Timing Belt Tension 2.0HDI Picasso 2002, no SEEM device!

[avamotor]

Hello FCF,

Recently i discovered that Picasso as driven by the Missus had the crank pulley "rattle/ticking of death", when asked how long its been making the noise I was told "oh its been like it a while, i got used to it and turned the radio up!!!".

Having said that I got the crank pulley, timing belt kit, water pump and auxillary belt kit and set about the dismantling of the front end. Citroen are not very generous with room unless you have fingers like E.T. so my sausage fingers did nothing to help apart from getting cut and scratched!!

On removal of the crank pulley i found a leaking crank seal, (once the belt was off that was) and so set about trying to find a factors with a replacement, put that in today and starting rebuilding back up until i read in the BOL ("book of lies" or "joke book" or some call it the "haynes manual") and in order to correctly tension the timing belt i needed a SEEM device or if not the "work should be entrusted to the Peugeot delaership!"

I got somewhat stumpted at that point, so does everyone in FCF world own a SEEM device or is it propaganda just to pass the work to the stealers?

Tried racking my brains to see if there is some "old school way" where by a 8mm square bar welded to a 100mm long rod placed into the timing belt tensioner has a known weight hanging off the end and therefore pushing against the belt to tension it correctly but my mind got bored eventually and i couldnt get my mind around how to clarify if this is possible.

How do you tension the timing belt without selling all the stuff i own to purchase a SEEM unit!

Is there anyone out there in FCF world that is local to Nottinghamshire and has a SEEM belt tension device (or equivalent), would anyone please be willing to put the tester on the belt to set the correct tension, I would be happy to pay for the use of the device and someone's time for the 2 minutes it takes to put the square bar in and tighten up etc or is the 45-90 degree twist (with minimal whip) still okay and pay no attention to the "BOL"?

[Hell Razor5543]

IIRC there was mention of a SEEM device within the last couple of months. However, the consensus was that the simple tension check was to fit the belt, and then (at the longest point) see if you could twist the belt 90 degrees. More than that meant the belt was too loose, while less than that meant it was too tight.

This post explains it better;

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... EM#p363082" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Peter.N.]

Yep, I would go along with that, its how I set my C5 2.0. Check how far it twists before you remove it (if you haven't already done so) that will give you a feel for it, mine was 90deg so that's how I set the new one.

Peter

[citronut]

Yep, I would go along with that, its how I set my C5 2.0. Check how far it twists before you remove it (if you haven't already done so) that will give you a feel for it, mine was 90deg so that's how I set the new one.

Peter

you cant really use how the old one was for a guide for the tension of the new one,
because the old one could well have been running slack with age/time

[Peter.N.]

I am quite well aware of that but as 90deg is the generally accepted test and that's what mine did, I assumed that it wasn't that old. Having done a few without problems you get a feel for how tight it should be. I wasn't suggesting that it should have the same tension as the removed one but that by twisting it before removal you get the feel of how hard to twist it.

Peter

[JohnD]

There are several different tension gauges on the market - all using their own system of unit measuring. I picked up on ebay an American Burroughs gauge which measures in Newtons. Fortunately Autodata publish a comparison chart which includes both SEEM devices. This is mine on our Saxo belt.