When I did mine, I tightened the tensioner at first before removing it and thought she was all good.......... Leak became a stream! As I found out the seal was the hard that when I tightened it, it cracked! If you have the tim whip the p/s mount off the cover and check the tensioner! Also about the bolt holes goin right through in the timing case, they don't, the cover is actually cracked when it starts coming out the bolt holes! I ran mine after I resealed the tensioner without the p/s bracket on and no leaky!!

Let's us know what you find under the bracket

ok i sort of get what you mean.

Stupid me undone everything except the PS mount

Anyhow do i need to remove the tensioner system entirely or do i just need to tighten it???

Can i remove just the cap/bolt of the tensioner & replace just that O ring???

go easy on tightening the timing case itself too much it's pretty soft and thin. correct and equal torque is you're friend here. and silicone.

i was looking for a bit of info on the timing chain tensioner as i also had the tricky oil leak, i see there`s quite a few other blokes been stumped by the this oil leak, actually today was my second go at trying to eradicate the dam leak, i could`nt see it leaking out of the tensioner,,,,,,,,,,but today i found it was!!!.
i may not have noticed it but i thought ah well i`ve got belt tensioner off and the harmonic balancer i might as well put a new water pump on while i`am at , it`s over 100,000 k`s since the last one.
anyway i had the water pump gasget area all nice and clean and most of the timing cover looking pretty spiffy, i got side tracked and came back to it a bit later and noticed a streak of oil running across my nice clean area that the water pump bolts to, i traced it back to the timing chain tensioner adjuster.......the dirty rotten thing,
the leak runs down from the tensioner and you can`t see it !!! ,

it the follows the gap between the water pump and the timing cover and ends up at the corner of the sump drivers side(next to the alternator), i suspect it absolutely pisses out when the motor is running, well i know it does, it`s been filling my alternator up with engine oil and leaving spots of oil wherever i park for a few months now since my last attempt at finding the bloody leak. if only i knew it was a 50 cent o ring on the tensioner some time ago .
cheers guys.

That's not what you shoulda done, the tentioner is in the side of the block under the powersteerug brackets ( you remove the brackets ) and there's a 14mm square end plug in a larger round threaded thing. This is what you pull out and clean up and re assemble with plenty of permatex high temp red.
Sounds like you've over tightened the timing case and either split the gaskets or cracked the case.

Does anyone know the exact size of the O rings?

Repco don't have the sizes in their manuals/computers.


Thx
SL

i did`nt pull the tensioner to bits on mine ,as i have seen quiet a few threads where people don`t know the correct procedure to remove and or reassemble/ adjust the tensioner mechanism properly and get into all sorts of strife, i only replaced the larger barrel/bolt o ring that the small bolt screws into, i will tell you how i did it and you can decide if you want to try doing it that way or not.

for a starters once i had removed the power steering pump and bracket exposing the tensioner bolt, i cleaned the area very well with spray degreaser and wiped it clean with some rag, a little while later i rubbed my finger underneath the tensioner bolt and it was oily again where i had cleaned !!!, so i was confident that`s where it was leaking.

i gave it a wipe then marked the tensioner barrel and bolt and timing cover with chalk as a reference point,
i then using a pin punch(and possibly multi grips) and small hammer undid the whole barrel 3 turns only , did not touch the small bolt( i found it turned fairly easily) , then using a small precision flat screw driver i pryed the old hard o ring from the barrel seat(it was flat like a washer), i just pryed it up and snapped it/ pulled it out,

now for the fun bit, the barrel part of the tensioner thing is very close to the head, so there`s not much clearance to get the new fat seal in, as i had bolts out or loose on the timing cover i could flex the timing cover gently out at that point about a millimetre to help squeeze the new o ring in, in that instance you may need to loosen some timing cover bolts a couple of turns in that area possibly ,
you need to be careful not to damage the new o ring, use something blunt to push it in , once the o ring is seated ok just retighten the barrel with the pin punch and reasemble the rest(bracket/power steering pump,etc), any bolts i removed that went through the timing cover on mine(as i did the water pump while i was at it) i wacked a bit of silastic on just to be sure.

it`s been a while now since i did mine, my oil consumption is back to bugger all and no more oil leak, and no timing chain problems, it`s just as before, if you go to ford spare parts and ask for the timing chain tensioner seals they should be able to help you, the large barrel one is the only one i used, from memory, there are about 5 or 6 seals in the whole mechanism including the filter, but i believe the only one that matters as far as oil leaks goes externally is the big one between the large bolt that screws into the timing case, it has the little bolt screw into it, i`ll take a guess at the size and say the o ring is about 3/4 of an inch outside diameter and about 3 mm thick,
i hope that`s some help , good luck.

hey bud, i've got no issue's removing the parts. in fact it already been disassembled.

Anyhow i just need to know the correct O Ring sizes so i can purchase them.

In light of everything though (after removing it earlier on today), i will just go ahead & purchase a complete O Ring kit from eBay.

these have all (many) size's & i will be more than happy with this kit.


thx
SL

This video showing details of the tensioner might be helpful for anyone chasing this problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h332SlvFvY0