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New to this R53 game, bought the lever for the belt tensioner and tried to compress it to remove belt. I wanted to see what condition all the pulleys are in since I just bought the car. Now Im not a weak man but this mf does not want to budge. I haven’t read anywhere of anyone else having this issue? What I’m I doing wrong? Lol thanks in advance for any feed back.
I purchased one of these, installed it, and couldn't (initially) figure out why the heck I couldn't get the new belt on... Maybe I just didn't read the directions well enough.
If your piston is buggered, I have a brand new one from a tensioner that I put the Alta piece on. You can have it for the cost of shipping (like $7 USPS flat-rate).
If you do have an Alta one, well, sweet, just remove it for a smidge and then adjust as needed.
Wouldn’t you know it, it does have the Alta dampener. No wonder it wouldn’t budge. Funny thing about it is that I was hearing a slight rattle at low rpms, more so at idle. After putting the belt tensioner tool on it and trying to compress it it went away. Must have been something to do with the Alta “strut dampener” Thanks for the help.
Wouldn’t you know it, it does have the Alta dampener. No wonder it wouldn’t budge. Funny thing about it is that I was hearing a slight rattle at low rpms, more so at idle. After putting the belt tensioner tool on it and trying to compress it it went away. Must have been something to do with the Alta “strut dampener” Thanks for the help.
Dampener it is, as it does not damp worth a damn like the original damper.
Dampener it is, as it does not damp worth a damn like the original damper.
Given that it's sold as a manual tensioner...
The piston just dampens the force of the spring bouncing around. The Alta tensioner bypasses the point that the spring can get the belt to, and further prevents slipping in vehicles prone to it.
Apparently the aluminum brackets can fail if the Alta tensioner is over-tightened, so be wary of that in future use. The manual says that 1/2 to 1 full turn of the tightening assembly is adequate.
As you found the tensioner can't move back with that alta rod. This also shows the tensioner can't move to keep the belt tight through the rpm and load range. And if you adjust the rod to make it tighter then at lower load and rpm it will be too tight. Go with the stock setup so it can work like the engineers intended.
That’s exactly what I have read on this site. Stock piston on the tensioner is the way to go and just replace when the time calls for it. This is probably why the belt seems to slip a bit when I get on it into the high rpm range. Won’t do it if I ease into higher rpms when I’m steady. Mostly when I bang the gears into 6/7k lol. I love this thing.
That’s exactly what I have read on this site. Stock piston on the tensioner is the way to go and just replace when the time calls for it. This is probably why the belt seems to slip a bit when I get on it into the high rpm range. Won’t do it if I ease into higher rpms when I’m steady. Mostly when I bang the gears into 6/7k lol. I love this thing.
