2004 WRX Timing Belt

[Lorrin Barth]

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Here’s my assembled parts for the job, a timing belt kit from Advance Auto, a crank pulley tool from Company 23 and a cam fixture tool from Company 23.

WARNING: Unless otherwise specified, when I say right or left in this article I mean right or left as when seated behind the steering wheel NOT as when standing in front of the car facing the engine.

BTW, this is one of my pet peeves. Sailors figured this out centuries ago. A ship has starboard and port. It is the same whether looking from bow or stern. It is the same if the ship capsizes. Talking about cars people say driver’s side or passenger side. Well, what if you live in England?

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Since no wheel or suspension work was being done ramps were used to raise the car.

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A view of the engine compartment before work was started.

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The first thing to remove is the undercover (or, according to my wife, the curb stop detector) – five 12mm bolts and four plastic clips.

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Next remove the cold air intake – 2 10mm bolts.

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Then I noticed that the upper radiator hose had been leaking. Drain the cooling system by removing the lower hose from the radiator – quick and messy.

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Here is the reason. When I installed this radiator the OEM wire hose clamp broke. I replaced it with a worm drive clamp. Notice how the wire clamp created deep grooves in the rubber. The worm drive clamp, while tight, would not seal this at pressure. The fix was a new hose.

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There are two small hoses that connect the engine coolant header tank to the radiator. Disconnected these at the radiator. Notice the small black pipe which goes over to the other side of the radiator. This is below the hose connecting the power steering reservoir to the power steering pump. By removing the reservoir from its bracket (it slides straight up) relocate the power steering hose to under the pipe.

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At each bottom corner of the radiator is a plug for a radiator fan. Disconnect the battery and unplug them both.

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Next remove the two hold downs for the for the Radiator – 1 12mm bolt on each side. BTW, the orange ratchet extension looks that way because all the chrome is worn off.

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Next, lifting straight up, remove the radiator as an assembly. Notice the pegs on the radiator lower tank. Make sure these go into the radiator support rubber grommets when reinstalling.

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Here, with the belt guard removed (a 10mm nut and a 10mm fastener) loosen the pivot bolt for the alternator – 12mm. All the fasteners on the accessory belts are 12mm.

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Next loosen the lock nut on the alternator belt tensioner. Turning the long vertical bolt relieves tension on the belt so that it can be removed.

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Loosen the A/C belt tensioner lock nut. Again turn the long vertical bolt to relieve tension.

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Remove the bracket and idler from the car – 2 fasteners.

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A picture of the engine compartment with the accessory belts removed.

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Insert the special crank pulley tool into the four holes in the damper. The handle on this tool is long enough to rest on the Imprezza frame. Here I am using a beam torque wrench, the longest tool I have. I expected the bolt to be tight. The pulley bolt is 22mm and it came loose with three loud pops but not a lot of difficulty.

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A picture of the bolt. It looks new. The crank pulley came off with zero resistance.

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The fasteners for the timing cover are all 10mm.

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The front timing cover is in three pieces. Remove the two end covers and then the center. In my magnetic tray is an assortment of timing cover fasteners. All seven long bolts go into the end covers and all seven shoulder bolts go into the center cover. Notice at the right end of the extension in the tray is an odd ball fastener. This single fastener of a different style goes into the bottom of the center cover just a little bit towards the right side. I used a mirror to find the location.

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With the covers off the next step, if the car has a manual transmission, is to remove the belt guards. These are to prevent the belt from jumping teeth if the car gets bumped while left parked in gear. There are four of these, one on the crank sprocket and one on each cam sprocket except the upper left cam sprocket.

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Cam sprocket guard.

Reinsert the crank bolt and turn the engine clockwise until the timing marks line up. The crank sprocket has a timing mark that should line up with a notch at 12 o’clock on the engine. The keyway should be down. Each upper cam sprocket has a timing mark that should be on top and line up with a notch in the rear timing belt cover. Each lower cam sprocket has a timing mark that should face the fender horizontally and line up with a notch in the rear timing cover. If that isn’t enough, each cam sprocket has a double timing mark. These double marks should be directly across from each other.

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With the timing marks all lined up insert the special fixture into the left side cam sprockets. Without the fixture the left cam sprockets will turn about 60 degrees when the timing belt is removed due to valve spring pressure. There is no valve spring pressure on the right cam sprockets. Notice the white and green paint on the double timing marks.

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Then remove the lower idler that in this picture has an orange colored seal. This should allow the belt to be removed. If not, remove the pivot bolt in the tensioner and remove the tensioner.

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Next is the water pump. This toothed idler is actually bolted to the water pump. So, remove it.

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Remove the thermostat cover.

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This is looking up from below. These two hoses are on the fender side of the water pump. Take your time removing them so that you don’t damage the hoses.

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There is also a third small hose on the other side. There is a trick to removing this one. The hose connects to a pipe which is routed across the exhaust shielding and connects to another hose which connects to the oil cooler. Remove the 10mm fastener holding the water pipe. Now, since there is a hose at each end it is flexible. Remove the hose after you pull the pump. Install the same way.

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Here is a picture of the old and new pumps. The old pump is on the right. Notice the weep hole on the old pump. This is a failed pump. Use a new gasket and torque the water pump fasteners to 9 ft. lbs.

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This is a picture of the top of the old belt tensioner. Notice that it is leaking.

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Between the crank sprocket and the upper left sprocket is this little idler. The old one is on the left with it’s bolt inserted.

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Here is a picture with the same bolt inserted into the new idler. Notice the difference in how far the threads stick out. The reason is that the new idler has a single bearing and the old idler has two bearings. Is single or double better? I don’t know. However, the threaded hole in the engine isn’t this deep. I cut the bolt.

