DTL

Who is open on a sunday that sells it from a roll, NAPA sold me what they had precut and prepackaged... autozone? pepboys were just plain clueless it can wait till monday i s'pose

OK, good.I went and bought a thermostat incase i need it. I filled up the coolant reservoir yesterday and it sucked it all into the radiator.... so maybe it opened up on its own. The big new thing is that a big bad leak has sprung from the transmission cooling lines area. Chilton doesn't mention it, but it looks like I have a tranny fluid filter located roughly down under where the battery is. Fluid seems to go from tranny to the filter then to the radiator then return back. The rubber lines from the tranny hook to a couple foot length of 2 parallel metal lines which run almost under the battery holder, then attach to rubber lines again. I used some mineral spirits and some brake cleaner to clear away the gunk and maybe see where exactly the leak is coming from. I miss the days of freon and non-flamable degreasers. I am going to let it all dry for a while. I guess battery drippings have corroded the metal lines, I am thinking of just putting in long rubber lines instead of hunting down and paying for custom subaru lines. I need somewhere cheaper than NAPA, they charged me about $12 for 2 ft, I probably need 2x3 feet. later

well, mostly. She started and stalled a bunch of times, making a noise like the starter was not disengaging after starting. I was getting a TPS sensor error as well. I rotated the throttle to its extreme positions a few times by hand and then it stayed runnining. TPS error went away. It ran very smokly for about 20 min before i turned it off. I filled the radiator but it would not take all the fluid it lost. The temp gage went too high so I am guessing that the thermostat is stuck. It has plenty of oil. I rapped it with a hammer and a 6", 3/8 extension a few times and will recheck things later this AM. Replacing the thermostat looks a bit more of the job than it was with my 1970 dodge dart...I haven't looked in the book on how to do it, if I have to, but I hope i don't have to remove the intake manifold..... I also looks like the transmission fluid lines to the radiator did not survive this operation, beside me kickicking over the bucket that held what I drained out when removing the radiator, there was an additional puddle being fed by a steady drip. The knock sensor is giving an error signal, but I knew that it was bad from before. So, questions are, Will the starter solenoid heal itself, can i get some lube into the important area where it is binding and slow to retract? Can I avoid somehow replacing the thermostat? Is there any other surprises I can expect to be surprised by from a car that has sat not running, never started, for 2 years? I can ignore the knock sensor, give it high octane, maybe put in a 560k resistor in its place or, is that too much cheating that will bite my a$$ sooner or later? I supposed I should change out all of the fluids, I really hate fluids, fliters too. It is unregestered and uninsured, I think I will give it a test ride early sunday morning before the police wake up. I feel a little stupid for spending so much time and money troubleshooting a problem that was a failure in a 50 cent part. But, at the time I first got into it, I had no timing light and the timing belt seemed tight.... and I had no idea how a computer controlled ignition actually worked. I have to say this has been an education, too bad I HATE working on cars for the most part! It will be some time before we can afford to buy new vehicle, so all the cussing, swearing and bleeding knuckles will not be in vane (vein?). Bill

never mind, I found something and it moverd easily

Hey all, I am trying to align the timing marks in prep for placement of the timing belt and have 2 questions: 1) what is the significance of the arrow >----> on the crank sprocket gear. it is at the 3 o'clock position when the notch on the crank sprocket tab aligns with the notch on the sensor housing. more importantly 2) I am trying to turn my left cam sproket to align with the timing notch by rotating it backwards. it is less than 1/4 off so that is the smallest angle to rotate through. I must be pushing against the valve springs because it is very difficult to move. Is there any problem in turning the cam in the opposite direction to it's normal rotation? It is hard to get more than 5-10 degrees rotation with the strap wrench with I made, then, it springs back again. I suppose I have to make something like the tool described http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8080/subaru_manual_scans/FSM_Scans/Timing_belt4.jpg camshaft sproket wrench. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Well, All indications indicate that Hocrest will be the man of the hour. He's going to overnight the bolt in question to me. With luck by the end of the weekend my legacy will move on it own power. It has been a rough day, we had to put down our wonderful dog... the vet came to our place. We are having a wake of sorts now. I suppose this is not too "OT" for this board, some cars might be as loved as some pets. They get "pet names".... I guess love is just love where ever you find it. I remember the day I had to put down my '77 toyota wagon.... very very sad, it had cancer too... ....anyway, I am not trying to be flippant...I am just a clown of sorts. stay tuned, I have never done a timing chain/belt or timed a motor from scratch, so I may have some questions. Bill

OK! I will let you know before you go whether to bother. My wife is losing patience to get our sailboat in the driveway I *may* have to just order it so I can get finished asap. Thankyou for the offer Bill

