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I've reverted to the original tensioner after numerous failures of the 'newer' mechanical one. I rebuilt an old one with a new bearing, new oil seals, but then decided to seal off the oil intake by welding up the oil intake hole in the main stud (and the return oil hole is also sealed). I decided to pack the oil cylinder with grease, basically to prevent any movement which might slacken tension on the belt under any circumstances. Is this a common setup? Do I just tighten down the nuts to hold it in this position or should I impose some additional force on the tensioner as I tighten the nuts to tighten the belt a little more? Obvioulsy, with the current setup, I cannot use the Alfa instructions which include using the 'dowel' special tool to overcome the force exerted by the spring in the oil cylinder...

The belt does seem pretty well tightened right now without leveraging down on the tensioner.

Thanks!

I recently did this also using a NOS tensioner. Initially I was too enthusiastic about the tension and set it way too tight. This caused a whining sound from the engine and the car didn't seem too happy. I reverted to Zat's directions which call for 1/4" deflection between the two cam sprockets. Can't comment on this setup yet because of the problems in my other post but it has survived several dozen start and runs for 2 second cycles and hasn't skipped.

Jason
Boise, Idaho
86 GTV-6
74 Spider

My 3.0L has that grease mod to the tensioner i have done about 10,000km and no olio leaks or belt problems, it works well.

There was (always is, I guess) a lot of discussion about this on the Alfa Digest. I recall several people saying they were using the original style spring also which provides a constant force of something like 22 ft lbs. I take it you are not using the spring?