I think there may be some older threads on this, but I recently had an experience with my timing and balance belts I thought I would share.

I did my timing belt and balance belt, along with all the oem pulleys and tensioners about 1 1/2 years, 12,000 miles ago. everything has been fine, and I didn't even have any blue belt whine after I did them. a couple of weeks ago, is where the issue began.

I was moving my evo into my driveway, when all of a sudden, I heard a tapping noise, which at first sounded like a bad lifter, or the beginning of a rod knock. I don't really beat on the car, just drive spiritfully. coincidentally, it was a couple weeks after I did my valve cover gasket, and I thought a lifter went bad. after diagnosing the noise and freaking out for two weeks, I pinpointed it to the timing belt area.

when I removed the timing cover, I had found the tensioner fully extended, and the tensioner arm was bouncing off of the tensioner. the balance belt tensioner had also become loose, and the balance belt had extreme deflection. no slippage of the belt, and no damage occurred, ( thank goodness), so I was able to re-do the tensioners and retest. everything was good, and the tick is gone.

TLDR- what I think happened was the stiffness of the belts had made the tensioners back off after time, causing the issue. they were still in good condition, so I re used them for now, but will go back to OEM soon. I torqued everything, and set all the tensioners correctly the first time, so I know its not an issue with that.

on the bright side, I can now do the t-belt in under an hour. lol. just an experience I had, and a possible tick fix for people to check. thanks for reading.

 

I also use to run the gates timing and balance shaft belts, but had the engine built and was told not to use the gates and that the oem is much better. I'm now running just the oem timing belt as I did bs delete.

 

haha. yeah, I was under the impression it would last longer, due to the stronger materials, but when I took off the oem belt, it felt just as stiff.( I had the belt replaced at 60k, I think with the upgraded oem belt). I ran the gates because I had already bought it. will definitely be going back to OEM.

 

Doesn't gates make the OEM belt......

 

did you re use the tensioner?

I have found that the re used tensioners more often than not tend to go bad right after the install..

 

^ I had a buddy reuse his. His block went by-by after after 500 miles due to a failed hydraulic tensioner. Needless to say I will always buy a new OEM tensioner if I do timing.

On a side note, someone who doesnt torque and use thread loc on the tensioner pulley bolt would see your symptoms. I have a hard time believing it was the"stiffness" of the belt.

 

I just spent a few minutes checking my 2003 shop manual for where they recommend using thread locker on timing components and I find nothing.

Tensioner torque is 17 ft-lb, tensioner arm 16 ft-lb and balance shaft tensioner 14 ft-lb. In other words, not a lot of torque. Noticing this, I always have used a torque wrench on these fasteners. But, yeah, 14 ft-lbs is almost finger tight. Maybe some mild thread locker is in order.

 

Sounds like stuff came loose, not really the belt's fault...

 

Its because it isnt in there.
I loc tite practically every bolt that doesn't sit in oil.
Why? Because NvH

 

Its a stupid small amount of torque for parts in motion. The SM for my DSM listed similar torques. I never had anything come loose and I always ran an OEM belt. The next time - thread locker.

 

pretty sure my oem tensioner was on its was out seemed like tbelt had too much deflection while running. installing a ble tensioner this time.

 

I wouldn't recommend this unless its a race only car that does not see a lot of miles. IF the op would have used a BLE tensioner he would be replacing the engine/head when it came loose.
I have used gates for a while now and haven't had any stretching/deflection issues at 400hp/400tq.

 

Doesn't seem like the issue was the belt. Seems to me like a defective tensioner. Gates makes great timing belts, never had an issue. Don't think you have one either.

 

its a built engine and i check over stuff pretty regular myself so not too concerned with adjusting every now and then if necessary.

 

I would not want to be concerned with checking a manual timing belt tensioner every few thousand miles. The OEM auto tensioner works fine as long as it is replaced with the belt every 60k miles.