I tried like 5 places today and finally a dealership parts dept. No luck, the Subaru parts guy printed out the same pic I have seen with the parts blow up. The Tesioners are an assembly that includes the bolt, (link to pdf download http://www.main.experiencetherave.com:8080/subaru_manual_scans/1990-1994_Legacy_Parts_Catalog_-_Engine/ the other idlers have a seperate part# for the bolt. I am going to try to figure out if they are the same bolt, prob not but.... This site has a parts forsale/wanted? I will have a look Bill

I remember in the 80's when chineese tool first hit the market, I went to buy a vise. I paid like $50.00 and bought the biggest one they had ( I figured it probably wasn't the best quality) at this tool retail shop that popped up near me. It was a monster. After a few weeks I had to crush the end of some 1" iron pipe for some reason. I put the pipe in the vise, torqued it by hand and the hit the vise handle with a hammer once and broke the vise right through the neck.... I was stunned, then started laughing. The cross section that broke was atleast 3"x 1.5". i returned it with profuse complaining.... got a store credit or something. Now I look for "antique" tools whenever I need beefy or good steel (like chisels). One autoparts guy was saying it was a hardened bolt, I don't think so, it drilled fairly easily.. mabe it WAS a case of bad hardware. Nipper, I am headed to Island park later to go bolt hunting.... there are several salvage yards there, any you would recommend? Bill

I am sure it was not torqued correctly, from the timimg belt/water pump replacement 10 months previous to it failing... backed out amd then snapped off. the hardware bolts i looked at were all wrong... junk yards tomorrow!

It has a flanged head, and, threads on about half of it. I called one of the part suppliers in Milford Connecticut.... The guy says you can only buy the bolt WITH the tensioner idler assembly, I ask why becase it LOOKS like only a bolt to me and he says something about it being "eccentric".... that would make no sense to me... I am 98% sure he is wrong, ...... I thnk HE is eccentric, or, pathologically misaligned...and greedy to boot. why can't he just say that they can't any make money off of selling bolts, so they do not carry them.... instead i get a mechanical fairlytale from a sales dork. I might just check out a hardware store. Thanks

I need a bolt. The bolt pictured here: http://catalog.drivewire.com/drivewire/baseline/quote-new.jsp?partner=drivewire&year=1990-1994&product=A5030-131787&application=247829&fm=1 for the tensioner. I FINALLY got the radiator out...every thing with a thread was sort of a biatch.... the radiator expansion tank got most of my bad language,,, the bottom was really stuck...one radiator line is tranny fluid? or was that an oil cooler? I will look in the book tomorrow....It looked dirty, so, may as well put in some more of whatever it was. I then managed to get a 1/16th bit on my cordless drill and drilled into the bolt, which, as I figured probably would happen, it theaded the remainder of the bolt in. The small hole i made was big enough to accept the tip of an old drill bit I resharpened so that it bites in the reverse direction. I tapped it in a little and then backed out the broken bolt! that was the high point of today.... I opted not to try and remove the bracket that the bolt was in, no junkyard within 40 miles carries that sort of thing. Plus I would rather not fudge around where I can barely see what will hang up on what... But, I need a bolt... or a part# Anyone wanna sell me this bolt? any other part on this vehicle that uses the same bolt? my guess = NO I get a feeling it may be a job to track down a source for "only" a bolt. I plan on spraying a can or so of brake cleaner on the timing belt assembly and try and figure out if/how much the timing is off, I can see that the water pump was changed, the timing belt looks mostly ok... anything in the front of this motor I should take the time to check out or beware of before i reassemble? I hope you all had a good 4th o July. Bill

ooooh i like that. good news to wake up to. Thanks my friend. Bill

eeeek Somewhere i wrote how i found that the ignitors were OK....forgive my stupidity, I misinterpreted the no start and no spark on one side as a bad ignitor, unbelieving the ECM could be bad, not even aware that the sensors could cause a no spark condition. The ignitor seems shorted to me cause I was reading a voltage drop from the base to both outputs even though one was about twice the drop.... I am assuming they they are fine now ( all three ignitors I own, 2 ECUs, 2 coil packs) I have written quite a bit here ...I can't blame anyone for losing track! I was starting from scratch figuring this one out... I haven't worked on non distributer cars before... been quite a 'learning experience' LOL I will fix the idler, make sure timing is right, retest sensors and maybe replace the crank sprocket...maybe the timing belt wandered and bent a sprocket tab(?).....can a miss-timed motor fire only on one side? You know, I am realllly confused about this mess, but, I feel good in that there is something I CAN fix and hopefully get closer to an answer. any suggestions are welcome!

