That's too bad.

I wore a stock damper out about 2 years after I bought the car and wore out the next one within a year - but this is with heavy track use and I drive it like I stole it on the street as well when safety conditions allow.

I may have to de-install the Alta tensioner... I would hate for this to fail on the track. I could replace it there but I'd lose an 30 mins/1 hour doing so.

 

Amazing how you had a working damper that long, ash. Never even had just a third of your luck. The damper resistance disappears in no time & the bushes need to be replaced w/ powerflex.
Alta addressed all those issues including the hazards & collateral damge from a snapped belt. Sadly, the tensioner wasn't designed for unsprung/undampened resistance.
Again, hope someone can come up w/ a longer lasting damper that can be sourced separately for less than the $70 tensioner assembly.

 

Can anyone point me a STRETCH FIT Belt product code from Gates, Contitech or whoever to replace both stock 6PK1388 & reduced pulley belts?

Thanks!

 

minsanity,

Sorry to hear about your tensioner. We have seen this happen before on a car that had bad tensioner bushings and a bad dampener. When the dampener goes out, it puts a lot of pressure on the bushings, causing them to fail, then since there's no bushing, it will weaken the mounting point on the tensioner since the bolt would just be rattling around in the tensioner.

Either that or it was from the ALTA tensioner was overtightened on the belt.

 

Hi Chris, my belt tension wasn't too tight as I meticulously noted & marked where the holes were on the tensioner w/ my stock damper prior to the swap. I won't discount a stressed tensioner assembly as it's still the same one that came w/ the car in 02. I just swapped in a new damper when I discovered it w/o resistance. That time, I was about to just put new bushes in.
It would really help, Chris, if you could source us some Stretch-Fit belts to go w/ your adjustable stop. Those would be the ideal combination.

 

I just ran across this thread so I figured I would chime in.

I just recently had my charger PTO seals fail sucking gear lube in to the intake and fouling my MAP sensor. Luckily I caught it early and sent the charger in for a rebuild. While the charger was at Jon Bond Performance being rebuilt, I took the time to upgrade some things that needed attention, as the car has 100k on the clock. I had toyed with making my own tensioner stop from some cable and lug ends and fitting it to the stock tensioner damper but after tearing everything apart, it was pretty obvious that this damper was on its way out.
I ordered the ALTA tensioner adjuster and installed it. Like others have said, it's a bear to get it just right, as there isn't a whole ton of room, both in between the frame rail and between the adjuster and tensioner.
With that said, a tip for everyone who has this: remove the engine mount and the bolt that holds the upper rad hose to the intake and jack up the engine. Easy peasy. I went in to inspect the adjuster to make sure all was well and found that the reverse thread nut had loosened from my lackluster install due to lack of room. Jacking up the engine and removing the engine mount gave me all the room I needed. I'm fairly happy with the product, the build is great and it works well.



Side note for ALTA_Chris - I also bought a 17% pulley and removed my WMW 15% that came with my car. I was going to go 17% while it was out anyway but based on the recommendation of Jon at Jon Bond Performance, I bought yours, even though it's more expensive because he said that your's is the best quality one out there. You drop shipped it to him for me and he put it on at no cost and even gave me a trade in on my WMW pulley. I'm glad you guys are local, I do wish you still made more stuff for the R53 though.
Anyway, if anyone has tensioner adjuster install questions, PM me. I'm happy to help.

 

No question on the stop's build quality. Just periodically check the tensioner.