It's very confusing indeed! I went with the mechanical tensioner because I was fed up with the leaking original one. I installed everything according to the manual and adjusted it perfectly. Checked it a couple of times after turning the crankshaft by hand, tension was just beautiful. It was OK for the first couple of days and then it would skip a tooth on warm start-up.
This happened to me a couple of times (allthough the spring hadn't snapped every time), and avoiding this resulted in over-tensioning the damn thing. That didn't comfort me much, so in the end I installed the original one (without oil) again. Untill today this always resulted in good tension on cold and on a hot engine, never a failure in 10000 km. I'll never go back...... not even a 100 succes stories can do so.
I packed it with grease to give the piston inside some resistance. In theory when the engines warms up the grease will get a bit thinner and will ease off a bit of tension. Just like the original one. I don't know if it really works that way, but I know it works a hell of a lot better for me then that crappy mechanical one.
Thanks for keeping me happy, Jim
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