DT466e belt tensioner fail

[rv8flyboy]

Well, my first year of skoolie ownership certainly had it's up and downs.

We took it on our first road trip last year and it promptly seriously overheated whenever you go faster than 55 mph. we let it cool down, and commenced at 50 mph, which made the trip uneventful.

on return we continued with the internals.

This spring, when we started the bus ... err... RV for the first time there was a loud clonk and a large item fell on the driveway. Further examination showed it was the belt tensioner that had broken off the front engine cover, breaking the front engine cover in the process ...CR@P!!

there appears no other fix than to replace the front engine cover as it does not appear to be a weldable situation. Taking the harmonic balancer off was a hoot ... NOT. But we managed, took us 4 weekends to coerce the old bolts loose, steel bolts in aluminum bores sitting for 25+, yeah, stuck's the word here.

1K+ in new parts and the beast finally fired up. strangely it did not take the expected amount of coolant. Something still seemed wrong. I had found on the blogosphere that water should come out of the small hose that leads from the thermostat to the coolant reservoir. As soon as I disconnected that hose, the reservoir emptied out in the engine and it took another 2 gallons of distilled water.... Checked out the nipple on the coolant tank and it is closed off, as in there was never a hole there, The nipple was molded onto the tank, the restrictor sits in the nipple, but there was no connection to the tank... 25+ year old factory defect?? out came the drill and with a suitable sized drill bit, the tank was pierced. Voila, the engine now bleeds correctly. The shavings were definitely plastic and not crud.

next we're gonna run CLEAN through it, I guess the over heating is the next major concern now that the beast is running again. Fan clutch appears ok, certainly howling when the engine was running hotter than hot ... We have a bout 4 weeks till our next planned road trip.

Anybody else had the belt tensioner depart the engine??

[somewhereinusa]

Overheating may have been due to the tensionor fail, if it was bad enough to fall off it probably wasn't keeping the belt tight.

[rv8flyboy]

yep, da's what we are hoping for, it kinda looked like the tensioner was corroded into a fixed position.