Parts from Japan are expensive

Shane - Thank you!

Well I know its only Thursday, but I thought I would tackle some Subaru repairs before they became SUPER Subaru repairs (procrastinator extraordinaire).

How come when you spend almost four large, the pile of goodies always looks so so small? Japan's car parts are expensive.

griz, looks like you got the goods ! hope things go well for you, it is a fairly easy job. take your time and all will go good. i will check in on here as often as possible, keep us posted on the progress. when your done we can have beer

Shane wrote:

griz, looks like you got the goods ! hope things go well for you, it is a fairly easy job. take your time and all will go good. i will check in on here as often as possible, keep us posted on the progress. when your done we can have beer

Thanks! I'm going to have to finish in the morning... Wasn't wearing my work gloves and sliced a knuckle open earlier. The right side pulley edges are razor sharp and I couldn't figure out what I kept cutting myself on. Like giant paper cuts I couldn't feel.

I got the fluid drained, pulled the old pump and was all ready to finger tight my first bolt through the gasket when I saw blood running down my hand. I'll be darned if I didn't slice open the side of my arm, just above my wrist.

Got myself pretty good so had to go in and close it up with a few butterfly bandages.


Gonna call it a night and put it back together Friday.

Hey Shane if you see this...

My first time working on a Subaru, pretty nice actually from a serviceability standpoint. But I noticed a lot of the fasteners, including the waterpump housing weren't really that tight. I mean they were secure, but definitely not super tight.

I'm working out of a Haynes manual and intend to use the torque specs out of the book. Any red flags on torque specs for the pump housing, bearings or crank pulley?

regards,

griz

griz901 wrote:

Hey Shane if you see this...

My first time working on a Subaru, pretty nice actually from a serviceability standpoint. But I noticed a lot of the fasteners, including the waterpump housing weren't really that tight. I mean they were secure, but definitely not super tight.

I'm working out of a Haynes manual and intend to use the torque specs out of the book. Any red flags on torque specs for the pump housing, bearings or crank pulley?

regards,

griz

no red flags, pretty "cut and dry", sorry, i have cut my self a lot, kinda get use to it. usualy all the bolts are fairly tight, this is intresting, does it look like anyone has been there before. the only suggestions are do not use lock tight on the bolts (this includes the crank bolt) or any type of sealer with the h2o pump. it should be a metal gasket. I see you got a aftermarket t-stat. it should work just fine, you need to make sure it has a bleed hole in it, usualy they have a small little metal valve that rattles around, if it doesnt, you need to but a small hole 1/8 in or smaller on the stat face, this will help keep them from air locking. also when refilling the radiator when you are ready, there is a small plug on the top oppisit the radiator cap, use a phillips screw driver and take this out while filling. this helps get air pockets out also. fill till coolant comes out this hole, and filling will be very slow, for some reason they dont exept alot of coolant at a time, should hold 1 galon and then some. the t-belt tensioner also has slotted holes in it, before you pull the pin out you need to pry it over to the passenger side of the car then tighten the 2 bolts, then pull the pin. you can see the sloted hole when you look at the tensioner. some of this info you may allready know. or maybe i confused you more !

But I'm not confused. I've been pretty lucky doing my homework before I attempted the TB, bearings and pump.

Your advice has been on the spot with other tidbits I picked up from a local Subaru mechanic. I knew not to use additional sealant adhesives on the teflon over steel gasket. Interestingly, your comment about not using locking compound on the crank pulley came just in time as I would have put some on it.

Thanks for the tip on pushing the tensioner to the passenger side before tightening. I didn't notice that when I took it off. You were right about the plastic cover on the back of the engine, my seal seems to be ok, but the old style plate is weeping. Really don't want to fix that just yet, but will get the metal kit when I feel like dropping the tranny. It would be nice to have a totally leak free drivetrain.

Funny thing how my internet addiction follows me to the garage too. Gotta love wireless.

later - griz (and thanks for helping keep me on track with this!)

^Looking good.

*I bring my laptop out to the garage too since my manual is a pdf file. I usually drape a piece of saran wrap over the keys to keep it clean. LOL

Inspector wrote:

^Looking good.

*I bring my laptop out to the garage too since my manual is a pdf file. I usually drape a piece of saran wrap over the keys to keep it clean. LOL

I'd rather be wrenching on my motorcycle, prepping my camping gear, fishing, riding.... But I still enjoy working on my cars now and then . I keep chuckling every time I bust a knuckle or slice something new open because I think of hodakaguy using a ten ton hoist to put in a water pump or a single piston! LOL

Yay for me! And in just a nick of time... This is the weep hole and rubbing impeller on my old water pump

Could have went catastrophic at any time but I sure am glad I caught it in time.



And here's the "growler", crunching, occasional snapping, generally disturbing noise maker. Notice where the impeller was in contact with the housing? Enough to turn my coolant a nice murky grey'ish color from all the particulates this bugger scrubbed off. Double flush is in my future!



How come its so easy to take things apart? Putting new idlers and tensioner bearings on, easy. Figuring out a way to get the timing belt back on without loosing my timing - A royal pain in the arse!

I ended up using two small pipe wrenches gently clamped to hold the belt at my timing marks. Kept trying to put the idler on top instead of the bottom of the belt DOH!!! (30 minutes). Finally after about two hours I decided common sense was in order and figured out how to get the belt to stay put, and keep my timing (perfectly, I might add).



And walla! New water pump, timing belt and all roller/bearing thingys replaced! YAY!!! Put the crank pulley on snugly and added some coolant. Fired right up on battery power, sounded perfect and purrs like a kitten!



Tomorrow morning I am going to do this then I am going to do this I am going to hope for a lot of this and then button everything up and take it for a test drive

If it doesn't blow up after 20 miles I can reward myself by actually riding this:

griz, congrats on the job well done, i shoulda told you a secret about getting th t-belt on without cussing, but it looks like you got it. you hired !

Shane wrote:

griz, congrats on the job well done, i shoulda told you a secret about getting th t-belt on without cussing, but it looks like you got it. you hired !

then then repeat

It turned out good. I really didn't make any progress getting the belt on (while keeping it aligned and all) until I just stopped and stared at it. Applied a little common sense and took the tensioner, the tensioner bearing out. Got it lined up, used my pipe wrenches to hold the cam pulleys/belt in place then carefully put the tensioner bolt in. Then I was able to put the lower idler on with no problem. Put the tensioner back in, pushed it to the passenger side and torqued everything down.

Made sure my timing marks, pulley teeth counts were good and pulled the pin.

The water pump was another story - ended up grinding the front right corner of the casting down so it would clear the cam pulley and slide straight in. Had to call a buddy for a second set of hands to place the first two bolts. I couldn't hold the pump, align the gasket and put a bolt in without one of them falling..

Luckily there was no booze left in the house because lemmee tell ya brother, I'd a hit the bottle last night after that episode!

Thanks for tuning in -

griz