idler arms
 

How do you tell old style vs. new style idler arms? I am resealing my motor and keep finding weird stuff. The motor has pressure fed tensioners,but when I installed the tensioners the tens. piston only contacts the idler arm half of the area of the piston, the other half is not contacting anything. Is this normal?, there is also no spacer like Wayne's book says there should be. Freaking me out
John

If you have the wider idler arms you would not need the spacers. Is there a large gap between the idler arm and the tensioner? If so that should be the problem.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1252111100.jpg


I took a picture, see how the piston is only halfway on the arm?

You have the updated arms, so no spacer needed.

You could check for cam sprocket parallelism but I doubt there is a problem . The arm floats to follow between the two sprockets fixed to a plane. You may have some wear at the face of the chain box and the idler. Turn the engine over by hand to see where the idler really runs before you run off thinking you have a problem.

Hey Aaron,
Thanks for the assesment, this board is a great resource. I am just paranoid after some of the other things I found when I took the motor apart,and wanted to get some knowledgable eyes on this. I will turn the motor over and check, although both pistons have scoring on the top halfway across. The motor ran great but did have some chain noise when cold. Again thanks much!
John

I'm not too comfy with any scoring. Definitely inspect.

Cam parallelism
Verify endplay of the intermidiate shaft thust bearings. You can check this by measuring the difference of the measurement when you turn the crank CW and CCW.
Verify endplay at the cam.
Any damage and/or wear to the chainbox, idler area.

Do you have the cam line restrictors? These would increase oil pressure at idle, providing enough oil to the tensioners.

Aaron,
I will check all those measurments at some point this weekend. I just looked at the top of the pistons again and maybe scoring is not the correct term. There is wear in the form of a difference in the finish, I am unable to feel anything with my fingernail when I go across the top. For peace of mind I will go down that list you gave me. Again thaks for the guidance,it is what makes this board so valuable.
John

I am rebuilding a 2.2 with the new tensioners ... I have the same issue with the left side tensioner - thinking this might be the norm - the new tensioner pistons are larger so still the same amount of idler arm riding on the the piston - any updates on this issue?

See images below
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/524977/IMG_1356.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/524977/IMG_1357.JPG

Anyone had the same experience - can I continue on or should I be concerned?

Hey James,
I thought I had a problem too,but after I checked every thing that Aaron suggested,
I felt better and the engine runs fine,with no more chain noise.
Good Luck
John

John ... it is interesting that you had the misalignment on the right side and mine is on the left? Can you confirm that this was the case. Trying to get Henry from Supertec to have a look at the photo's and will upgrade my idler arms with his update if this fixes the problem.

...James

It looks like the tensioner is not sitting all the way in against the idler in the pic.

I can see from your pictures that you have the old style idler arms w/out the extra support width and no bushings. Make sure to check the bore in the idler arms before you put it all back together. You might find some galling in the bore and on your posts. This galling recently tanked my '79 engine and wrecked some sprockets. Don't let it happen to your engine too!

The fit on the idler arms and the posts is fantastic ... no wear and nice fit etc. Hoping to hear from Henry (SuperTech) to see if his updated arms would make a difference.

...James

It is not uncommon for the tensioner to contact the idler arm in something less than complete contact. This situation should pose no reason for concern.
Simple trimming and shims can make for a more complete engagement but to date we have never seen a need to do that.