Proper installing of the belt on the pulleys and sprockets

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LFY
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Proper installing of the belt on the pulleys and sprockets

Post by LFY »

Hi everyone,
I have a question about the initial step of replacing the timing belt of Peugeot 406 1.8 16V (XU7JP4).
How do you install the new belt on the car?
I'm not talking about belt tension, I just want to know how the belt should be seated correctly on the pulleys before tightening the tensioner bolt.
Do you pull the belt a little by hand between the pulleys to install it straight and level?
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Doggy
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Re: Proper installing of the belt on the pulleys and sprockets

Post by Doggy »

Hi and welcome aboard.

Sorry, I have no experience of 406 petrol engines.

Diesels have facility to adjust the tension on either side of the camshaft pulley:- 3 bolts attach the pulley to the camshaft through slotted holes, it's possible to slacken these and allow the pulley to rotate slightly with respect to the camshaft in order to equalise the tension either side of the pulley, otherwise you have a tight and slack section of the belt similar to your picture.

(Only one of the camshafts is directly driven by the timing belt on diesels).

No idea if anything similar exists on your engine.
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LFY
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Joined: Thu May 27, 2021 9:57 am

Re: Proper installing of the belt on the pulleys and sprockets

Post by LFY »

Doggy wrote: Thu May 27, 2021 4:08 pm Hi and welcome aboard.

Sorry, I have no experience of 406 petrol engines.

Diesels have facility to adjust the tension on either side of the camshaft pulley:- 3 bolts attach the pulley to the camshaft through slotted holes, it's possible to slacken these and allow the pulley to rotate slightly with respect to the camshaft in order to equalise the tension either side of the pulley, otherwise you have a tight and slack section of the belt similar to your picture.

(Only one of the camshafts is directly driven by the timing belt on diesels).

No idea if anything similar exists on your engine.
Thanks a lot for your answer. You talked about adjusting the belt tension but what I want to know is something else.
Your explanations apply to when you have put the belt on the car and you want to adjust the tensioner. This is the second stage of the job.

I'm asking about the initial step of just putting the new belt on the car (not what should be done after that).
According to Haynes manual, I have to start with exhaust camshaft and continue with inlet camshaft, idler pulley, crank gear, water pump and finally the dynamic tensioner. This is the sequence. Now, my questions is that how do you put the belt between each pulley or sprocket?

For example, you want to feed the belt between exhaust and inlet sprockets. Do you put the belt on both sprockets freely or pull the belt a little bit to seat it straight like a line?

This is exactly, what I want to know and in this respect there is no difference between diesel or petrol.
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