Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob 930
Just so you know, it's not univerally accepted that the pressure fed tensioners are necessarily "better." Not only do they sometimes fail too, but the external oil lines and fittings that feed them have also been known to leak or fail, which can cause a fire. I'm not necessarily suggesting you go back to non-pressure-fed tensioner, but be aware that there are pros who build engines without them and swear by it. I think that the statistics for longevity of the latest and greatest non-pressure-fed tensioners are pretty impressive. It used to be that people would add an aftermarket collar to the tensioner plunger to prevent total collapse (but would allow an impending failure to be detectable by ear). This might be an option for you too.
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Thanks for the feedback Rob.
Could be, I've read that too. Really won't know what the damage is until its opened. For all I know there's already a collar in there saving my bacon.
From my reading of threads and books the problems reported with the earlier setup were:
- idler arm binding (fixed with newer idler arms with wider bushing in 1980)
- ramps destructing
- spring collapse in tensioner
There is discussion of fatigue cracks in the oil feed lines but I'd not heard of catastrophic failure. Or Fire! I had these in my sc and it was reassuring to see them. And Buyers asked for them by name. Never really read about them before though. Now I see that pressure fed tensioner isn't that interesting, I'd want to know that the idle arm bushings were updated too.
I've found some relavant links:
Jerry Woods Chain Tensioner Mod
Shops that don't recommend Carrera Tensioner Update?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob 930
If I had a very original early 930, I would absolutely go back to the non-pressure-fed tensioners to preserve the originality of the appearance, and to avoid having to slice and dice the sheet metal pan behind the engine to accommodate the tensioner oil lines.
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Don't remember reading anything about snipping the pan.
Given I've got all the pieces for the new setup, and something bad happened already, I think it makes sense to go forward.