Timing belt help!

Alright everyone, saddle up this may get a little lengthy, I apologize in advance.

Ok, so yesterday I decided to investigate a slight knocking sound, I assumed this sound was coming from my timing belt tensioner but after removing the timing belt cover I found my belt was in absolutely horrible condition.

I had purchased a timing belt kit from eBay a couple of months ago with the intent to change it and decided now would be a great time to do so.

Everything was going swell, I lined up all the timing marks and removed the belt but there was no spring back after removing the belt. Is there supposed to be? Everything stayed lined up perfect, I replaced all but the lowermost smooth idler and attempted to install the belt. After about an hour of trying, I gave up for the night.

I watched a video from briansmobile1 in which he left both, the smooth, and the toothed pulley off the bottom, then installed the two. Sadly I was having no luck that way either, this belt was TIGHT!

I eventually decided to reinstall the toothed idler but STILL no avail. I fought with it for about an hour before, once again removing the toothed idler AGAIN.

Finally, I got the belt in position and just barely placed the toothed idler bolt in the hole, sadly I had to start the bolt with an air ratchet, and may have cross threaded it. Lastly, I installed the lower smooth pulley with a fair amount of ease and pulled the pin on the tensioner, however, the tensioner didn't seem to move at all, not that it really needed to, the belt was VERY tight.

After the belt was on I simply installed the harmonic balancer and serpentine belt to see if the car would run, I turned the key and it fired right up and sounded GREAT. No more ticking or knocking that I could hear. Since everything seemed fine, I removed the serpentine belt and harmonic balancer so I could install the covers and put everything back together. I ended up running into town to run a few errands and by the time I made it home there was a very apparent knocking sound coming from the engine.

The car is running fine and shows no signs of being out of time, it seems to have a little more power and even idles better than before.

Now let me clear up a few things, the eBay timing kit I purchased was a very cheap one. I paid $62 for the kit from a place called wonderulparts.. however, the exact same kit from the same seller, listed exactly identical is now listed for $460 not sure why but it is the same kit that is in my purchase history.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fits-00-09-Subaru-Legacy-Outback-Baja-2-5L-SOHC-Timing-Belt-Kit-EJ25-/252255531648?hash=item3abb99f280

I said above that I think I cross threaded a bolt, as bad as it sounds I did nothing to fix it, I was tired and fed up with it already and didn't want to start over. It is tight and sits the way it's supposed to with the car running it didn't seem to wobble or anything. Every bolt had a dab of Loctite when installing and all idlers and the tensioner were torqued to 30 ft-lbs. I think I read somewhere that 29 ft-lbs was spec but I don't think my torque wrench is calibrated well.

I believe that it may be possible that the passenger side cam gear may have been off very slightly, It looked like it could have been off by about 1/16 of an inch but I had to look at it a certain angle to see it. Looking strait down it looked to be perfect.

Lastly the harmonic balancer has not been properly torqued yet, I don't know how to hold it in place well enough, it's pretty tight but probably not enough.

Would any of the mentioned reasons cause a very loud knocking sound? It sounds identical to a rod knock. I tried to catch a video but it stopped as soon as I started recording. When it was knocking it would only do it at below a certain RPM range.

Here is the timing belt before changing

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/Timing%20belt%201_zpsuqkh0h00.jpg

This is just to show that it is routed correctly

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20belt%202_zpsg4t9zccq.jpg

Here is the briansmobile1 video mentioned in the post

I hope the belt didn't slip a tooth. go and check.

As for the HMB you can put it in reserve and try torquing it

Thanks for the help Rumble, I don't mean to sound dumb, but how would I know if the belt slipped? My belt has absolutely no markings on it? Also, my car is an auto. Will the reverse trick work the same?

You can check to see if it slipped by removing your cover (if not already done) and realign your crank pully to the 12 o'clock position. If it slipped a tooth or two your cam gears won't be in the correct position. Also you don't want to trust the markings on the cover to be correct, they can warp and move over time. You would want both cam gears to be also in the 12 o'clock position. The passenger side of the motor has no cam sensor which means it relies on the cam sensor on the driver side in relation to the crank sensor to fire the passenger side of the motor the knock that you heard may be valve slap or an actual knock.

Thank you I will check when I get a chance. It seems to sound like the valves are coming into contact with the piston, which should mean it's out of time, do you think any damage could have been done driving it like this?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you I will check when I get a chance. It seems to sound like the valves are coming into contact with the piston, which should mean it's out of time, do you think any damage could have been done driving it like this?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It really depends on the severity of it. If i could hear it i could tell you more. If the pistons are hitting the valves they can bend or they can break your pistons. These engines usually have a valve / injector tick especially when on a cold start. If it kind of sounds like a wood pecker it could be your timing belt tensioner is bouncing around and knocking. you can start it with the cover off and check to see if it's the cause by putting downward pressure on the tensioner if the noise goes away its time to get a new one. But be careful while doing that it can be dangerous

Sent from my LG-K540 using Tapatalk

Thank you for the replies. The engine has always had a little tick but this is way different You can't hear it too much when cold but the longer the engine is run the louder it gets. I will check the tensioner when I get a chance, but it is brand new... it is a cheap Chinese one, but is new. Rumble, where is this access hole, I have taken a few glances but have yet to find it, does anything need to be removed to find it?

