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997 gen 2 drive belt Tensioner failure .

First up thanks guys for the advice :)

The spanner is 100% definitely a 30mm. If a spanner can be "bad ass", I now have a bad ass spanner (the Halfords one). It's a monster. Very satisfying to use!

I managed to do the check and get everything fitted back together in 15mins (plus one bleeding knuckle and several layers of finger skin removed). 5mins to get it off and do the check, 10mins to get it back together.

There's some neat engineering under there, but why on earth they couldn't allow another few mm or for what I'm assuming is the throttle pot' to be easily removable I don't know :)

And the result was...not seized. Woohoo!

With the bad ass spanner the tensioner could be moved clockwise easily. Retaining bolt didn't move at all, belt slackened (bowed to the left). Let it go and the belt went tight again (straight on the left). All felt pretty smooth despite the bracket and nut etc looking a bit manky. Could sense the tensioner compressing.

The hex nut doesn't need to move very far to slacken the belt.

This is, guaranteed, the prelude to me posting on here again within a month with a FUBAR'd engine. But until then quite happy -£500 saved which is unusual for my cars thus far this year!

Presumably it's worth checking these annually?

(Incidentally...2010 car with 82k miles on it).
 
Wait till you see the size of the 36mm spanner !! .. that is the one i call impressive and also the largest one needed for normal work on Porsches .

Not seized is good and at your mileage then i expect it will be fine from now on , they are checked on a 2 year service if you have the belt check done ...

my assumption on these is its the amount of water that gets on them as these are used on other models without a problem ... these are a bit more open allowing water .. salt etc etc .
 
Hi,

As a part of a 111 Check at a OPC they asked if the belt had been changed, since i'm the new owner i looked at the paperwork and cannot see a change since 2013 since then its been checked but not changed. Went to change it today and noticed that using a 30mm spanner i could move the tensioner to relax the belt, but the tensioner would not spring back on its own. Does this mean its knackered? Would applying lubricant help? the Torx bolt did not move.
 
A forum member sent me a PM asking me about the cost of parts for this job. I thought I would share costs and part numbers, I bought all the parts from Porsche apart from the damper which I deduced is a generic part made by INA.

Details below.

I bought the tensioning arm roller, bolts etc from Porsche

Drive Belt Tensioner Lever
Part #: 9A210221100 (0PB 903 308) (part now superseded to 0PB903308) £100.36 ex vat - 10% £108.38 inc vat Part available from Porsche

:also use cap blank for bolt for roller (part of above supersession)
94810283900 £4.05 ex vat -10% £4.37 inc vat Part available from Porsche


Drive Belt Tensioner Lever Bolt £2.23 ex vat -10% £2.41 inc vat Part available from Porsche
Part #: 999-073-579-01-M100

Roller
Part #: 9A110221200 Roller £54.09 ex vat -10% £58.42 inc vat Part available from Porsche

Roller Bolt
Part #: 99907357901 Roller Bolt £2.12 ex vat -10% £2.29 inc vat Part available from Porsche

Bolt
Part #: 99907341101 Bolt (part now superseded to 9A700803500) £1.22 ex vat -10% £1.32 inc vat Part available from Porsche

Bolt
Part #: 99907324609 Bolt (part now superseded to 99907324602) £1.80 ex vat -10% £1.94 inc vat Part available from Porsche

Bolt
Part #: 99907341201 Bolt (part now superseded to PAF008361) £1.73 ex vat -10% £1.87 inc vat Part available from Porsche




Also This page was useful

https://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/SuperCat/4741/POR_4741_ELCHRG_pg5.htm#item19

It shows the tensioner is made by INA for porsche and so i bought an INA part from ebay. I think it was around £50 delivered.

Parts cost me in total about £230 delivered.
 
At work we would tend to replace the drive belt ..

2 reasons .. you have it off the car so only parts cost ..

Due to a seized tensioner it will have been under increased strain and whilst it may look fine it may well be weakened .

