kbohip

108k miles on our '05 LGT wagon. Stock engine and turbo. The car runs like a dream and burns no oil between changes at 3500 miles. We bought it in Albuquerque 5 years ago and it's been a Colorado (non mountain town) car ever since so zero rust anywhere. Hehe, the hubs still slid right off when I did the rear bearings. When I drive my mom's '11 Outback and get back into the LGT, I feel like I've just stepped out of a trash truck into a Ferrari F355.

Just did this again tonight on the wife's car. It has 104,000 now. The last time I did it unfortunately was at 46k back in 2013. The old ATF looked like motor oil more than ATF. Shifts seem smoother again but I'm not the usual driver of the car.

Just did this yesterday on my wife's '05 LGT wagon. The original lasted just over 90k miles and about 12 years so pretty good. I had the axle out of the car within 20 minutes of jacking it up. I used my finger to push it out of the hub. The joys of working on a car that grew up in rust free Albuquerque! The inner boot was of course the one that had split but I went ahead and replaced the outer boot too since I had it apart anyway. The worst part of the job turned out to be the boot straps. Even though I bought a CV boot strap tightening tool I couldn't get it to work quite right and the straps kept trying to slide off the boots. Got it done though and the joints still looked perfect as the boot had only been torn for a few days.

^^^I HATE that oil! As far as I'm concerned it's like running water in your engine. I haven't put it in my LGT, but I did make the mistake of putting it into my '02 Nissan Maxima. The engine was quiet as can be running Castrol GTX 10w-40 (it burns oil so I run a thicker viscosity), I changed over to the M1 HM 5W-30 and within 50 miles the engine was making a clunking noise at idle after it warmed up. I have no idea what it was but it sounded like bottom end noise. Regardless, I got that crap out of there and decided to run the same Rotella T6 5W-40 that I run in the LGT. Lo and behold within 10 miles the noise completely disappeared. I then had some leftover M1 HM 5W-30 so I ran it in my 4-stroke Honda weedeater. The engine started to make a lot of noise! I switched that over to the T6 too and no more noise. Having this water masquerading as oil attempting to keep a turbo lubricated would scare the Hell out of me. I've been running the T6 in my LGT for 50k miles now and she purrs like a kitten and starts right up in 0F weather.

Has anyone here ever replaced the bearing without the hub assembly? I realize it would have to be pressed out of the hub, but I'm buying a shop press anyway due to my Nissan Maxima needing both front bearings replaced. On that car it's a much more drawn out procedure which requires removing the bearing from the hub and pressing it in, etc. The reason I ask is I would think it would be a lot cheaper just buying the bearing without the whole hub assembly. Even better is with the stock hub, there wouldn't be the possibility of running into CC trouble.

Did this today along with the water pump. Luckily I had my father-in-law over to help me loosen the crank bolt....at least that's all I thought I'd need him for. I decided against the vise grip method of holding the driver's side camshaft pulleys together as I was afraid of putting too much pressure on the exhaust one and breaking it like what happened to a previous poster. Not thinking they were under as much pressure as they were, I used a 2" spring clamp to keep them from moving once the belt was removed. Ha yeah, that didn't work! Boing and off they went! I was instantly nervous that I'd bent valves, but I was sure to only turn the top pulley clockwise and the bottom counter-clockwise to get them back in position. It took my father-in-law holding the top at position and me holding the bottom at position while simultaneously attaching my vise grips to hold them. Even with the Vise grips in the pulleys were starting to slowly move after I had replaced the tensioners and the water pump. We eventually got the belt lined up and in place though and all was well. I slowly turned the engine over by hand and it was smooth. Got everything back together, added coolant and took it on a test drive. The car drove perfectly. I would say this is definitely a 2 person job because of how hard it is to get all of the pulleys lined up perfectly. I would also like to note that I replaced my belt not because of mileage, but because of time. Only 65k miles, but it was built in '04 so it was due. I was quite surprised to see that one of the tensioners (the one with the cogs on it) was already sounding like a roller skate wheel and had play in it! I wouldn't have wanted to drive another 40k miles on it. In closing, I'd like to give a HUGE thanks to this forum and the OP of this thread. The info here was invaluable, and tonight I am around $1,000 richer because of it. Parts list: Gates TCK328 timing belt kit Aisin water pump ($65 off of Ebay and it looks every bit as good of quality as the stock Yamada one) Dayco drive belts Subaru OEM thermostat

I did this about 8 months ago on my wife's '05 LGT wagon passenger side rear. Hub came right off with no problem (rust free New Mexico car). Anyway I used a Moog and it's been doing fine since. Of course the other rear bearing is whining like mad too so I'll be doing that one next and using a Moog again.

