Spanner mod to aid belt tensioning

[GavinT]

I needed to adjust the timing belt tension on my 88 T. I recall reading someone had used an S shaped spanner to access the eccentric hub with the crank pulley and belts still in position. With the shape of the S you can get the spanner behind the belts and onto the hub but it doesn’t leave space for a socket or spanner on the locknut. So a simple modification is called for.

Clamp the spanner in a vise and cut the 19mm closed end of the spanner in half. This should give the spanner almost a flush fit on the eccentric hub allowing room for a 17mm deep socket to be positioned over the lock nut. The deep socket should protrude beyond the crank pulley enough so you can get a ratchet on it allowing you to back off the lock nut and retighten once adjustment is completed. You do need to wiggle the socket through the criss cross of the belts in front of the tensioner but there is room.  I found it all worked very well and made adjusting the timing belt tension pretty easy. I left all the aux belts in position.

I had a spare eccentric hub with a bearing on the bench.

Hope this may help someone.

[Sparky]

Almost identical to my method, but my ground-down 19mm is straight.

[snowrx]

Clever.  If you notch the handle of the wrench @ tensioner edge,  you could leave more of the box end thickness

[fjmuurling]

My version.