Cracked cam belt tensioner?

[ATAl]

Hey, so the pin on the hydraulic tensioner seems to have worn down and cracked in half, causing the cam belt to be loose. Has anyone seen this happen before? Any ideas what would cause it to happen?

I have replaced the hydraulic tensioner with a manual one, but I'm worried that might wear out too.

[sergei]

The manual tensioner does not tension anything after you have tightened it.
On 4A, 3S, etc, tensioner is designed to set initial tension (via spring, not pry bar!) and center bolt tighten after (thus stopping it completely altering the tension).

Something really horrible has happen for hydraulic tensioner to fail like that. My theory the actual hydraulic mechanism was stuffed (probably in past it was not replaced because people are too cheap and go for $200 cambelt job) and rattled itself to death.

This is my tensioning procedure:

1) Align the belt (make sure all the marks are spot on). Tensioner at this stage should be held far back by the center bolt.
2) release the tensioner, the spring should take up initial slack.
3) turn crank clockwise (by hand!) about 10-15 degrees.
4) tighten the tensioner center bolt to specified torque (normally around 40Nm).
5) turn crank clockwise (by hand!) two full turns until all the marks align.
6) Repeat 5 until satisfied.

Never ever apply extra tension beyond what new spring provides.