ok, so slackened off the tensioner, assuming i am right in thinking the fan belt was then not going round?? Car sounds worse than before so i have tightened this back up. Not in possesion of any torx sockets so unable to get cover off to look inside. sounds cream crackered to me.
thanks
Steve
ok let's just be absolutely sure of things here. When you say you slackened the tensioner off, what did you do? pull it over to the right hand side, slip the belt off it and the remaining pulleys, start up and still get a terrible noise. the point of slackening off is to take the aux belt off the pulleys so none of them are turning. You can then elimiate anything aux belt driven.
This means it is something else: very likely cam belt related so DO NOT start or drive it any more until you can eliminate it.
You've also got me confused about the oil mark on the cambelt cover. I can't think of anything that would cause that but you do have a leak of some kind there behind the aux tensioner and below it. It is possible that the leak is causing the noise (say water getting in the alternator). however, it is just a guess. best thing to do is to identify/eliminate the cambelt first.
don't worry about using a torx set. you should be able to get a normal socket to fit. the bolts should not be very tight. Give them a try.