DeltaWye

Our 94 Loyale started idling funny last year. Eventually the 'check engine' light came on and the code indicated a problem with the coolant temperature sensor. It's right near the thermostat. You can unplug it and check the resistance with a multimeter, I don't have the Hanes book handy but I can look up the correct value. Ours was way off and replacing the sensor fixed the problem. Make sure you get the right sensor if you're ordering it online, there's a similar one that goes into the radiator that turns on the electric fan if the coolant in the radiator gets hot enough.

An update in case anyone is interested. Well against my better judgement I decided to attempt the job myself. Mechanic didn't want to touch the job; dealership quoted 6.5 hours labor which seems fair but when you add parts it probably would have been nearly $1000. Just can't justify it on a car that runs great but needs a new body. No disasters so far, I've been working on it a bit at a time, keeping all the hardware organized. I drained the coolant and took the radiator off to get the extra room as per a recommendation by Miles Fox, glad I did. Also took all the air intake parts and charcoal filter and bracket off to get the extra room. I took the opportunity to de-rust and paint the electric fan shroud, fan motor and bottom of the radiator. Once I got the timing covers and belts off, I did the oil pump first and just took off the old cam tower today. Got a new O-ring, engine assembly lube (thanks Napa) for the rocker arms and Anaerobic sealant (thanks Amazon) so I should be ready to go. I see it's recommended to put a bit of sealant around the o-ring. Plan for tomorrow is to install the new cam tower, then the valve cover, then the cam pulley and timing belts, fill the engine with oil and turn it over with the fuel pump disconnected to get the oil circulated and listen for any horrible noises. Then fire it up for about 10 seconds just to see if there's anything majorly wrong. Bad idea? Thinking it may run rough with the MAF not installed, maybe I should install that back on first. Anything else I'm forgetting? I don't want to spend hours putting everything back and then having to tear it back down again. Would appreciate any advice, suggestions or reminders. Another thread here suggested putting some sealant along the bottom of the valve cover as well even though it already has the rubber gasket, good idea or not necessary? I'll post some pictures tomorrow if all goes well.

Thanks all, the part from Tom arrived today. He was nice enough to throw in some extras. Still waiting on the O-rings because the first dealer didn't bother ordering them and said that they aren't available. Ordered them yesterday from another dealer (Marino's) and they are supposed to be in tomorrow. Just got a call while typing this and they're in. At this point we are leaning towards having a mechanic do the work. I could probably do it but it isn't my car and I've not had much luck with things going smoothly on this thing (I think the car hates me). I'm guessing this is the sort of job they won't want to touch, going to talk to our regular mechanic tomorrow. There is a dealership in the city that has a mechanic that's familiar with these cars but of course their rates are much higher. I'm just wondering if a shop will insist on pulling the engine.

Subaru here says the oil pump is no longer available so I ordered a couple of the seal kits from Rockauto. Thanks all, and I agree, all the Beck/Arnley parts I've bought seem to be made in Japan and probably the same as OEM. Hi, I did email you the pictures on Sunday right after we spoke on the phone but I had to email you through your Craigslist ad as I don't have your email address. When I didn't hear from you I figured Craigslist deleted my message because of the attachment so I sent another reply to your ad on Monday without the pictures asking for your email address so I could send you the pictures directly. Maybe Craigslist deletes everything that comes from a domain outside the US? I hope there are no hard feelings but I've been trying to move quickly on this. I do appreciate the advice you gave me.

