Joe, invaluable information. Thank you. That is what I was looking for. Sounds simple and after looking at the tensioner today while figuring out which it is, I think I know exactly what you mean. The "gauge" is the the thing that moves left and right in the window that does not move at all. I saw a glimpse of the procedure you described somewhere, but did not right it down or cut-and-pasted it anywhere and it got lost. I also was pretty certain that I would have the older style of tensioner. Go figure.

Now I just thought of another question. Does it help taking out the plugs? Will it make turning engine over easier? Can I do it with the spark plugs in? I'd rather not wrench what I don't need to wrench, you know? Other than that it sounds straight forward. This is one of these DIY jobs that creates lots of fear for most tree-shaders, but it does not look that difficult. I did a TB on my wife's 940 8 valve and it was a pretty easy, but then again, the risk of screwing up was also smaller with lighter consequences.

Thanks again for documenting the procedure.

P.S. My maintenance schedule calls for 70K intervals, but that is probably because not 100% of the '98 cars had the new setup.
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Vladimir. '98 S70 base, 5-speed manual - his, '93 945 (approaching 200K miles and rolling on...) - hers