Hi all.

Just a bit of feedback. Had this same problem with a recently bought 1998 106 Diesel.

It made a chaffing / squeaking noise on startup, but would disappear after a few minutes of running. Removing the Alternator tensioner pulley and spinning it by hand showed that there was no grease in the bearing, as it continued to spin with no resistance for maybe 15 seconds. I prized out the seal as mentioned here and packed the bearing with grease. I then refitted the seal. It worked a treat!!

So much for Peugeot wanting £91 for one of these, and the factors wanting £71. The bearing should be available seperately from Peugeot! The inner seal cap mentioned in the earlier post is actually part of the bearing cage. The grease can be packed in around it. Thanks.

Hello.

Yes, timing belt tensioners can be expensive when they let go. The 106 I referred to above was such an example. Previous owner had not changed the belt or pulleys and.................. Ouch!! Snapped Cambelt. I gave him £100 scrap value for it. Bits of bearing shrapnel everywhere and a camshaft in 2 parts.

BTW. Would you know the bearing number used on the 106 Alternator tensioner pulley? It would be a piece of cake to change using a press. I could only see INA 4 on the bearing face and apparently thats the rubber seal number.

Hi 659.

Interesting stuff re the bearing. So far it has been OK. Think I will take a trip to my local scrappy where they have a 1.4D engine. If pulley is the same and is priced right I will grab it as a spare. Mine has electrohydraulic power steering so we shall see............. BTW, Wyko reckon they can get any bearing if I can get the dimensions. As the outer pulley is just thin sheet metal pressed onto the outer face of the bearing I assumed it would then just be a case to measure up the bearing width and inner and outer diameters and away to go. From what you say though, the bearing is of specialised construction? Would you have a link to an article on these specialised bearings as I would be very interested to read up on that.

The 106D that had the snapped Cambelt was showing 140K miles. The previous owner (young lad) claimed no knowledge of such matters and there was no service history with the car. Don't know therefore when the belt was last changed. I also changed the pulleys and water pump. The water pump did not want to come out and I had to resort to a cold chisel. This is quite common apparently. Used an aftermarket head gasket instead of the genuine steel OEM gasket. Am now paying the price with a small oil weep from one of the galleries (front offside corner) despite cleaning head and block spotlessly and checking for warp. Maybe in the summer I'll sort it.

Re starting problems. Another one that causes mayhem is the inlet valve clearance gap. Over time the valve seats recess in the head and the inlet valve gap closes. Instead of the correct 6 thou (.15mm (+ or - 2 thou)), you can end up with 1 thou or even no gap at all. This only shows it'self when winter comes and the engine is cold. I have seen people changing glow plugs, relays, batteries, fuel lines, etc. Eventually they find a mechanic who knows about the problem (rare) and they get new shims fitted to reset the gap. Bingo, Car starts first time every time after that but this applies only to the Diesels are far as I am aware. It is a common problem.

Best regards, Jetjockey

Hi again.

Re the water pump removal, we tried everything and could not get it to move even a thou. It had obviously been in from new and was welded in. it came out in bits.

I am sure I will get good life out of the 106 with regular oil changes etc, that is the key. Mine is fitted with the Bosch FIE. I am going to research running on veggy oil due the current fuel price escalation. Apparently the Bosch FIE is very tolerant of this. A friend of mine is running on Eco Diesel (remanufactured from used cooking oil), and using a purpose made machine. His car runs like a dream. He just had it MOT'd and the emissions check came up at near Zero!! Loads of taxi drivers down my way are running on it with no issues and have clocked up tens of thousands of miles.

I normally run a Merc E320 diesel estate and this is a beautifull machine. However, it is spending more and more time on the drive as it cannot compete with the 106 TUD5 for fuel economy. I bought the 106 particularly for this reason as I will be commuting between South Wales and Manchester regularly. It's extremely cheap motoring!! I have been running two cars like this for about 5 years now and it pays dividends. My last cheapie (a Renault 5) was incredible. £6 per brake disc, £8 for pads, £8 for a front strut spring, £5 for a wheel cylinder. In stark contrast, the Merc front pads are about £40. I use the cheapie day to day, and the Merc for special occasions.

Cheers.