So does that usually fix it? I just got back from the dealership having ordered the cam tower O-rings (I hope they're the same part for both sides because I ordered 4) and they said they might be able to get me a new oil pump, they're going to call me back. My plan is to buy the pump since they're getting scarce but just rebuild the one on the car for now and see if it helps the ticking. If and when the engine gets new head gaskets (never been done, the car has just over 200,000 km on it which is about 125,000 miles) or rebuilt, I'd put the new pump on then. Is the Beck/Arnley 0396320 the kit you'd get? http://www.rockauto.com/en/partsearch/?partnum=0396320 http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=478288&jsn=237&jsn=237

Thanks. In another thread someone said it is Subaru part # 13089AA010. I assume it's the same part for both sides but I will check with the dealer. Now I just have to get my hands on the housing. From reading other posts here, it seems that the oil pump is likely to be the major contributor to the ticking noise. Is there any point in rebuilding the existing oil pump since the timing belts have to come off the car anyway? I've been reading old threads here and it seems a new pump almost always gets rid of the noise but has anyone had success after just replacing the o-rings and seal?

This is the O-ring you're talking about, right?

This part has so many different names! Thanks for your offer. The other guy from Michigan (I found him through an ad on craigslist) hasn't got back to me so I will probably take you up on your offer. Can you confirm that the camshaft should stay in the housing rather than be swapped out? I assumed that this would cause a problem. I guess maybe it's a good thing that Subaru didn't have the casting itself.

Thanks for your reply scoobiedubie. All of the older Subarus are long gone from any wrecker in Ontario. I haven't seen another Loyale on the road around here in years, cars rot out so fast here because of the ridiculous amount of salt they use. I'm convinced it's a conspiracy to sell more cars. However a few members have offerred to sell us the part but I want to know what's involved. I'm hesistant to do the work myself now and the mechanic will probably not want to work with engine in the car. You're talking about the timing belt, right? I do need to do some reasarch on what's involved in removing and reinstalling the part.

I'll give you the whole story in case you're interested. It's a 1994 Loyale wagon, 5-speed, 4WD. My mother bought it about 16 years ago. The car started leaking oil like a sieve a few months ago and we haven't been able to drive it. The leak was between the right side valve cover and the cam housing, which I guess is referred to here as the cam tower. I didn't even realize that these engines had a component between the cylinder head and valve cover, I have never done anything to an engine other than change oil and spark plugs. With this car being so old I have had to do more of the maintenance in order for it to make financial sense to keep it. I ordered the Fel-Pro gasket kit that comes with the new bushings and figured it was within my abilities. I was only going to do the one side for now. I read a post on here from MilesFox that suggested taking the nut off the engine mount on that side, which I did. I loosened the nut on the other side a couple of turns too and jacked up the engine an inch or two. The old gasket had split and there was about a 1/8" gap - leak explained. Cleaned the cover and put the new gasket in the groove on the cover and changed the rubber bushings on the 4 bolts. The book called for 3.6 to 4 ft lbs so I set the 1/4" torque wrench to 20 inch pounds to start and began snugging them up. After a while I realized that I must have gone past that and stopped. I put an adapter and 19mm socket on it and checked the torque wrench on one of the wheel lug nuts. It didn't click. The worst part is that I thought I stopped before I did any damage. I didn't feel any bolts strip the threads. I took the torque wrench back to the store and made them exchange it even though I bought it ages ago I didn't have a receipt. I'd only used it once. I had planned to remove all the bolts, take the cover back off, make sure the threads were all still good, make sure the new torque wrench was working properly and tighten things back up. Anyway, three of them came out okay although they all had a tiny bit of aluminum thread that came out on the end of the bolts, but the bottom left had cracked and there were now two small pieces sitting there. I was very surprised since none of the bolts had spun. I took some pictures of the carnage. Needless to say I felt awful. I figured the best course of action is to find the replacement part and have our mechanic swap it out. I assume it can be changed with the engine in the car but I don't think I want to try it myself. It looks like I'd need to lift the engine up more. I found a guy in Michigan (he says he's a member here actually) who is willing to sell me the part but he told me that the cam should stay with the cam tower. Is that right and is that perhaps going to cause other issues? Other than the common ticking sound some of the time after starting, the engine has run fine. I'm wondering if I should find someone who is competent to tig? weld it but I would appreciate some advice whether that is likely to work.