits generally come with a spring to connect to the adjuster pulley and post to screw into the engine to hook it around which then tensions the pulley correctly.

Did you fit this NEW spring or reset it to the original factory mark?

Engine was rebuilt for me so I didn't fit it. Came with a new cambelt tensioner kit though.

On my blacktop the tension isn't fixed, but is controlled by the spring in the tensioner. It easily moves if given a bit of a push.

stu

The Vx small blocks have markers and a flag on the tensioner for "new" and "used" belts. It doesn't half give you some confidence when you're tensioning up after rebuild.

Do others around the same age (Zetecs / Duratecs / 4AGE) have the same?

Otherwise, the 90 deg test also works with my Ecotec.

Francis.

On the 20V 4AGE there are two types one is the more common pulley tensioned by a spring. The later type has a damped spring in a metal body. I had the later type which can wear and loose tension which happened to and the engine lost a lot of power but luckily was a "safe " design and didn't bend anything. The 90 deg check is a quick check but sometimes the belt runs are too short to be accurate.

Best gadget I saw recently was an electronic belt tension gauge. You just held the sensor near the belt and gave it a flick to get a reading, brilliant!