Technical 1.6 16v timing belt walking

[Constantin II]

Hello everyone, i bought my Marea 2 months ago with 134k km on board, after sitting for a few years in a garage. Naturally, i changed every single fluid, the clutch, as it was the original one, and of course the timing belt and the tensioner.
the pictures are of the timing belt, 600 something km after being changed. what is this, and how does that happen?

 

[varesecrazy]

Hi

We had that on a JTD..

It was the bearing on the tensioner failing..
it actually was 'inspected' by a garage who couldnt find an issue ('weird noise')
And they fitted a new belt

It actually sawed through the black plastic covers a few weeks after..

 

[Constantin II]

it is a new Continental timing belt set, tensioner and idler, so i guess i picked a crappy one as i have never had an issue with their products before.
i will order and fit a new one, can you recommend one that will not fail in a week's time?
i have a 2000 km road trip in three weeks and i would hate to have the belt snap on me

 

[Neverth]

I've had no issues with contitech belts, but I try to get kit with SKF bearings as INA bearings have failed me once.

 

[portland_bill]

The pics do not magnify well, so difficult to really inspect.

The belt appears to be walking off the edge of the pulleys. They should naturally centre themselves. If they are off-centre, this is usually because one or more are out of alignment. The crank and cam pulleys are unlikely to move, but the tensioner and idler can be problems. As new ones were fitted, seizure should not be an issue, but they need looking at carefully to check they are properly fitted, and not misaligned, either offset, or at an angle. Is the tensioner automatic? If manual, it could be wrongly tensioned.

It is difficult to see, but are the belt teeth correct for the pulleys? Could be just the pics, but the belt appears to have round teeth, and the pulleys square. Was there a choice of kit?
(Early Panda 1.2 used square profile teeth, then changed to round profile late 2005, when the tensioner went auto. Was there a similar change on Marea?)

 

[varesecrazy]

Do check the waterpump (if driven by the timing belt) too

 

[Constantin II]

sorry for the quality of the pictures
the belt does fit the sprockets, they both have a square profile
also, it rubs on the crankshaft pulley and has reduced from 25 to 18 mm
the tensioner is automatic

 

[Constantin II]

Do check the waterpump (if driven by the timing belt) too

the water pump is driven by the auxiliary belt,
the timing belt does drive the oil pump

 

[Constantin II]

a little update
the timing gears , idler and oil pump seem to line up nicely
the tensioner is visibly crooked, i tried to take a decent picture, but there is not a lot of space
also, the belt seems to be very tight on the tensioner side and to have a lot of slack on the idler pulley side, so much that i can spin the pulley by hand with ease
i ordered a new timing belt set and this time i will change it myself, without paying 65 euros/hour to have an incompetent ruin my engine
i will also replace the water pump and the radiator with a new aluminium one

 

[Neverth]

Slack on idler/tensioner is what it is, cams have friction but also inertia and when engine is shut down it is pretty random where slack ends up. When running/accelerating the idler is always tight as belt is pulling the cams.