Rebuild Difficulty

Well, my Legacy 2.5GT has gotten to the point now where I have fluids coming out of pretty much every seal. Valve cover seals are leaking, HG looks like it's going, the back of the oil pan is all oily and something is dripping on the exhaust manifold at the Y making it smell horrible.

 

So It looks like I'm going to have to pull the motor out and re-seal some things. My question is: How hard is it to rebuild an EJ25 in comparison to other motors? It would be great to just redo the whole thing while I have it out instead of just the few seals and gaskets. I have only done one before, it was a 1.6L push rod Ford Kent from a Fiesta. (yep I know the EJ25 will be a bit more complicated) And I've pulled and swapped a few motors from Miatas, just never been inside those.

 

I know I'll be able to pull it out and put it back in, and I have access to a lift, I'm just worried about breaking something internally.

 

So, is it doable for someone as their second rebuild, or should I just stick to just replacing the stuff was leaking and leave the rebuilding to someone who actually knows what they're doing?

If you've done a rebuild before, I'm assuming you know whats going on. So I'd say it would be about the same as any other rebuild?

EJ boxers are dead easy to pull out and put in. Taking them apart is easy too... putting them back together apparently so too - but that was too hard for me. I got a shop to do a forged blueprinted build for me. But i guess, if you have a torque wrench and the service manual at hand, you're pretty much set.

 

Make sure you keep the nuts and bolts organised and labeled btw. Lots of little zip lock bags ftw.

Make sure you keep the nuts and bolts organised and labeled btw. Lots of little zip lock bags ftw.

 

Haha, yeah... I learned about that the hard way when i rebuilt the Kent.

 

I have all the tools, guess I'm just going to wait for the money to buy a kit and I'll do it

That might be a good summer project for me some year.....

Yeah that's what I'm thinking currently, going to wait for the summer when I'm not in school and when I can find a car to borrow for a week or two. It's not an urgent thing, it's just that it's coming up on 150k miles and it's never been gone through before, and there are little annoying leaks everywhere.

Haha, yeah... I learned about that the hard way when i rebuilt the Kent.

 

I have all the tools, guess I'm just going to wait for the money to buy a kit and I'll do it

 

I snapped off a cambelt cover bolt, in the block - trying to use it to secure the water pump. The water pump bolts and cambelt cover bolts at first look identical, but the cambelt bolts are about 5mm longer, and that was enough to cause a long afternoon of strife

good to know.

KnifeyMcShanker - Let me know if you need a hand when you decide to rebuild your motor.

 

I live about 10min away from you and wouldn't mind helping a fellow Legacy owner out.

Cool, it probably won't be till this summer... With work and school that's really the only time I can get a big enough block of free time to do it.