Cam tensioner bearing shortages in 164 super and LPG conversion

["Dr. M. G Salter" <mgs5@domain.elided>]

Hi All,
My new 24valve 164 started to get noisy at the cambelt end of the engine
during the 1K miles I did over the festive period. Ive not personally taken
a spanner into the engine bay of it yet and so nerves got the better of me
and I decided to take it to the trusty Dave at Intaservices, Leicester. He
diagnosed bad bearings on the cam belt tensioner pulley and the pulley in
the middle of the V. Bad news was they had been on back order for someone
else already for 11 weeks!!! I rang one of the advertisrs in the AROC GB
magazine and found he had predicted the shortage and bought in a suitcase
full so if anyone else is having problems finding this bearing I can put you
on to him.

On the LPG gas conversion the car runs well on gas up to 4700 RPM and then
power tails off dramatically. On petrol it revs to 6700. But the torque is
good enough in the more limited rev range and if I need to overtake any
trucks I just switch it over. There have been a couple of occasions when its
been temperemental, not starting after you stall it is the major problem and
there are certain circumstances when stalling it is unavoidable, lifting off
at the point it changes from petrol to gas being the principle one. The
definate up sides are that on the motorway (Highway) it cruises at 90-100
mph on gas and still picks up if you need to accelerate, and of course the
main one is the running cost of 7p / mile, about 12 cents for the US.
Regards
Mike Salter,
Leicester UK.
164 24v

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