I am replacing timing belt and was doing fine until I tried to push plunger in and pin it till I got the pulley installed. I put in a vise and try to push in and cannot believe how much pressure I put on it and didn't appear to move. The plunger rotates in it present position so I assume it 's not "frozen". Any help would be appreciated

It's a delicate prodecure compressing that thing. I hope you didn't put a huge amount of pressure on it immediately, if so you may have ruined it, and they run about $75 new

 

Once you remove it, you need to compress it in such a manner. Put it in a vise like you did, but compress it VERY slowly, to the point where it will take you a minute or two to compress it completely. If you put pressure on it all at once, the hydraulics inside it go crazy and screw it up, to where it gets nearly impossible to recompress.

 

I learned all this the hard way on my 91 Legacy 2.2, that's why I know how much a new tensioner is :-\

I don't think would have done any damage, as I suspected something was going on and decided to go here and work in morning. I don't think it moved .030. My Haynes didn't give any hints like that! Thanks for the heads up!!!