W
weelliott
I did my timing belt this weekend and had surprisingly few problems. I
used the article at endwrench in the archives section. It's a four
page article called 2.2 Liter Single Overhead Cam Timing Belt
Replacement. However, I have a few little tricks to share that I have
harvested in other places on the internet and from my experience and
mistakes that I figured I'd pass on. Keep in mind that I have a 2.2,
which is not an interference engine. If you have a 2.5, you must be
careful not to let the cams turn since you do have an interference
engine.
Pulling the radiator gives a lot more clearance, and since you really
should do the water pump, you will already have to drain the system
anyways. Once the system is drained and the fans pulled off, which is
a minimum for clearance, pulling the radiator is only a matter of two
hoses and two eaasily accessible bolts. I was glad I had it out of
there.
To lock the engine in place to get the bolt off the crank, you don't
need to do any fancy stuff with crafting a special tool, or filling a
cylinder with rope, or wedging screwdrivers in stuff. I simply put the
car in fifth gear, put the emergency brake on as far up as I could
pull it, put a three foot long pipe on my 18 inch long breaker bar,
for a total of only about three feet of leverage, and crank on it. The
engine still turned about a quarter rotation before the bolt broke
loose, but I had it off in seconds.
If you are doing the seals on the cams, which I would strongly suggest
doing, break the bolts loose on the cam pulleys before you take the
timing belt off. In fact, Once you get the covers off to access the
pulleys, break those loose immediately while you still have the engine
locked in place from doing the crank pulley. Only break them loose,
then snug them back up. don't allow the pulley to come off with the
timing belt still tight.
Even though I meant to, I forgot and did not follow this advice. So I
had free spinning cams when I went to loosen the bolts on the
pulleys. :~( So since I would have had to do the hydraulic tensioner
stuff twice, to put the belt back on just to get them off I devised
another method. I wrapped the OLD belt around the pulley, then pinched
it back on itself like a strap wrench, then I took the two free
lengths of belt with the loop made by them and wrapped them clockwise
around the pulley, and hooked the loop around the crank sprocket. This
works very well since the teeth on the two halves interlock with each
other. That held it well enough that I got my breaker to break those
bolts free with no further issue. With an interference engine, you'd
have to be strategic about where you pinch the belt to get it to hold
without first having to take the slack out by turning a camshaft that
you are not supposed to turn.
I'd also suggest replacing the water pump since you have to take off
the timing belt to do it, and doing all this again later would just
suck. The only thing to note here is that some of them don't come with
the rubber zig-zag rubber on the side of the pump. You have to take
that from the old one. It damps vibration and also helps keep a good
seal in the timing belt area so junk doesn't get in there and screw up
your timing belt. You also might as well replace your thermostat while
in there. It is possible to replace that without doing the timing
belt, but you do have to drain the system though. I've read to use
gasket sealant there, but when I took my old pump off, there was none
there, jsut the metal gasket, and it wasn't leaking. Makes me wonder
what the engineers intended. The gasket stuff can't hurt though. Just
makes it harder to get it off next time.
If you are not using a subaru belt, then you should mark the old belt
where the timing marks are, then after removing that belt, transfer
the marks to the new belt before sticking it on the car. I used a
subaru belt, but didn't realize the marks were already there until I
had already made the marks on the old belt. I used my wife's
fingernail polish that she has since she was twelve and has no
intension of using again. Later I realized that it might not have been
the best chemical to use. Fortunately since the new one had the marks,
I won't lose sleep over it.
For refilling the system, I was able to get the system a lot more full
on the inital fill than I had previously been able to just by using
one simple trick. I 'milked' the top coolant hose. I filled the
radiator up all the way, then I would squeeze and relase that hose
slowly. I could hear the check valve/bypass valve in the thermostat
opening and closing and letting coolant into the bottom of the engine.
Whereas I'd had to top off my system after running about a half dozen
times before, this addition to the method made it so I only had to top
off after running the engine once.
