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Ok, here is what the passenger side of the 4 cam 2.5 liter engine looks like when the heads are removed and the crankshaft is lined up with the timing mark. The drivers side looks just the same. Should the cam, any one of them, rotate with the crank in the correct position, you aint gonna hit the top of the pistons with the valves. So what you do before you remove the old belt, is turn the engine clockwise so the marks for the crank and the cams line up to their respective spots. Then remove the belt via the tensioner and also remove the lower left (looking at the front of the engine) idler. If the tensioner is one of the types that are positioned nearly horizontal such as the 97 and earlier 2.5/2.2 tensioners, then you just put it in a vise and S L O W L Y tighten the vise, like an 8th of a turn each time over a duration of about 10 minutes and it will be ok. Put it in the center of the vise so you don't get it in an uneven clamping position. When it is finally compressed, stick a small allen wrench or nail or the sorts through the holes that you lined up before you started to compress the tensioner and you are good to go. If you have your hand resting on the upper right side (drivers side intake) cam when the belt is off....look out! It WILL take the hide off of your hand when it spins abruptly! But it is generally the only one that will spin. The other 3 are pretty benign because they aren't compressing the valve train. Just turn it back to where it is supposed to be just before you install the belt as described next. The dotted line on the new belt goes over the crankshaft at the mark on the tab on the back of the sprocket.....NOT the arrow! The arrow points to 3 o'clock when it is right. Get the belt on the crank first--if it is an OEM Subaru belt you should be able to read the printing on the belt as you are looking at the front of the engine for the tooth count to be correct, but verify that as well---, then under the tensioner and over to the top right cam (intake drivers side), then over the bottom right cam (exhaust drivers side) around the sprocket idler over the water pump and then over the left side lower cam and finally the upper left cam. THEN you reinstall the lower left idler by using it to lift up on the belt and then start and tighten the bolt. Have everything torqued to specs and then pull the pin on the tensioner. So in long, I've never used any tool to hold the cams.

As they say in Detroit: "Light spark knock is the sound of economy" which is where the engine is running at it's most efficient settings. Detonation is a whole nother matter.

I don't have a moon roof in my Subaru, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night either.......but I should think that the moon roof (we call 'em sun roofs here in the sunny south) would have some rubber seals like the door seals that you could spray and wipe down really well with some silicone spray. That should clean them and liven them up a bit. If they've never been treated, you might want to spray the silicone on a rag, wipe it on and let it soak in for several minutes before you wipe it down. Repeat a couple more times. Seems the roof should also have some kind of drain system. Look around and see if you can find a spot where the water should drain that is clogged up and you might be able to use compressed air (low pressure!) to blow it out. On the Miatas, we use a piece of coat hanger to clean out the front and rear drains for the convertible tops. Hope this helps!

You might want to search through the previous owners records and hope you find where the head gaskets were replaced. If not, I'd look for the tell tale signs of the head gaskets (not the valve cover gaskets) going bad which would include a black slime in the coolant recovery bottle and if that is there you might want to look for bubbles forming in the recovery bottle with the engine running at various speeds once it is warmed up. If you see either you've got much larger problems than just oil leaks that you would want to resolve that would require another set of cam seals, timing belt, valve cover gaskets etc. etc. No, not all of the 4 cam 2.5 engines blow the original head gaskets, but at a rate of 10-15% stated around here it is a very frequent topic. Hopefully the only problem you have is the valve cover gasket is not sealing against the curved portions of the front camshaft caps where the cover has a pair of semi-circles for the caps. A dab of sealent at the spots where the cover goes from flat to curved (4 spots) might take care of the problem. My front crank seal on my 97 went out at 74k miles, the headgaskets at 91k miles, though the cam seals never did give out but were replaced with the head gasket replacement. As for the axles being worn, supposedly (as I own a manual transmission outback) that shows up as a vibration when in drive and foot on the brake as in at a stop light; the vibration disappears or is much less noticable when in park or neutral with the engine running. Do you notice that? Good Luck!

WHOAAAAAA !! The head bolts actually survived a 180 turn to tighten followed by another 180 turn?? That should definitely put to rest the argument of re-using the head bolts!

