Argh! Is there two types of timing belt tensioners

[diabloam]

Have been doing my belts and water pump and after battling with a water pump stud i started reassembling everything. Hadnt looked at the idlers and tensioners I had been sent out as since gave date of manufacture assume company I got them from would click as they did ask year. However with my timing belt tensioner mine is an eccentric type with the nut shape on top to turn it and set tension. However when I opened one sent out it is one with bolt hole through the centre and no eccentric (offset hole) and no nut shape to adjust. Am I right to assume this could be the toothed wheel from a spring tensioner from the 87 year on models. Would this assumption be right and am I now stuck until I get another from Company? Any pointer welcome, gutted as was trying to get car together tonight as got lots on and the special tool are on lend and this is going to slow me right up. If the above is not right, what have they actually sent me otherwise, thanks all

 

[sulzeruk]

Alex, they have sent you an auto tensioner idler not the manual tensioner one.
Alasdair

 

[diabloam]

ah so my guess was right, bollocks, going to try ring them again, just getting answer machine when rung ten mins ago. Hopefully they will get one in the post to me today, there is always somthing! lol

 

[pixie*porsche]

It was '87 when the belt tensioner changed, was it?

I thought it changed with the oval dash model (85.5)??

As an aside how do you find the exact build date for your car?

 

[T911UK]

Sounds like you may have 16valve toothed roller there, does it look like this?. Not sure what an auto and manual tensioner are though!

 

[TTM]

If I'm not mistaken there are 3 set ups :
- Excentric roller which acts the tensioner, for cars up to model year '86 included
- Roller for 8V engines, mounted on the auto tensioner ('87-on)
- Roller for 16V engines, mounted on the auto tensioner ('87-on)

The difference between 8V and 16V is the width of the timing belt, slightly wider on the 16v models (more valve springs to work against), which reflects in the auto tensioner and on the roller itself.

 

[diabloam]

well i got guy on phone and he was going to send one out to me. He asked for pic and as soon as he seen that he clicked. Hoping it is here today so can get job finished (had hassles with pump stud/snapped bolt already so job has dragged too long as it is). Assume there is no such thing as eccentric 16v roller and if he sends eccentric one out it is defo going to fit my 86 (which I told them) turbo and aint going to be too wide, lol. To be fair they been pretty decent about it so I wont moan too much. Will let you know if car goes back together fine, thanks all