My 1996 2.2 outback has been increasingly intermittent when starting, to the point where it may take 20 minutes of trying to start it.

 

Battery is good, starter does work when it gets the signal. A think the alternator is good, as I have never had a dead battery.

 

I hear a clicking when I turn the key, would that be the solenoid trying to engage?

 

The second phase of my issue is that when it does crank it will not fire. It died on the road the other day. There's a whirring type noise when it does crank, does not sound good. I'm just a little stumped on where to start with checking electrical things.

 

There's also a delay to when you turn the key to the start position before it will crank. The click will be immediate, but the cranking takes a couple seconds.

 

I apologize for how random all this information is, but hopefully one of you guys will understand it. Thanks!

The Starter contacts wear.  You can replace just the copper contacts if you want.

Or hit the local You Pull and Pay and grab a Subaru starter.

Update: Thought I'd check the timing belt. It has rolled up in the edge of the pulley and is pretty shredded. It must have jumped. Is my engine toast? Are these interference?

There is debate on when the 2.2 started to be interference engines.  

You should be OK.  Get a new kit, put it on and fire it up.  

 

When I do timing belts, I also do:

- Reseal of the Oil pump and locktite the oil pump rear plate screws

- New Cam and Crank Seals

- New pullys

- Check the Water pump, if questionable change it

Interference started with the 97 MY.

I am sure they still had 96 production engines in stock and used them first.

They put them into the MT cars.

They need all the gearing possible to move that ton and a half smartly up an incline/

 

 

O.

There is debate on when the 2.2 started to be interference engines.

You should be OK. Get a new kit, put it on and fire it up.

 

When I do timing belts, I also do:

- Reseal of the Oil pump and locktite the oil pump rear plate screws

- New Cam and Crank Seals

- New pullys

- Check the Water pump, if questionable change it

 

So,I made a little mistake when removing the belt. I aligned the cam timing marks, but i didn't think about the crank (it was getting dark and snowing on me). The crank is pointing downward.How would i go about getting the crank turned the last 180 degrees without damaging my valves?

Being 180 deg out the wrong cylinder will be trying to fire.
No issues with interference.
Just make sure the crank mark is either at 12 or 6 before removing belt.

Remove belt. Let the driver side valves  close..

Then rotate crank and realign driver side cam.

Then install belt again

 

O.

Edited February 19, 20188 yr by ocei77

So I don't need to worry about the passenger side cam?

How will i know when the valves have closed?

Thanks for the help!

Make sure both cam pulley marks are lined up with the covers.  That's the easy part.

Since it's not interference you shouldn't have to worry about bending valves by turning various shafts independent of each other, but if you suddenly get a lot of resistance, stop.

The trickiest part is to line the mark on the crank pulley up.  It's not the super obvious arrow.  There is a small hash mark on the flange that needs to point up at a non obvious hash mark.

here is a picture of the crank pulley - note it is the mark on the BACK side (behind the belt) that you need to line up correctly

 

this one does have a mark on the front, but not all have that.

 

there are similar hash marks on the cam pulleys that also need to be aligned properly - everything should be pointing straight up (ie: 12 o'clock)