Little hydraulic ? adjusters for the cam belt tensioner 2000

[tomcat100]

Hi all hope you're well and you've had a good summer so far.
Hope you don't mind but I have a Question

I have looked through a fair amount of the faq and found nothing to do with my small problem.
I have a Mk2  1.9 TDI,2000 plate Galaxy.

My problem is I have replaced the water pump and cannot get the cam belt back on , in my efforts to get it back on, I took off the tensioner , then discovered that I have the little (hydraulic ? )  push rod behind the tensioner, and it seems to be at maximum,( only fitted on early models I think I read somewhere) however I cannot get it to push back down, so as to get the clearance to fit the tensioner and belt back on, is this making sense ? So the Q is how do I get the little push rod down please if anybody knows ?

I have tried pushing it down using as much force as I dare as things were starting to bend :/ no movement, in fact seemed very solid. I have felt around the thing and found nothing other than the slot to put a retaining tool in and its too late for that 

Many thanks to all that read/reply

Tom.

[bigjeeze]

Have a look at this - its not in English but just watch and it shows you how to sort your problem - you will need a tool to hold the damper in position.

https://youtu.be/QPN5nqojwM4

[tomcat100]

WOOT ! thanks for the link, had already seen but still helped.

Soo it turns out that the damper rod will go down it's just very slow. I applied pressure via the allen key point on the tensioner (with an extension i might add), and as i held the pressure on the allen key, the rod started going down , i could hardly notice the movement at first  but once noticed , then is was obvious, held in place till all the way back in then backed off a little to allow the gap, and inserted my home made tong/ fork thingy which held amazingly which gave me the ability to adjust the tensioner properly, ok sweet sorted !

While i'm at it to those re reading this, what tension should I  have the belt at ? ie: able to flex but not to 90 deg ? 
also the front edge is slightly looser than the back I assume this is normal ?

Many thanks to bigjeeze and all who read/replied to this plea.

Tom.