Shortly after my nephew changed the cambelt on my sister in laws Mondeo the car lost power and smokes badly but still runs. Does this sound like the a loose tensioner has allowed the belt to slip knocking the diesel pump out of sync with the engine and if so can anyone direct me to advise on how to rectify the problem. They don't have any money and it would be great to do them a favour as the nephew has washed his hands of the matter.

Shortly after my nephew changed the cambelt on my sister in laws Mondeo the car lost power and smokes badly but still runs. Does this sound like the a loose tensioner has allowed the belt to slip knocking the diesel pump out of sync with the engine and if so can anyone direct me to advise on how to rectify the problem. They don't have any money and it would be great to do them a favour as the nephew has washed his hands of the matter.

Sounds to me like the belt was put on the wrong tooth, did your nephew set-up the timming properly before taking the old belt off. if he did not know what he was doing would have been more sensible not to do the job. you would normally change the timming belt kit (which includes changing the tensioner)

Hate to say it but you would probably be best to take it to a garage to be set-up properly.

Sounds to me like the belt was put on the wrong tooth, did your nephew set-up the timming properly before taking the old belt off. if he did not know what he was doing would have been more sensible not to do the job. you would normally change the timming belt kit (which includes changing the tensioner)

Hate to say it but you would probably be best to take it to a garage to be set-up properly.

Thanks for the reply. My young Nephew works on commercial diesels for a living but not to extent that he knows what he is doing with cars!. The engine developed the problem a week after replacing the cambelt which points towards it being a slipped belt. I've worked on French diesels in the past so I'm capable of tackling this one myself but would like to be directed to the proceedure for checking that flywheel, camshaft pulley and fuel pump are aligned on this Mondeo?.