Guilty as charged! '69 Porsche 912R (the "R" is for "Renegade") since it is now powered by a 2 liter Type IV engine from a VW Vanagon while the original engine is in a box....ok, several boxes.....with the 71 911T 4 speed gearbox it is a nice touring car on the road but can't get out of its' own way getting up to speed:lol: . '66 VW Microbus and '59 Porsche 356A coupe also in the current "fleet". About 10 years or so ago I bought a '69 Ghia convertible that looked like the "Daughter of Frankenstein" due to its welded up replacement rockers etc.---it ran and drove but was a real basket case. Fortunately for ME, the fellow that I bought it from also had a '69 Ghia coupe complete with adjustable front beam, 8 spoke empis with FAT tires on the rear and the GM "space saver" spare tires on the front....the really skinny ones that say "Do NOT exceed 50 MPH" on the sidewalls (which were good for 112 MPH at least once) seats from a Fiero, T handle shifter and a 1600 dual port with mild cam and dual Kadron/Solex carbs putting the power to the ground via a 72 bug gearbox with the tall gears. Anyway, the guy he sold that car to spotted my 'vert and we traded even. I think I got the better deal on that one! Probably the funnest car I've ever owned.

May as well toss in a link to this thread that covers what would probably happen ifin you weren't paying attention to the placement of the camshaft caps. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54665&highlight=seized+engine Good Luck!

I think if you were to remove the head and re-use that compressed head gasket you would be saying GD-it by no time. As far as re-torquing the heads in 500 miles, that would require you to remove the timing belt and the camshafts. Compared to $40 or so for a new gasket and doing it right, that don't make much sense. Do it?:cool: As for the bolts, they are a special bolt that has the shank of the bolt larger than the threads in order to center the camshaft bearings. If you broke one of the big ones, you'll easily break one of the smaller front cap bolts where the cam seal goes. I prefer to chase the threads with the bolts and a bit of WD 40 before putting it all back together.

A dremel tool and a paint scraper? Heavens to Mergatroid! Let me suggest a small piece of the red scotchbright pad and a can of carb cleaner. Wet the pad with the carb cleaner and then go easy with the pad---you don't need much pressure scrubbing with the pad----the stuff will come off really easy! Let the very light abrasion and the chemicals do the work FOR you!! Before: After ! Note---same trick on the surface of the idler bearings for the timing belt! The intake manifold gasket area, the exhaust gasket area, the water pump area....the scotchbright and carb cleaner with a LOT of paper towels and you're golden!

With the crank and cam marks properly aligned as if you were going to merely replace the timing belt, the pistons are just past mid way up the full stroke. I.E. the valves are not going to crash into the pistons. Should one of the cams decide to suddenly (and believe me, it will be "suddenly"!) let the valve spring compression release and spin the cam it is going to be the upper (intake) cam on the drivers side. And IF your hand is on the sprocket when this happens, you just lost a pretty noticable layer of skin from you hand, and trust me, your neighbors will know it happened! Just turn it back where it is supposed to go. The other 3 cams are pretty benign when it comes to rotation.