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With all the new idlers and new tensioner installed and torqued to 30 ft. lbs. I am trying to install the new belt. I say trying because I couldn’t. The new belt was too small. Now this is a beautiful belt, obviously heavy duty and thicker. Well, think about it, a thicker belt running over all of those idlers is going to be tight. However, when I laid the two belts on edge, one on top of the other, and held a tooth aligned on each belt, then stretched out the belts, after a couple of feet the teeth were no longer quite aligned. The new belt had a finer tooth pitch. It fit the sprockets okay but since all timing belts have the same number of teeth it had to be smaller. The last idler is installed after the belt is on (the same idler removed first before removing the timing belt). I tried it by hand and then with a pry bar. By then I was putting more tension on the belt than it should ever have. It simply was a bad part.

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Out with the new and in with the old. The old belt looked fresh as a daisy – lots of miles left. However, the nice timing marks on the old belt were worn off (if it ever had any). I liked the idea of the belt marks lining up with the timing marks on the crank and cam sprockets. So, I copied the marks off of the new belt by counting the teeth, making sure my marks were in the exact same place on the old belt.. This worked great.

The way you install the belt is by starting at the crank sprocket and aligning the belt timing mark there. Then holding the belt on the crank sprocket (it will jump if you don’t) stretch the belt and align the belt mark with the upper left cam sprocket timing mark. Then do the bottom left and then the upper right. Finish with the bottom right.

Without the cam fixture you will need to rotate the upper left cam sprocket counter clockwise and the lower left cam sprocket clockwise, both about 60 degrees. Go much beyond this or go the wrong way and damage the valves. In this situation, since you will need two hands to turn and hold these cam sprockets, I’d suggest installing the belt guard on the crank as soon as you align the belt there.

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This is a picture of my paint mark lined up with the cam sprocket timing mark and the timing notch in the rear timing cover.

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Next install the belt guards. The kit included this handy gauge. Otherwise you must use a feeler gauge. Clearance is 0.039 +- 0.020 inches. The cam sprocket guards were installed at the factory with red locktite. I renewed this coating. If a guard rubs the belt you will have belt failure. Then pull the grenade pin in the belt tensioner. Now rotate the crank clockwise twice and check if the timing marks line up again. Don’t be alarmed, the marks on the belt walk and they won’t line up again until many crankshaft rotations. BTW, you have to wonder why there is a top and bottom to a piece of plastic.

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Timing cover back on. I torqued all the cover fasteners to 43 inch pounds. The crank pulley is installed in four steps. First clean the pulley, crank threads and bolt with compressed air. Second oil the bolt with clean engine oil. Third, torque the bolt to 33 ft. lbs. And finally torque the bolt to 94 ft. lbs while watching to see that the wrench turns at least 45 degrees. If you arrive at 94 ft. lbs with less rotation than this the threads are bad and you need a new bolt. It is tight but not clamping.

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New accessory belts installed. Both belts started making noise after a few days of driving. They stretch a little. With a second tightening they shouldn’t need further attention.

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I noticed the two hoses from the header tank to the radiator were chafing on a power steering hose. So, I zip tied them up to let them chafe of something else.

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All back together, Notice the new upper hose. To fill the cooling system with the car on stands, fill the header tank until full, fill the radiator until full. Cap both and run the engine until hot. Then let the engine cool. This takes hours. Then fill the header tank again. It was down about a quarter of an inch. A bit of air will remain in the engine and work its way out over several days of driving to be replaced by coolant. So, overfill the reservoir by about 3 inches.

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Here is a picture of questionable or failed parts I encountered. The accessory belts were OEM and having gone 57K they should have been worn out. They were. The upper radiator hose problem I already explained. The water pump was leaking. The three idler pulleys in this picture were all singing. The black plastic one is for the A/C belt. The timing belt toothed idler often fails completely before the 105K service interval I’m told, taking out the belt and valves. It was loud at 57K. The leaking tensioner I will call questionable since Subaru says some leakage is normal. To me that is like saying a leaking tire is normal.

Well, that’s my timing belt job sans timing belt. Aftermarket parts are chancy. But I don’t feel bad, it didn’t need a timing belt. The Subaru needed other parts and I am pleased that they got swapped out. Thanks for looking.

Topic

[Bill]

Very nice job there barneyb. Has a professional appeal to it. It certainly should be helpful to others with the same project.

[Its me]

Dang barneyb…. Keep em coming… Great write up and photos!!!

-Karl

[grimsubaru]

Very nice.

[Michael Sackstein]

nice job, very thorough!

[Lorrin Barth]

Today I came upon something I found interesting……

I see that I posted the above writeup and pictures 3 months ago. My wife saved some of the junk Subaru parts. She volunteers at the public library every Monday morning, working with young children, trying to get them interested in reading. One of her planned topics (and I didn’t come up with this) was tools and auto mechanics. So, today, out came the junk Subaru parts and some tools for a trip to the library.

If you notice in my above photographs, next to the water pump is a timing belt sprocket, a sprocket reputed to the cause of many a Subaru engine pull. The Subaru recommended mileage interval for timing belt service is 105K miles. Supposedly this sprocket won’t make it that far and when it locks up it takes out the timing belt.

This car had only 57K miles when this service was done but it was over on time. When removed, I found that this sprocket made a loud noise when spun indicating it needed replacement. It was replaced and the old part went into Deborah’s junk collection for the library. I think it is odd that sitting around for three months would cause any change in the condition of this sprocket but, today, when I picked it up, the bearings in it were locked.

So, heads up Subaru owners with engines with timing belts. Think if this car had been parked for three months!

[Author]

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