Quote:
Originally Posted by eastbay
I'd be willing to bet the guards that came apart were installed like your photo, with no space between the guard and the tensioner. Watch a video of the tensioners in action and they bounce around quite a bit. With no space for plunger movement they will simply hammer themselves off. From the witness marks on RDMs failed guards, that is what it looks like to me.
Failed o-rings, that is what my tensioners suffered from, same as yours. Probably all of them.
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When an O-ring fails, the plunger will gradually collapse as oil escapes. The collar merely acts as a manual stop to avoid excessive chain slack which could cause it to skip a sprocket tooth. Continuous engine operation can cause the flopping chain to beat up the collar until it fails. Performing forensics on a failed collar might be difficult to determine whether one of the fasteners broke or loosened, whether the aluminum material itself failed (for whatever reason) or was hammered to the extent the collar failed.
Tensioner collars are a short-term stop gap product to help prevent immediate catastrophic damage. The collars' effectiveness diminish with extended engine operation.
Sherwood