Lude Generation

Not sure exactly what happened but car cut out, got recovered, plenty of fuel and spark, tech reccomended having a look at the timing belt. 4 month old gates belt has a gash on it (horizontal) and appears to have gone loose. Engine still turns as happened out of Vtec so doesn't seem to have made contact.

Also looks like lower belt cover has ended up coming loose as alternator belt has rubbed through it. Its going back to the garage that fitted the belt but i'm not confident that they'll give a honest diagnosis.

Never had a problem with gates t belt - used them many times over last 6 or 7 years on my own cars and also helped fit quite a few of them to merlins track lude. Never used the KS type tensioner - always prefered to go with oem H23-H22 full manual conversion or oem hydro tensioner.
I do however have a KS type tensioner here and i did take a note of the instructions on how to set it up/tension it properly and there was more to it than just fit and tighten it up. However if there had been a problem with how it was fitted im sure you would have noticed straight away. Not sure you can hold the garage accountable after 4 months.
Im sure things will become clearer after they have had a look and reported back to you.
Would be good news if engine ok and all you need is new belt.....

Ive used several and known others that have used the Gates belt with never a single issue.
Tensioner wise, i've only used the OEM or H23 one sorry.

Interesting. I dont suppose you had a copy of the intrsuctions?

Well i'm towing it down to the garage tonight for them to have a look tomorrow so will know then.

a guide how to swap them? if so;
viewtopic.php?t=18603

Well its all very strange. Got the car back from the garage today. Apparently something had got into the cambelt casing which had hit the tensioner spring, which subsequently got chewed up by the belt and skipped a tooth. Fortunately it didnt affect the engine as it fired up with a new belt. The guy showed me the old spring but said it hadn't been replaced because it didnt need it.

km666 wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 12, 2020 2:47 pm

Well its all very strange. Got the car back from the garage today. Apparently something had got into the cambelt casing which had hit the tensioner spring, which subsequently got chewed up by the belt and skipped a tooth. Fortunately it didnt affect the engine as it fired up with a new belt. The guy showed me the old spring but said it hadn't been replaced because it didnt need it.

so a foreign object had got in there? is the casing not enclosed - as it should be. i've heard of this before in all honesty, happened to a friend of mine in a dc2 after an engine rebuild.

Well thats what they said although the lad said he couldn't find anything in there. The casing is enclosed but was pushed out so it ended up rubbing on the alternator belt, I asked if the casing was damaged but seems the only damage to the casing is from the belts touching it rather than an obvious impact to have let a foreign object inside. On the one hand i'm chuffed the engine avoided any damage, but on the other I suspect the spring possibly shouldn't have been left inside.

It lost an alternator bolt when it went in first time which has reappeared. I know mistakes happen and they're a pretty fair local garage.

No worries i can dig out the instructions on how to fit ks type tensioner - although it definately sounds like this is not the issue.
I am thinking there a couple of small springs when using the H23-H22 conversion and i think there is one used with the oem hydro setup - is not to keep some tension on the balance belt? Although i dont think it really does much and there is very little tension on the spring when it is in place.
You check on lings on one of the parts diagrams to see if at all the spring is needed
Good result on in just needing a belt

The spring seems to be there mainly to hold some tension on the little arm while the tensioner is removed, but with the tensioner in place does very little. I cant find any information about it serving any other function. Its such a small, weak looking spring.