OK, so now I have some pics for you folks Tensioner/idler looks like it has a problem. The last place that worked on it replaced the timing belt after a breakdown.... They probably forgot to torque down the bolt on the tensioner. The bolt is broken off inside the motor. I am not sure how much is missing. I plan to drill and then use an easy-out. I will have to remove the radiator. The mounting stud pictured below is where the rest of the bolt lives. Turns out the timing belt was done about 10k miles before this happened. The tensioner wheel spins free and looks in good shape, just the bolt is broken and the timing cover is scored. I am not sure if/how this explains the weird sensor readings. I never checked the timing because the the part of the timing belt that was exposed by the side cover was seemed tight.... maybe the timing is off by a few teeth. I am done for today. tomorrow I will be able to get a better look once the radiator goes away. Any advice? I looked over the timing belt and it seems ok, I will look more. the sproket looked ok... I will look it all over tomorrow.. The bad thing is that WHEN this car died, it was still under warranty from that repair.... I was thinking the Tbelt was done a month before it died, turns out it was ten months, 10k miles before then...... we had a 12 month 12k mile warranty ..... geez Bill We were actually moving that week, I had no way of working on it then.

No, it was roughly the cranking frequency, i was looking a 500msec, per division. I was getting 3 pulses and a space which is normal from my understanding...but the amplitude was quite variable. I am hoping I find damaged tab(s).... What do these crank sprockets go for (roughly) new/used?

I made a strap wrench and backed the bolt out. Chilton say therei s a crank puller tool. you have to get it from Subaru, so I bought a couple things with which I might get it off...

I have to buy a special wheel puller! probably a good thing to have around.... Nipper: you have one you can lend out? I will see what they $want for it. I hate tools that are only good for one thing.

Yeah, I can turn it... But.... I started going for the timing belt cover. I am about to fashion some manner of big strap wrench to hold the crank pulley while I loosen the crank nut. I have a steering wheel puller somewhere, I hope I don't have to buy a special puller for this job. if there is so much corrosion BEHIND the belt cover that I can't remove the sensor w/o getting medi-evil.... it is probably worth a look behind there. I am finding that I don't have a stumpy enough socket to loosen one bolt for the A/C bracket the intake manifold is too close... I am hoping I can get the cover off w/o removing A/C. Bill

Hi, I really REALLY just want to remove the crank sensor and have a look at it, my chilton says " 1) Disconnect negative batterycable. 2) Remove the timing belt." Errrrrr why? I am trying to pull the sensor out (after removing it's mounting bolt)...twisting wd40-ing... but no luck so far. is there a C-clip hold ing it in? tha is the only reason I can think of for removing the timing belt. I really was hoping to not have to buy Haynes, as I want to sell this vehicle ASAP, not that it should make any difference here.... why the f@#)(*&^%$#@!! would they use an internal fastener seems overkill. I am guessing it is just a tight clearance hole and that there is corrosion on the sensor preventing it form neatly sliding out. my current theory is that the crank shft has devoloped play in the bearing and/or is a tiny bit bent. This would account for the sinusoidally varying amplitude of the pulses I was getting from my scope. The tabs move periodically closer and further from the sensor, dropping below the threshold for detection by the ECU. I was thinking I could "machine off" a few thousandths from the should of the detector, getting it a tad closer to the tabs(hopefully not banging into the tabs.) I still can't imagine how the tabs could break off.... are they steel? or are they some brittle magnetic material? I suppose they could corroded and get shorter... but... I just don't want to take anything apart and deal with more uncertainties... I am just a bit lazy sort of stubborn and more than a little paranoid. For example, the power steering pump looks like a biatch to take out without ruining the hoses. Probably the broken tab theory is right...and I will have to do this anyhow. Bill

Hey! Great pic.....but it bothers me because corrosion is not a huge issue with this car...how could those metal tabs break or wear off? it has 180k miles...still they look pretty beefy. I need a gear puller to get to it? hopefully, I can get to it later today. Bill

y'know there was a sinusoidal envelope to the CAS waveform, that has to be wrong. Each tab should present the same change in reluctance , NO? I will check in tomorow, there is more to life than this F@#$^&*()_cking subaru.

I SWEAR there is a black white and a red and they ALL connect to the ECU. The littlest connector, 3 pins in a row, not sure of pin numbers. But my favorite theory is the crank sesnsor, mostly because it looks easier to change out.

Alrighty then, I just tracked the wire for the cam sensor, There are 3 and they all go to the ecu ( red, black and white) unlike what my chilton shows (2 connect(black and white) and one is a shield (yellow)) I get diodes connecting the red and the white in the sensor in both directions with a .47 voltage drop. I am guessing this is some sort of optical sensor? anyways, I like the crank sensor theory.... let me look into what to do about it.