Loose cambelt

Well we broke down in the cabbie on the way to volkspower in Redcar a couple of weeks ago. The AA came out and confirmed my diagnosis of a broken alternator. I took the old one off and ordered a new one today. However, I took the upper cambelt cover off for easier access to the alternator bolt and the cambelt seems pretty slack compared to others I've seen and changed. You can easily move it side to side all of the way around the cam sprocket/pulley. Surely this shouldn't be or should it? The tensioner seems strong enough but the front bit if the belt just seems slack ???

They are manually tensioned, so its quite possible to go slack over time as it stretches. Do you know when it was last replaced? If not, why not replace it now, and a new tensioner, and then you have no worries?

In the meantime, it can't hurt to tension it to within specification.

as above - it's a manual tensioner (you don't need a special tool- leave the socket on the central nut, and use an allen key to apply the tension by levering against the socket)  … You should be able to twist the long length of the belt through 90 degrees by hand when it's at the right tension.