My suggestions: 1) At least purchase a Haynes manual 2) Buy, beg borrow or steal a digital camera and take LOTS of pictures before you disassemble the engine 3) See #1 3a) Check the valve clearances if this engine like the 97 has a shim type valve clearance adjustment BEFORE you take everything apart. 4) Get a BUNCH of zip lock baggies. Make a sketch of the lifters on several small pieces of paper. Use something like a blue sharpie to draw the intakes and a red sharpie for the exhaust on your sketches. Place a marked up sketch with each lifter assembly and it associated lifter assembly in a plastic bag. Put all the intake baggies from one side of the engine in a larger baggie. Do same for the exhaust baggies. Make another sketch of the camshaft caps and where they belong. Tag and bag these as well. NOTE: do NOT screw up the order or orientation of the camshaft caps! You want horror stories about this? They are on this message board! Put all this stuff in an even larger baggie that will also contain the cams themselves. 5) Work area must be like a hospital. Clean, clean, clean! 6) See #1 7) Keep the head bolts organized from where they came from. A small piece of cardboard with a sketch of the flywheel on one end, then poke a hole through the cardboard will suffice to hold the bolts. One at a time, clean the threads of the bolts so they take up in the case without any tight spots. You want to try and get rid of that "CREEEEEEEEEAAAAAKKKK" noise that you will hear when you remove the heads. 8) Get some camshaft assembly lube to use when you put it all back together. I bought some at O'Reillys that was in a little white bottle. Red and would adhere to the parts pretty good. Use PLENTY of this. "Mellube" made by Melling. Yeah, thats the stuff! 9) The camshaft caps in the center and the rear with the larger bolts get torqued to like 14.5 ft. lbs. Careful, they MIGHT break! The smaller bolts in the front camshaft cap get torqued to only like 7 ft. lbs. This you WON'T find in the Haynes manual OR the Factory Manual. They will both tell you 14.5 ft. lbs and guess what.....you WILL break those bolts hopefully before you pull the threads out of the aluminum heads! 10) See #1 11) IF you have the heads machined, clean clean clean them up GOOD. Blast out the oil passages to the lifters with compressed air followed by WD 40 via the straw on the can. Repeat several times. Trash in the passages is a sure fire way to DESTRUCTION! Again, the stories are on the message board! 13) See #1 14) I skipped 12 for a reason. I forgot what it was. (the suggestion, not the reason.) 15) Allow PLENTY of time to do the procedure. Aint gonna happen CORRECTLY in a day if it is your first time to do it. A LOT of time you will be cleaning parts, so count on that. 16) See #1.......and also it appears the Chilton version of the head bolt torque sequence is WRONG! 17) A storage building complete with electricity and the bottom from the broken office chair you leaned back too far in one too many times, along with a pallet on your engine hoist makes for a great working space. (Note #1 in left foreground of pallet!) Good Luck!

For the DOHC 2.5 engine in my 97 Legacy Outback (same engine as your Forester) the interval is to inspect the belt every 30k miles and replace at 105k miles. HOWEVER! the interval for replacement is also 105 months. So if you are still on the original timing belt, I'd say it is due! And as the others have mentioned, it's not something you want to fail before you replace it!

Can't hardly agree with never needing an alignment. Case in point: I recently replaced the front struts on my 97 Legacy Outback and even though I did mark the relationship of the lower strut mounting bolts that set the camber to the old struts before removing them, and then using the same approximate position with the new struts......if it quits raining here in the next little bit I'll go out and take a picture of the inside edge of the passengers side front tire....the one with the rubber of the sidewall worn to the steel where it rubbed the strut before I had it aligned.

Someone had left a gap for him to pull out and motioned for him to go ahead. Happens all the time. We had one happen nearby today that involved 3 vehicles and 6 passengers, one of which that was a child that was EJECTED from one of the vehicles. It is beyond me why people keep doing this (as well as falling for it) "good deed" as a motorist. As to your Subaru, doesn't appear that the rear suspension would be damaged if the collision didn't completely spin you out. Were the road surface wet even less of a chance of damage. Even still, I'd strongly suggest to the adjuster to figure an alignment in the settlement.

Getting rid of the roof rack cross members on my 97 outback got rid of a LOT of the wind noise/whistling stuff. But like yours, a good cross wind is quite noticeable in the outback. I think even a lot more noticeable than in my old 92 legacy AWD wagon. Must be the slightly taller roof line. However, it is nothing like driving a 66 VW microbus in a cross wind, where you hold the near horizontal extra-extra large pizza sized steering wheel 40 degrees into the wind to keep going straight....and when that gust stops look out!!

Here's a photo of the old plastic one vs. the new aluminum one. Don't have the part number handy. The "dowels" you see on the bottom of the engine are the engine mounting studs that go through the bell housing of the transmission and then get a nut and washer to hold the engine to the transmission.

I bought Japanese to avoid all this but I guess they're taking lessons from Detroit. And the choir exclaimed "AMEN"!! Why oh why did I give my nephew my pristine 92 AWD automatic legacy wagon and keep the 97 legacy outback. I just dunno.

