Put in a new tensioner, belt and damper yesterday. I am very lucky.

The old tensioner was shot, it fell apart when removed. The old aftermarket cable (that is supposed to protect it from crashing into anything was snapped)...it must have just been running perfectly on top of another pulley because it was like this for a while.

So much for catastropic failure. I think it has been like this for 100's of hard miles. Everything worked fine and I had boost and great AC, though I may have been losing boost over 5500rpm since I noticed 14lbs pressure today where I think I used to see 10lbs which I figured was due to a head and full exhaust.

The roads were wet, so I didn't really get on it, but I think I got more power. It will have to dry up to tell for sure though.

Symptoms....none. No noise, no loss of power. I just happened to see the snapped cable a while back and the tensioner had 100k so I figured, time to change it. The metal strip that has a hole in it to hold tension on the spring was not connected to anything.

There is a slight chance that it was working yesterday, and when I compressed it to get the belt off that little strip finally gave, but that is a long shot. Even after I compressed and put in a pin to hold it I couldn't take the belt off since it was being pinched by the tensioner. After removing the old damper, it just fell apart and was like a jack in the box.

So, the lesson was, the cable may or may not stop the tensioner from hitting anything. The tensioner may not hit anything anyway. It is way better to be lucky than to to be unlucky.

 

How much is a new tensioner by the way?

 

I got mine at mini since I have a relative working there.

Way has them for 167.00

http://www.waymotorworks.com/02-06-c...ys/index2.html

 

lucky!!
It sounds like you had a slipping belt! The fact the Gas strut must have been dead too did not help...I think they are around $150-170. Some folks recommend swapping them out as scheduled maintenance at 75,000 plus, I think I'll just monitor it...kinda $$ to pull out a good one!!
Good thing about the cable is that they don't rattle like other style....
Maybe it was a homemade cable/e-bay knock off with Aluminum electrical grommet clipped onto the end. The Detroit Tuned one that I have seen and the one I have has VERY beefy connectors!!
I wonder if the cable was what was holding it together, and it rubbed till it failed.....and the cable just let the tensioner expanded most of the way...and you got slippage.....So it may have worked!! It just died working possibly!!

 

It was a DT cable. I don't know if it was at a bad angle and that made it fail, but it was broken. I may even break out the camera just for a photo. Back in a few.

 

RockAuto has a tensioner for like $83. That's where i got mine when it died. Still need a tensioner stop for this new one.

 

Looks like a DT and the previous owner said it was a good one (when I bought one for the new tensioner.)

BTW, you are correct, the strut was toast too.