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The tensioners should not move (quickly) at all under finger pressure, so your LHS is definitely bad. This will be the source of your "diesel rattle". Probably the noise itself is generated by the tensioner piston/ idler arm bouncing up and down and against each other. If you could run your car with the chain box cover off, you'd see the tensioner piston on the bad side hopping up and down like one of those old monroe-matic shock absorber commercials, while the good side would be stationary. The tensioner itself is just a shock absorber. The spring pressure is not even that much, but the valving is extremely slow. It doesn't take all that much force to compress one, it just moves very slowly. Constant pressure applied by hand will compress one, but if you relax even for an instant the spring pushes it up and you have to start all over. Thats the key to understanding how they work. As long as there is sufficient oil in them, they work. If enough oil leaks out, they don't. No big mystery in "rebuilding" them. Just a matter of refilling the lost oil and getting all the air out. It is a bit of an awkward thing to do, but not difficult. The two o-rings can be sourced at your FLAP.
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