The ratchet locks and does not retract. When banging gears or bumping the rev limiter the chains can over tighten and will never relax. The excess tension tares up the guides. That’s why the ratchets were eliminated in the first place. If you remove the teeth the tensioner still has spring pressure and works hydraulically like it is supposed to. You can also use the plastic Ford tensioner that has no ratchet and back it up with a gasket from Fel-Pro. Best of both worlds.
That Ford Performance timing kit is a good kit, and it was the best price for the components to refresh the timing system at the time when I did it. This kit does include another set of these plastic tensioners that are known to blow out their seals. I was thinking about doing RTV when I installed them, but I figured I would give the seals another go...if there was a FelPro seal like someone mentioned, that would be a worthy investment, especially if you have a higher pressure oil pump in mind.
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t know if I totally agree. Ford had the ratchets out for a very short period of time. The plastic tensioners are failure prone, not just from the gaskets, but the body also.
If this is true, then this info seals the deal for me concerning this 3V............I'll be going w\ the 4.6L 2V iron tensioners myself (already have them in hand).
I just threw away my gen 1 coyote tensioners. I’ll see if I’ve got a picture of my current coyote tensioners.
Oh no, the coyote tensioners will not work on the 3v. The iron 2v tensioners will. I was posting those pictures to show how the coyote went back to an iron tensioner, after the late 2v and the 3v had a plastic one.
