I have discovered a knocking noise that seems to be coming from the belt tensioner. It seems to be ok when on idle but once the accelorator is depressed there is a rattling noise that soon goes once upto speed. I am wondering if anyone else has had something similar? As I think it is the hydraulic tensioner that has some how lost preasure. I am keen to find out if I am heading down the correct track. By the way it is a 95 model and the engine type is E36.
Well found out that it is easy to change and as I was told to purchsa the full unit at a large cost I'm glad I didn't All I did was go to the reckers and get a decent tensioner and unbolt the tensioner (that was the hard part as it fell into two bits) and bolt in the other. Now there is one thing you have to remove #2 as you can't get to the bottom bolt on the tensioner. By the way thanks fro the drawing it helped heeeeeeps.
so how did you fit the belt on and when i did it the pulley wont move far enough to fit the belt back on so explain to me the full step and what to loose and what to take off to get the serpentine belt back on
Hydraulic belt tensioner 318ti 
All I did was go to the reckers and get a decent tensioner and unbolt the tensioner (that was the hard part as it fell into two bits) and bolt in the other. Now there is one thing you have to remove #2 as you can't get to the bottom bolt on the tensioner. By the way thanks fro the drawing it helped heeeeeeps. 
Linear Mode
