Well it's hard to say. But you may have been saved from a spun bearing of one sort or another. If that is the case, from the sounds of the sound you described, it sounds like maybe something did break. Like I said, it's very hard to try and diagnose something without seeing/hearing it in person(even hard in person sometimes..). Have you already started taking the motor out? If not, would it be possible to take a quick little video with sound for us to see and hear? No problem if not, but maybe just take the oil pan off first before you pull the motor.
Yeah, I guess the rear pan bolts would be very tough to get at when the motor is in the car. Hmm, I never tried taking the pan out when in, but I'd have to assume that it should be possible while the motor is in the car. A good service manual should be able to answer that question.
its possible you may have just destroyed a timing belt tensioner, they can sound like a wicked rod knock if they are really bad, i only say that because there is no metal in the oil
Awesome help guys, keep the brain storming going. Thank you. thank you. thank you. Now I am stuck on the air conditioning and don't have much of an idea how to discharge the system. I looked in the CD manual I have and it says I need a "refrigerant recovery system"? My guess, without too much looking into it, is that you can pick up something like that at an auto parts store. Input...?
You don't need to disconnect the AC, you should be able to unbolt it from the engine and swing it aside without disconnecting any of the lines. A recovery unit isn't cheap. and getting it recharged isn't cheap either.
DAMN! One of the engine mount nuts is stripped. So, that is going to be my battle for tomorrow. I think I am just going to give it hell with whatever I can and then get some new motor mounts so I don't have to worry about the stud. Upgrade motor mounts? Worth while? AC unit, that is awesome. I will have to head back in to the garage and look into pulling it out of the way. Thanks for the solid advice. That's the last of the disconnect... Picked up a hoist and an engine stand today at Northern Tool. Tomorrow I should have the engine out and more questions for everyone. You guys rock. Thanks again.
before you pull the motor why not take alook under the timing cover, you have to pull all the stuff of the front anyway, a blown timing belt pulley will make a horrible noise and it will sound like its coming form inside the motor... i'm rebuilding my RS motor right now because of a bad pulley and water pump. but i decided to get a newr short block anyway. and add cams and some other tricks I thoguht it was worse as well but then after looking it was just thoose parts... you should be able to wire up your power steering and ac stuff. Richard
cracked the timing belt cover on one side to check it out while I was cleaning things up tonight... couldn't tell what went bad, but the timing belt is sloppy loose. I am still going to pull the engine tomorrow, but that has to be what it is. Assuming the belt didn't slip a whole "tooth", what else could have gone wrong in the process? So, I am fortunately/unfortunately not in the market for new major engine bits. That whole hybrid, although way more money than I wanted to spend, was getting me kind of excited. Switch gears.... it's a timing belt fix now.
Exactly.... Any way I can check this, without pulling the engine apart to look at the valves, before I put the whole engine back in the car and reconnect everything?
well like i said too, you could buy my franken motor, lower miles fresh short block EJ205 for ya, new headgaskets, oil and water pumps too.
ha ha, you forgot about the whole... take the engine out, replace the tensioner, put the whole engine back in, fire it up....clank clank clank, then take the whole engine back out of the car. "easy" ha ha Well, the engine should be out soon. I am going to replace some stuff while it is out.... motor mounts, spark plugs, timing belt, tensioners.... what else would be good to do while it is out?
Leak down test would tell you if you have bent valves. If you don't have access to a leak down tester then you could just put each cylinder at TDC compression stroke and put some air pressure via a compressor to each individually. When the motor is out, and the headers/manifolds are off, you would be able to hear/feel air coming from the valves if they are bent. Of course you would need an air compressor to do either of these.
check this out.... this is what happened to me. http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=33545 but mine did not try to come out of the timing cover. I'd to water pump, thermostat, maybe oil pump
Does everyone use the special Subaru tool to hold the crank pulley while you hang from a cheater bar to get the bolt loose? I tried a couple different ways to hold the flywheel while I torqued, but neither system seemed solid enough to hold the torque needed to turn the bolt. What to do now.... Anyone have a tool I can borrow? Is there a way to rig it without the Subaru tool?
Dunno if you wanna risk turning your engine again, but what I usually do is put a huge breaker bar on the bolt, angle the bar down til it hits the floor, and start cranking the engine. Not enough to start it up, just tiny spurts, enough to break the bolt loose. Works every time.
First off, that sounds ridiculous. Second, I cannot exactly start my engine when it is out of my car. But, thanks for the idea. Keep em com'n.
I have no problem getting a ton of torque on it. My problem is that the engine is out of the car and I need to keep the whole thing from turning over while I torque on the bolt. The subaru tool attaches to the crank pulley and holds the system in place while you take the bolt out. So, leverage really isn't my problem, it's keeping the engine from turning over while out of the car.
I have a homemade one that works for the 2.2 pulleys. I think as long as the four holes are spaced the same it would work, especially since your engine is out of the car there's plenty of room for it to work. Also, you could grind/bend it a bit to make it fit. Otherwise, I have a chain wrench that might work with a cheater bar.
Or you could try to place/lodge a screwdriver somewhere on the flywheel to keep it from spinning as you crank on the crank pulley bolt....
This might be a really bad idea, but maybe you could fill the cylinders with oil to hydrolock the engine? (/me ducks) I'm not sure if you'd damage anything torquing on it, but that should keep the engine from turning over...