The tensioner really comes down to what condition its in when you remove it .

I will say .. its very stiff and you will need a vice to compress it .. any signs of leakage and we replace .
 
Hi All,

Using the advice above from DeMort and Windy, last week I replaced the tensioner on my 911. Was relatively straight forward but needed to make my own tools. One concern is that I couldn't use a torque wrench due to the tight space. Will monitor it to check for issues.

Cost 300 for all parts from OPC, thats the roller, tensioner, arm and bolts from OPC.

Was quoted 500 to do the job by an Indy, OPC would have been higher.

Simple job but space is tight so you need to think out of the box.

Happy to share the tools ive made if anyone is near and wants to borrow them.

So far so good.

Next job is to replace spark plugs and heat shields :eek:
 

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Excellent job, Sounds like you used exactly the same approach re tools as me.

Regarding torqueing the bolts up I managed to get a torque wrench in to all but 1 of the bolts and just did the one I could not get to by feel.
 
Giving this thread a bump to the top here ..

Why you may ask .. then i will tells you ..

OPC serviced a car , customer went back with an engine noise ..they checked on the tester , nothing found , suggested he monitored it and if it got worse then bring it back .

Not a customer we have seen before but it was brought into us for our opinion ..

Air box off , started the car and the belt was on the outside of the tensioner pulley .. almost at the point of coming off ...

Tensioner had seized , bolt had come undone , tensioner was rubbing against the engine hence the noise .. by undone i mean about 4 mm out of its hole .

Ok .. i'm not having a go at OPC here .. not all mechanics at them have worked on these or even been taught about them , Porsche only teaches new mechanics on current models ...

Not every mechanic realises this can happen .. so owners need to use due diligence ...

Sooo .. once again .. 997.2 .. ask when the car is being serviced if they can check the tensioner .. it can just about be done from below with a 30 mm spanner ..

I do it on everyone of these cars regardless .. not all garages do .. so please .. ASK the QUESTION .. get it checked when the car is serviced .

On the off chance the garage has no idea what youre talking about .. show them this thread !!!
 
hi, I have this fault on a boxster 987.2 2010 28000 miles ,the pivot bolt had sheard due to the tensioner arm pivot sleeve being seized , managed to remove broken bolt . the tensioner arm pivot sleeve can be removed and refitted with the aid of a vice/press and some spacers/sockets. the sleeve itself had surface corrosion .cleaned as nec and added high temp grease and reassembled,now perfectly free ,will be checking regularly to make sure it doesn't re-seize. Now for my question ,how far does the tensioner have to turn to release/refit the belt ,I tried briefly last night but didn't want to force it in case I caused further damage as the castings that support the damper to don't look very strong.
 
hi ,just to add to above post what would you estimate the turning force/torque to be on the 30mm hex casting on the pivot arm,you mentioned in your post,s that it take,s force to compress the damper
 
Ok .. this normally effects 997 G2 .. i've never seen a Boxster G2 suffer from this ..

The design means there is almost no water / dirt getting to the tensioner on a boxster that will cause this issue unlike a 997 .

In short i am somewhat surprised this can happen to your car .. i would certainly be looking at every component and probably replace not just the pivot but the tensioner shock as well .

To answer your question .. a 30 mm spanner is pretty big , i've never checked NM force but it's a good lever downwards and it will move by about 35 degrees .

The pivot bolt , if free is plenty strong enough to support this action .. it must be done up tight though.
 
thanks for info ,all ok and back up running again ,this car was dry stored for 1 year so maybe lack of use caused this to seize as the tensioner was,nt moving as it would under normal use
 
Interesting reading this thread, I'll hopefully manage to check mine. Have friends and colleagues in Sussex so a visit to precision might be on the cards.

This video seems useful:

https://youtu.be/Vjxd5sa65I0
 
981 Cayman in for service the other day , when i slacked the tensioner it didn't come back .. see image .

First one of these ive seen as so far it's only been 997 G2 .
 

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