Gates 7401-0076 Pencil Type Tension Tester, 30 lbs Deflection Force

Ordered for my husband and it works great.

Works great I use it to accurately set tension on belts for my tractors.

I have an '04 Hyundai Elantra and I had replaced all my drive belts (3 total) and tensioner pulley on the air conditioning belt due to a squealing sound. The work was a bit of a pain to do, but the manual mentioned that I needed to tighten the belts to various tension measurements with 22lbs of force. I thought, I can guess what that is and tightened the belts till they felt tight. 2 days later it was cold and my belts started squealing again. I did a little research to find what kind of tool would let me know if I tensioned my belts correctly and came across this device. I use gates parts and belts and have had good success, so I figured I'd give this guy a try. It is very easy to use, you push down on the center of the belt with the plastic part of this tension tester in the palm of your hand. I used a straight edge across the belt and pushed the rubber gasket (on the thicker part of the tensioner) up between 8-11 mm or 12-15mm(depending on what each belt called for) and pushed down on the tensioner till that gasket was level with my straight edge. Then I looked at the small gasket to see how many pounds of pressure I had exerted. If It was say 15 lbs and I needed to get to 22, I would tighten the belt and try again. And I'd do the reverse if it was a higher reading. At any rate, using this device I found that I had significantly under-tightened all of my drive belts. Since using this, I'm confident they are at the correct tension and I no longer have any squeals.

The scale where the force you apply is not etched its a sticker which came deteriorated. I used a scale and pushing power is accurate. My recommendation is to take a photo with a ruler and when the sticker wears off just compare it to get the force right, the inch deflection is also a sticker but that wont wear off.

Works great to determine deflection of the belt. Going on a standard auto fan belt I needed to locate in the service manual which span was supposed to be measured (they are not all the same length) and the expected deflection at 22 lbs. Using this tool and a straight edge that could span from one belt pulley to the other (giving me a straight reference line), I depressed the belt to the maximum deflection amount, pulled it out, and looked at the pressure-applied reading. As expected this was less than the 22 lbs of force which should be able to deflect it less than that, so I tightened until I got a reading > 22lbs. I then did the same for the minimum deflection amount, and made sure that that was under 22 lbs. Easy as can be, just needs a bit more access to the belts than the "kricket" kind (but much more foolproof in the measurement). Also, my old Subaru lists deflection amounts, but not tension readings, so the "kricket" kind would require some math to convert from the tension reading it gives along with the belt span length to the actual deflection distance.Given that this is a spring-based device I would assume that at some point the spring would stretch and the calibration (reading of how much force you are actually applying) would be off. I would recommend calibrating with a known-good scale in the expected (in my case, 22 lbs) range periodically to make sure you aren't over-tightening your belts.

Just like the other reviewers have mentioned, the clear sticker on the piston stem peels off by itself. If you use the tool without pushing the sticker back on, the sticker may get ripped. Even after pushing, it stays for a minute or two before peeling off again. Additionally, the rubber handle on the end of the tool was not cut straight; the o-rings are in irregular shape and won't roll smoothly. Good brand but poor quality. I gave it a 3-start because the tool is still usable, if you can live with the above problems.

Though the idea is good, the construction of the device is completely flawed. The pressure indicator marks on the thin section of the shaft are not engraved into the metal but are instead simply a decal. When the gauge is used, the decal is peeled up by the main cylinder. Overall, the tool is worthless after the first use. I returned it for a refund and will look for something else.

Used for a timing belt job, and it worked. simple to use. watch a video.