Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

I noticed a while back that the alternator belt tensioner shaft on my 924S is pretty much seized solid.

Now I'm having a problem getting a replacement: the ones I can get hold of (even from Porsche it seems) are for the 944 and later 924S, and they are different, most importantly, they are longer - at the shortest adjustment, one might just match the current (seized) length of my existing one.

So, question is: can I just use the longer adjuster shaft? Will that cause issues when it comes to replacing the belt?

Thanks,

Chris

I would have though they would all be the same; early, late, 944... They all have the same engine..
I've been through 3 tensioner bars with my 924S (due to balance shaft being 180 deg out they vibrated too much and snapped ) but they were all the same

Hi Chris, I had a pretty seized turnbuckle adjuster too. However, I found that removing it from the car and applying heat using a gas blowlamp (quite a bit) allowed me to un-seize it. Then I could strip it down, clean it up, lubricate and reuse. Remember - one side is LH and the other RH thread.. .

Hope that might help?

Thanks, yeh, I had thought of that. But the lock nuts and the flats on the shaft are somewhat rounded over (happened before my involvement, I might add), so even if I freed it off, I'd ultimately want to replace it.



I thought the same thing, but the one on my car is definitely shorter, and thicker diameter than the spare I have here.

I can probably take photos to show the difference.... later in the week.

Chris

So, here's the photo of the two tensioner shafts:



The upper one is the new one, and lower one is off my car. Bearing in mind that the lower one has the lock nuts seized in place, you can see that the new one is quite a bit longer, and and thinner in diameter. Also the old one has larger eye-bolts, with bush inserts to take the 8mm bolts, whilst on the new one, the eye-bolts accept the 8mm bolts directly.

get a nut splitter on the old one and crack the nuts and then undo it.

LH and RH nuts are available on ebay and if you feel the need you could replace the ends with 8mm rose joints (rod ends) as they come in LH and RH thread, and sometimes nuts as well