Is it a manual or automatic?

Sent from my LG-K540 using Tapatalk

Indeed it is an automatic I apologize

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, so it seems that the passenger side can hear is ever so slightly off. If the others marks are in the 12:00 position this one would be something like 11:57 lol. I will be redoing this soon but I'm going to remove the rad/condenser this time as well and fix my cross threading error from last time. I plan to flush the radiator before removing does anyone recommend a good brand of radiator flush? I may go ahead and change the thermostat as well, are there any good aftermarket thermostats available at a parts store?

Also the idler seems fine

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You didnt remove the radiator last time? That definitely makes it harder. I think once you get it out of the way you will have tons more room I don't think you will have to remove the condenser or whatever for the a.c. up front. Don't remove the fans unless you want to they can stay on and be removed still attached to the radiator as a unit. I just used a hose with my radiator the last time it was out, making sure the water coming out was clean and that there was no problems with the water flow indicating a block, wish I would have done something similar with my heater core but I did not.

Everyone has problems with aftermarket thermostats myself included there is one brand out there that is good from what I hear but it's either oem now

or later after the parts store one doesn't work.

Yeah OEM thermostats are about twice as big as the crappy auto part store ones.

Prestone flush or Peak flush are good. Prestone seams to be cheaper.

What about gates or motorad thermostats?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can we get a picture of the crank and both cam positions? That would help in seeing if the timing is off. And for putting the belt back on i find it easier to put the left side on first and zip tie it in place then put it through the crank, then with the right side cam gear give it a spin to the left. Then slowly rotate it back to the right catching the belt just before Your timing mark is in position. Then zip tie that one in place, that will give you enough slack to reinstall your other pulleys easily. It takes a few tries but I think that's the easiest way. Also just a side note make sure your crank mark is in position so when you rotate your cam gear it doesn't slap a piston.

Sent from my LG-K540 using Tapatalk

I'll get the pictures soon. I'll be tearing it down in a day or so, I have to fix a cross threaded bolt. Does anyone know the size and thread pitch of the bolts for idlers?

Edit: Just in case anyone is wondering the bolts were M10x1.25

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

for less than 20$ you can get a OEM one..... don't mess around with aftermarket. OEM water pumps, OEM thermostats, OEM Radiator caps.

My local dealers are gouging me then. I paid $45 for the t-stat for my girlfriend's LL Bean and I paid $36 for the t-stat for my 99 Outback 2.5

Ok fellas, I tore into it again today trying to fix my mistake. I'll be adding pictures at the end of this post showing the timing marks.

I really had no luck at all today. I tried to fix my cross threaded bolt by using a Heli-coil type thing, I actually bought a tap and the threads separately, it was much cheaper that way. I drilled and tapped the hole but the threads would not fit inside the hole, the threads fit on the bolt just fine but will not thread into the tapped hole, the bolt itself will thread in but will not torque to 29 ft-lbs it will not get that tight. I have no idea how to fix that. I did put the belt back on and started it and I didn't see any wobbling coming from that idler.

Sadly, the car sounds worse than it did before, I'm not sure how it could have possibly gotten worse.

Anyhow below are some pictures

This set of pictures shows the position of the marks before I lined everything up.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%203_zpsvrwnlvjw.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%201_zps5hypuxtj.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%202_zpsntxqahxk.jpg

This set of pictures shows the marks after I lined everything up

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%206_zpsvggndcex.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%204_zpsg4bbukme.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%205_zpsmfns4mdx.jpg

And this is after adjustments were made

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%207_zpsfcjsxvyf.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%208_zpsijcklykh.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20mark%209_zpsievxnjaf.jpg

And this is my Chinese tensioner after only about a week of driving.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e151/Sara32013/timing%20tensioner_zpsczil7gsq.jpg

I tried compressing it and it seemed way too easy so I tried the original one again and it put some fight so I decided to reuse my original tensioner.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suspect belt stretch. My DOHC did the same thing on the left side of the motor. The intake and exhaust cams were off exactly one tooth after 2,000 miles with new idlers and tensioner and reusing the old belt thinking it had been replaced. I guess you can't trust a one owner car with 146k miles to have the damn belt changed, so I ordered a new Gates belt. I'm coming up on 3,000 miles since I dropped in a freshly rebuilt motor, so for kicks I might pull the covers off and check the timing.

To fix the stripped bolt, if you can't get it torqued, a simple fix might be to fill the hole with JB Weld, let it cure a day or two, drill it and tap it again.