The oil seperator plate is on the rear of the engine between the engine and the flywheel/drive plate. It is the shiny new aluminum piece to the right of the crankshaft in this photo. It replaced the once leaking black plastic one. How they could diagnose the oil seperator plate leaking vs. the crankshaft rear main seal is beyond me. Possibly "the odds are" that it is the seperator plate. Either way, the engine has to be seperated from the transmission to replace it, and it wouldn't be a part of the "usual" timing belt replacement job. IF you are going to replace the head gaskets, do both sides of the engine. It would really suck to have the new headgasket wipe out the old headgasket on the other side of the engine. Parts alone to do the timing belt/headgaskets/oil seals etc. etc. to "do it right" are going to cost you at least $800 or so from one of the online discount Subaru dealerships. The roof rack cross members were the first thing to be removed from my 97 Outback wagon. If I wanted to be annoyed like I was driving an Xterror I would have bought an Xterror.

Here's a photo of the clutch and pressure plate I removed from my 97 outback 2.5 engine. Open the photo with your favorite viewer and look around towards the center of the clutch disc. The engine side was clearly marked "engine side" and should be visible in the photo.

uh huh....the "arrow" on the crank sprocket points to 3 O'clock. The indention on the tab on the back of the sprocket points to 12 O'clock. The arrow aint the mark! (My bet on the situation anyway!) Another thought I had was that it seems like THE engine to swap into a 2.5 legacy outback is the 2.2 engine from the 95 models. Hence that would work with the OBDII of the later outbacks 97-99, and you're sure that will work with a 91 model?

Nah....we're definitely talking the same DOHC 2.5 engine in a legacy outback. It IS a close fit, but can be done. Look around and see if you can find the doo dad from your factory tool kit that fits the spark plugs and the tire iron. Use that doo dad with a socket the same size as the wheel lugs on your ratchet and I bet you can get them out no problem with that configuration.

Removing the spark plug socket after it has come loose from the extension can be a bear!......and by far the tool of choice if (not if but when!) that happens is a good old pair of semi-large hemostats. Either grab the socket by the flats or put the stats inside the square hole and spread them out while you retract the socket.:cool:

Sort of off topic, but....... I was talking the other day with one of my Porsche 356 buds and he was telling me about a little "tech session" the dealership had with a factory mechanic back in the 60's when the 356 was serviced by the dealers. The fuel volume from the accelerator pumps in the carburetors had to be measured with a very small glass vial on a piece of wire held into the carburetor throat. The mechanic went over the procedure and then intentionally did "the unthinkable"......he dropped the glass vial off of the wire and into the carburetor throat with the throttle plate open! At that point he demonstrated the procedure for removing the glass vial from the nether regions of the engine. Foot on the gas pedal about 3/4 the way to the floor, hit the starter and VRRRRROOOOOOOMMMMM WHAAAAAAPPPPP !!!!!! no more glass vial problem!

LIke yourself, I bought the OEM components from a dealership a la carte. And I also had to go in search of the magical mystical made of the finest unobtanium clutch alignment tool for a Subaru. I wound up buying the "one tool does all" from NAPA that as you say is a rod with a sliding cone and a bunch of different pilot bearing adapters that thread on to the rod. About $26 or so. The adapter that fits the Subaru pilot bearing does make a nice fit however. Then I spent 4 $#^^@ days looking for the only missing pilot bearing adapter from the kit AFTER getting the engine back in the car:eek: I finally found it:banana: in a zip lock bag that it somehow jumped into. I've seen a bunch of the plastic ones on ebay for like $5 or so.......

By far, the easiest way to remove the spark plugs from the 2.2 engines is to use the tools Subaru gave you in the tool kit that came with the car, namely the doo dad that one end fits the spark plug and the other end fits the tire iron. As for the 2.5 DOHC, the easiest method to get the plugs back in (as well as the 2.2) is to use a piece of 5/16 fuel line about a foot long, stick the insulator end of the spark plug in the end of the fuel line, slather on a bit of anti-seize and then using the fuel line to position and twist to get the plug started into the threads so you don't screw that part up. Then you can go to sockets or what have you.