The torque specs that I used for my 98 2.2 liter were 29 ft-lb for all
the tensioners and idler pulleys, 100 ft-lbs for the crank bolt, and
50 ft-lb for the cam bolts. The first two specs are actual subaru
specs, or nearly so. The last one was a guess since I couldn't find it
anywhere. Someone on NASIOC reasoned that since the Crank was about
100 ft-lb, and the cams were turning about half as fast, they should
be 50 ft-lbs. I don't agree with the spinning speed having anything to
do with it. But I do know that bolt size does, and their reasoning
reminded me of that. Coincidentally, the cross sectional area of the
two bolts is about a 1:2 ratio( at least to my eyes since I didn't
actually measure and calculate. So I used half as much torque. In
reality that is only valid if they have the same thread pitch, and are
made of the same material, but for lack of a better torque spec, I
thought 50 was as good as I would get. As for the 100 ft-lb being an
'about', different places list it as 95 or 115. So I figured 100 was a
good compromise.
The parts that I got were the timing belt, the two accessory drive
belts, two cam seals, crank seal, water pump, water pump gasket,
thermostat, thermostat gasket, and bypass hose. That was 276.95 at the
dealer for everything but the accessory belts, then another 14 bucks
for hte two belts at a local parts place. I think One gallon of
coolant was 8 bucks and distilled water was under a buck for the
gallon. So in the end it was right around 300 bucks. Not bad
considering the 900 to 1200 estimtes I've heard for all that work.
I took about eight hours. But I was also helping my neighbor with his
cars, BSing with the neighbors, watching the kids occasionally, eating
lunch, breaking for rain, playing with the kids, and taking my time to
ensure I didn't miss any more steps after I missed the cam bolt
loosening step. I also dropped a bolt for the left side cover into the
front cover after I had installed the front cover and had to take it
back off and go find my magnetic pickup tool to get it back out. Then
I rotated the driver side fan 90 degrees, which made me think it was
the passenger side fan (because of plug placement) until the bolt
holes didn't line up. If I had to do it again and had a dry garage, I
think I could do it in about 2 or three hours.
Hope this helps someone,
Bill
used the article at endwrench in the archives section. It's a four
page article called 2.2 Liter Single Overhead Cam Timing Belt
Replacement. However, I have a few little tricks to share that I have
harvested in other places on the internet and from my experience and
mistakes that I figured I'd pass on. Keep in mind that I have a 2.2,
which is not an interference engine. If you have a 2.5, you must be
careful not to let the cams turn since you do have an interference
engine.
Pulling the radiator gives a lot more clearance, and since you really
should do the water pump, you will already have to drain the system
anyways. Once the system is drained and the fans pulled off, which is
a minimum for clearance, pulling the radiator is only a matter of two
hoses and two eaasily accessible bolts. I was glad I had it out of
there.
To lock the engine in place to get the bolt off the crank, you don't
need to do any fancy stuff with crafting a special tool, or filling a
cylinder with rope, or wedging screwdrivers in stuff. I simply put the
car in fifth gear, put the emergency brake on as far up as I could
pull it, put a three foot long pipe on my 18 inch long breaker bar,
for a total of only about three feet of leverage, and crank on it. The
engine still turned about a quarter rotation before the bolt broke
loose, but I had it off in seconds.
If you are doing the seals on the cams, which I would strongly suggest
doing, break the bolts loose on the cam pulleys before you take the
timing belt off. In fact, Once you get the covers off to access the
pulleys, break those loose immediately while you still have the engine
locked in place from doing the crank pulley. Only break them loose,
then snug them back up. don't allow the pulley to come off with the
timing belt still tight.
Even though I meant to, I forgot and did not follow this advice. So I
had free spinning cams when I went to loosen the bolts on the
pulleys. :~( So since I would have had to do the hydraulic tensioner
stuff twice, to put the belt back on just to get them off I devised
another method. I wrapped the OLD belt around the pulley, then pinched
it back on itself like a strap wrench, then I took the two free
lengths of belt with the loop made by them and wrapped them clockwise
around the pulley, and hooked the loop around the crank sprocket. This
works very well since the teeth on the two halves interlock with each
other. That held it well enough that I got my breaker to break those
bolts free with no further issue. With an interference engine, you'd
have to be strategic about where you pinch the belt to get it to hold
without first having to take the slack out by turning a camshaft that
you are not supposed to turn.
