I have done 3 timing belt jobs on Zetecs.

With the Gate's kit the tensioner seems to jump around about 1/8" in either direction. I retensioned a BUNCH of times when I saw this but no matter how tight I went it always did it, I ended up getting it spot on, torquing it to spec, and calling it a day without looking at it again.

If you think about it the tensioners job kind of is to jump around and keep tension. The car that did that has been running fine for a few months now.

Rereading your post, my tensioner used to go back for the most part. It did lay rest off of the timing mark, but I also foudn the timing mark to be unrealiable and what I approximated to be correct tension, was not exactly where the timing mark was.

Just start her up and let her run for 5 minutes, do that twice and check it.

OH (sorry for the long post) if you move the tensioner around you will find it has a groove that it is supposed to seat into when you torque the retaining bolt in, make sure its dead on and goes into the groove. That one is important.

 

Exactly. Its will move... the point is to keep the belt as tight as possible... and thats what it does.

 

Thanks for the replies, I have a few zetec cars that have yet to have the belt changed yet. When i inspected the other 2 the tensioner was on the mark at rest?

 

The OEM tensioner is the best choice.

The adjustment plate seems to always change the tension on the OEM, where as with the Gates/ect one the adjustment plate spins freely until you press it into that notch I was talking about it.

I do not like Gates tensioners. When I did mine it jumped around but eventually came to rest off the tensioner mark, however, the tension is fine and it has had no problems.

 

normal. The zetec tensioner design is ****ty. Id prefer an eccentric roller with a hydraulic dampner.

 

The early Zetec actually had a hydraulic tensioner. On You-tube if you type in Zetec and watch video (8) it shows a timing belt replacement of some a European early Zetec? The video is in a foreign language but shows some of the basic steps of a belt replacement, although the tensioner and timing pin location are different.

 

i believe the engine in the you tube vid is the zetec e motor fitted to the fiesta and puma not the focus or contour