February 9, 200422 yr First time posting here, thanks in advance to any who take the time to reply. I have an EA82 '86 gl wagon 2wd 3at spfi. I lost power suddenly on an on-ramp, the car would still crank but with a horrible ratcheting noise...after getting it home and tearing the front end down a bit I found the driver side timing belt was loose (off the cam gear) ? don't know why. Okay, now the attack of the newbee subaru mechanic...I oriented the cam gears 180d. apart (pass side mark up. driver side down) and put it together. Well, it started to my suprise, but a test-drive revealed no power (running on two cylinders?) and smoke from under the hood after a short drive ( 1/4 mi.) Clever guy that I am, I tear into it again and because it is EASIER to get to the pass side I rotate the pass side cam gear 360d. and put it back together THEN I think...what did that accomplish? Well, it started...??? huh? and seemed to idle smoothly, but the test drive again revealed poor power and smoke after a very short drive. So...what have I done? I really hope this is a timing /crank orientation/overzealous guy with no manual/ issue . BTW the belts were new 10k mi. ago replaced by a competent subaru mechanic (car has 103k mi.) Oh, the pass. side belt was still in place when I set it up initially so at least it was still oriented correctly then. Have I now arranged both cams 360d. out of phase with the crank? Do I even know what I'm talking about? Somebody straighten me out wouldya please? ....Thanks no, it didn't overheat...
February 9, 200422 yr Lets first get the orientation straight. On the flex plate there should be a set of timing marks for the cam timing. These are three marks all by themselves; they are not associated with the ignition timing marks. Line-up the middle mark with the pointer. Next look at cam sprockets one should be at 0 degrees the other at 180 degrees. It dose not matter which one is at 0 and which one is at 180.
February 9, 200422 yr Author Thanks already...wow, aint forums grand... good advice and a great link FLOW, Pictures = many k words for sure. I'll try and line her up right this time
February 9, 200422 yr Miles Fox is responsible for the excelent write up. It helped me out today also. Thanks MF.
February 10, 200422 yr Author It's alive! Well, until the next disaster:rolleyes: Thanks to all for your ridiculously prompt help.
February 10, 200422 yr there is like some 720 deg of crank rotation for the procedure. it is common for a botched job to have the cams 180 off and lined up to TDC rathere than the 3 marks the 3 marks means that ALL of the pistons are in the MIDDLE of their stroke. with the open belts like in the pictures, i can knock out a timing belt job in under 20 minutes. one more thing, the oil or water pumps might as well be serviced at the same time, since its tghe same amount of work to get to them
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