I'd also suggest replacing the water pump since you have to take off
the timing belt to do it, and doing all this again later would just
suck. The only thing to note here is that some of them don't come with
the rubber zig-zag rubber on the side of the pump. You have to take
that from the old one. It damps vibration and also helps keep a good
seal in the timing belt area so junk doesn't get in there and screw up
your timing belt. You also might as well replace your thermostat while
in there. It is possible to replace that without doing the timing
belt, but you do have to drain the system though. I've read to use
gasket sealant there, but when I took my old pump off, there was none
there, jsut the metal gasket, and it wasn't leaking. Makes me wonder
what the engineers intended. The gasket stuff can't hurt though. Just
makes it harder to get it off next time.
If you are not using a subaru belt, then you should mark the old belt
where the timing marks are, then after removing that belt, transfer
the marks to the new belt before sticking it on the car. I used a
subaru belt, but didn't realize the marks were already there until I
had already made the marks on the old belt. I used my wife's
fingernail polish that she has since she was twelve and has no
intension of using again. Later I realized that it might not have been
the best chemical to use. Fortunately since the new one had the marks,
I won't lose sleep over it.
For refilling the system, I was able to get the system a lot more full
on the inital fill than I had previously been able to just by using
one simple trick. I 'milked' the top coolant hose. I filled the
radiator up all the way, then I would squeeze and relase that hose
slowly. I could hear the check valve/bypass valve in the thermostat
opening and closing and letting coolant into the bottom of the engine.
Whereas I'd had to top off my system after running about a half dozen
times before, this addition to the method made it so I only had to top
off after running the engine once.
The torque specs that I used for my 98 2.2 liter were 29 ft-lb for all
the tensioners and idler pulleys, 100 ft-lbs for the crank bolt, and
50 ft-lb for the cam bolts. The first two specs are actual subaru
specs, or nearly so. The last one was a guess since I couldn't find it
anywhere. Someone on NASIOC reasoned that since the Crank was about
100 ft-lb, and the cams were turning about half as fast, they should
be 50 ft-lbs. I don't agree with the spinning speed having anything to
do with it. But I do know that bolt size does, and their reasoning
reminded me of that. Coincidentally, the cross sectional area of the
two bolts is about a 1:2 ratio( at least to my eyes since I didn't
actually measure and calculate. So I used half as much torque. In
reality that is only valid if they have the same thread pitch, and are
made of the same material, but for lack of a better torque spec, I
thought 50 was as good as I would get. As for the 100 ft-lb being an
'about', different places list it as 95 or 115. So I figured 100 was a
good compromise.
The parts that I got were the timing belt, the two accessory drive
belts, two cam seals, crank seal, water pump, water pump gasket,
thermostat, thermostat gasket, and bypass hose. That was 276.95 at the
dealer for everything but the accessory belts, then another 14 bucks
for hte two belts at a local parts place. I think One gallon of
coolant was 8 bucks and distilled water was under a buck for the
gallon. So in the end it was right around 300 bucks. Not bad
considering the 900 to 1200 estimtes I've heard for all that work.
I took about eight hours. But I was also helping my neighbor with his
cars, BSing with the neighbors, watching the kids occasionally, eating
lunch, breaking for rain, playing with the kids, and taking my time to
ensure I didn't miss any more steps after I missed the cam bolt
loosening step. I also dropped a bolt for the left side cover into the
front cover after I had installed the front cover and had to take it
back off and go find my magnetic pickup tool to get it back out. Then
I rotated the driver side fan 90 degrees, which made me think it was
the passenger side fan (because of plug placement) until the bolt
holes didn't line up. If I had to do it again and had a dry garage, I
think I could do it in about 2 or three hours.
Hope this helps someone,
Bill