Timing Belt

Next project up is to change the timing belt on the Subaru engine. I purchased a Gates complete kit with new tensioner and pulleys/gears from the local CarQuest since I just know very little about this engine and access the timing belt is a lot easier on the stand then in the car.

First step is to remove the crank pulley and tensioner. Then on to the plastic timing belt cover. Easy enough

For the most part, this was a pretty straight forward project. I followed a technical forum write up by Meaty on North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club Website as well as the instructions that came with the kit and the pdf service manual, which I downloaded from Ken Gilbert's Website. All three were slightly different in instruction, so I had to make some decisions along the way.

The biggest worry I had was regarding the right side cam gear timing mark. I actually had two different marks, a white paint dot and an engraved dash in the gear face itself with pink paint.

In the end, I went with the physical indented dash with the pink dot. I followed the instructions, lined the belt up appropriately, double checked everything, and then pulled the tensioner key to put the belt under tension.

The time of judgement came after when I rotated the crank two full revolutions to see if all three timing markets still lined up again.

Yes = Did it right

No = Did it wrong

My results YES = Did it right!