Tried the the whole wedging things into the flywheel a couple of nights ago... I got a really good hold with a piece of metal wedged between the bell housing and the teeth in the flywheel, but I kranked on it as hard as I trusted my setup and didn't want to push any harder. This is my new plan.... I am going to go pick up a strap wrench and see if that will hold the flywheel without damaging it. I think it will give me enough grip and I am going to put some rubber between the tool and the pulley to protect it. They are pretty expensive, but I think I can do some shopping around and figure something out..... http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/4A505
I am going to try getting a strap wrench tomorrow and see if that works. Thanks for the offer on the custom tool. I might try out my new welder and see what I can make for myself. If that doesn't work out, I might take you up on your offer.
back in the garage for the weekend.... So I went and bought an oversized belt wrench at NAPA made for taking off massive semi oil filters... and it actually worked!... well! Now the problem... I noticed when I cranking the engine that the belt tightened back up a bit. Well, when I took off the center belt cover and felt the belt, it felt tight??? I noticed the tensioner is hydraulic and I was wondering if when I drained the oil out of my car, I could have somehow lost tension that way. I turned the engine over a few times and the belt didn't ever loosen up, no matter what position the engine was in. How can this be???/ I am truely lost if the belt somehow decided to tighten back up. I know I wasn't crazy when I felt the sloppy belt earlier. Help.....
Forget what I said about the oil in the engine being connected to the timing belt tensioner. It looks to be just a stand alone hydraulic cylinder. There was some fluid sitting around the push rod of the cylinder. I assuming that the tensioner cylinder has blown. But, still... why the tight belt now when it was floppy loose before. We are talking about like 1.5-2 inches of slop when I felt it earlier.
simple; you have rotated the engine since you checked it the first time. Thus the cams are now at a different point. remember cams have lobes to push valves open, that means the valves also push back putting the timing belt under a load and that direction they are trying to force the cam to turn would be dependent on whether the vale is opening or closing. In turn causing the belt to go loose and then tight again as the cycle goes on. Thus the need for the tensioner.
I am pretty sure that isn't how the system works... First, the tensioner should hold "relatively" the same pressure on the belt at all times. Second, I would think the tensioner should be located on the slack side of the system, kind of like a bicycle chain derailure. Last, unless there is a variable spring rate setup in the tensioner that reacts to the engine position, the tensioner has no choise but to keep the same tension in the belt at all times regardless of what is going on. Sorry for the rant, I just doubt that engine position has anything to do with it. Correct me if I am stupid.
Perhaps the piston for the tensioner is kind of sticky or partially seized -- then your futzing with the flywheel (and thus subsequent movement of cams & timing belt) maybe was enough to jostle the piston back out of its stuck position.
this would be more appropriately applied to a motorcycle chain, as engine drag on decel would be replaced by the valves running down the back side of the cam lobes(pushing the cam clockwise) (this is why you should have a tool to lock the cam pulley when doing a timing belt change)causing the slack to be on the botom of the belt rather then the top. Think non running engine. just like a motorcycle when on the throttle the slack is on the bottom, now if you let off the gas the wheel is turning the engine over via the chain, the slack shifts from the bottom to the top as the side the load is on has changed. Also the tensioners are not instantly responsive in adjusting. may take an hour or so in this cold(guessing not a heated garage). if you wanted to test my answer, pull the valve train components(rocker arms/lifters) leaving the cams and pulleys in the heads. now spin the engine over with a wrench, you will find that the belt has "almost" an even tension/slack for as long as you want to turn it over. So in turn that is how it works, in short. Wall of tvs makes a good point also, unstick the plunger and let it sit for a few and walla a tight belt.
no offense taken. your bike derailer cenario uses a spring as the tensioner(instantly adjustable. our hydrolic tensioners don't respond that fast, hence when you compress a used one it takes 3 minutes according to the book to complete the compression process to get the pin back in the hole to hold it 'till you have it installed. respectively it would take a minimum of 3 minutes for it to fully adjust at a reasonable temprature, not the 10 degs it is today. as a note this can some times be the knock people hear with piston slap when they start up the car on a cold morning. just have to add time into the equation.
How do you do a good compression test with the engine out of the car??? I went in to town and picked up a compression tester and tried it out.... We just cranked the engine over by hand by putting the crank pulley back on and attaching a breaker bar to the large nut that holds the pulley on. Big concern.... every cylinder showed only about 40 psi after a few cycles!!!?? The cylinders should be within 150-170 for my engine. Mind you, there is no oil in the engine which effects compression, but not that much. The wierd part is that all the cylinders showed the exact same pressure. So, belt was loose... now it's tight??? Compression should be around 160 in each cylinder, compression IS around 40 psi per cylinder. What the hell is going on?? I know I am exploring out of my normal mechanic activities, but I think I am doing everything right. I need help on this one.... Anyone interested in swinging by Elk River tomorrow and taking a look. You name your price and I'll see what I can do for ya.
You'd have to do a leak-down test instead. I don't think you can crank it fast enough by hand to get an accurate reading.
kinda hard to do a compression test with out a way to turn it over faster then what you can by hand. A leak down test would be much easier and give you a better result. http://www.type2.com/library/engineg/leaktst.htm if you can't find one here is a quick how to make one http://www.xs11.com/tips/misc/misc3.shtml I may be free tomorrow if needed.
if its on an engine stand.. try to tighten a starter onto it and use a power button on the starter.. ha ha.. may work... probably not...
