sbarmann

I did pry it all the way to the left before tightening it. That's the reason I didn't replace it as most people on here say that they do not replace the older style due to their stability. I just didn't know if they were on the verge of failing if they would have a lack of tension. Everything sounded great when I started it. There's no abnormal noise coming from the timing belt area so I think everything should be fine. She just had a 1/2 cross country trip so I'm trying to get everything taken care of. Thanks for the reply though. Now I just have to replace that pesky transfer solenoid!

This is my first post on this forum. I usually use NASIOC but after reading a lot of info on my girlfriends '97 Impreza, I actually found more useful information here. My question is how much slack is in the timing belt. I just got done doing the timing belt on a EJ22, and everything lined up fine and I turned it by hand. The belt still had some deflection but seemed relative to the position of the cams on how much tension was on them. I had to reuse the old tensioner as they gave me the wrong part at the auto part store. In one position I could barely turn one of the idlers on the lower passenger side by hand with the belt on, but at other positions (as I rotated the crank) I could not. The new belt has more tension than the old one. I also used an OEM replacement and the car has 132K on it. I was curious as to what other people experienced with the amount of tension as this was my first timing belt on a Subaru.