Xantia 1.9TD Aux Belt Failure

Unread post by **citroenxm** » 24 Aug 2009, 10:07

Visually checking the tensioner DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK!

Fit a new belt on, start the engine then while its running look down at the tensioner from the top, and look at the angle WHILE THE ENGINE IS RUNNING!

Then you should see...

Paul

citronut · Unread post by **citronut** » 24 Aug 2009, 13:10

i just had a closer look at the aux belt tensioner i removed from my car on saterday,

it dose have needle roller bearings in the arm pivot point, and they had both colapsed,

and i could see the acute angle my auto tensioner was sitting without the engine running,

and it was not actualy the pully bearing which had failed, even though the bearing sounded dry on spinning it off the car,

regards malcolm

Unread post by **citroenxm** » 24 Aug 2009, 15:03

Its not the roller bearing that goes home, its the PIVOT needles, as you say citronut, that collapse, so the roller sits straight in relation to the tensioner, but the WHOLE tensioner unit leans WHEN then engine is running, unless VERY bad..

Paul

petjb2000 · Unread post by **petjb2000** » 24 Aug 2009, 23:00

OK, thanks Jim and Paul, I'm happy with paranoid if it stops a problem. I was missing the point as well and only considering the bearings on the tensioner roller. With the engine running the auxiliary belt is running square so that is OK. There is a bit of movement in the tensioner arm at idle (it seems to get some kind of harmonic going, the belt from the crank to the a/c pulley forms a nice little sine wave) but with a few revs the harmonic stops and the tensioner arm stops moving too.

Car is back on the road, but come next weekend I'll have time to have a much closer look again to make sure and double sure that there are no suprises in store.

Peter