This and you're done. http://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_11129.jpg http://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools/impact-wrenches/12-in-professional-air-impact-wrench-68424.html

Let me know if you find it there. I didn't see it on their website but NAPA's always had a a terrible site.

How many gallons of coolant are needed for a coolant change? At $23.xx a gallon from Subaru, I don't want to buy more than I have to! Also, I've read mixed reports on the Subaru "coolant conditioner," ie. head gasket leak stopper. Is the general consensus here to still use it? I'll definitely be buying the oem thermostat from Subaru too. I've never had good luck with any aftermarket thermostats. I have to change out the Beck/Arnley one I put in my Nissan Maxima because it's causing the cooling fans to run a lot more than usual for instance. Extra heat is something the 2.5GT and it's fragile head gaskets don't need.

Thanks for the excellent guide btw. I'll be doing a timing belt soon but hopefully I won't need to mess with any of these seals. They look like a lot of work!

One question. With the pulleys completely off, how do you keep the camshafts from spinning and bending the valves?

It's one of those ideas that's so simple it can't possibly work....right? Since those two pulleys are so easy to access, I might get a bolt and nut and try this ahead of time. I want to see if I can get it in there tight enough that it doesn't roll out, but not too tight that it mars the pulley.

So I've decided to tackle this job myself. After talking with the dealer I found out that the $500 price they quoted me only included replacing the belt itself, not any of the tensioners or pulleys, and of course not the water pump. To do all of those they think it would be in the $900-1000 range. Of course I would also want the drive belts replaced and maybe even the thermostat too so it would be even more. This won't be my first TB job. My last one was on a '91 Nissan Maxima with a transverse engine that meant very little room to work. In contrast the Subaru has a ton of room and the location couldn't be easier to get to. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you guys though. My '05 LGT only has 64k miles on it. I'm replacing the belt not due to mileage but due to it's age. If you were in my situation with the low miles, would you replace the water pump? Normally I wouldn't even give it a second thought and put a new one in, but I've read that some guys are getting a ton of trouble free miles on the oem WP, and others are saying the WP in the Gates kit doesn't seem to be as good of quality. Oh and one more thing. I'm a bit worried that I might put too much pressure on the cam sprockets using the Vise-Grip method to hold them in place. I looked around for alternatives and found a guy that used only a bolt with a nut on the end! Take a look. http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k252/lnmccoy/CamTool.jpg

I'll be tackling this tomorrow. Can't wait. Ok, job is done. It took me about an hour and 45 minutes. It wasn't too bad with the exception of the passenger side rear plug. Even with all of my extensions and adapters, I couldn't get the 3/8" drive in there very well. That's right, I did the whole job without the use of a 1/4" drive. The only other problem I had was trying to fit the coil/boot back over the plug on the driver's side rear. It seemed no amount of playing with it could get the plug boot to go over the top of the plug. Eventually I pulled the sound deadening material away and was able to finally get it to slide over the top. As for my old original plugs? They looked really good after 60,557 miles. I think the previous owner drove the car very easy for the 41k miles they owned it. The car runs exactly the same now as it did with the old plugs, which is good I guess. Also, there was no rust at all anywhere on the coils. I bought the car in Albuquerque, NM though which is a pretty dry climate so that's probably why.

Can't tell you how good it is to hear this kind of info in a forum where it seems every other topic is "Turbo died" or "Need new turbo" etc. I'm using Rotella T6 in my '05 LGT wagon and sticking with 3,750 OCI. I figure it's not that much more than a good dino oil, maybe $6 tops for an oil change so why bother with dino. Plus at 6,500' elevation the turbo up here is being used more anyway.

Thanks. This is good to know. Autozone was a NIGHTMARE for my Maxima! It's good to know they are fine with Subaru's. I'm sure I'll be doing this job soon enough on my wife's '05GT. I can already see the inner passenger side boot turning a new color as the turbo heat "paints" it.

Did the job today. Went through 11.5 quarts of fluid and now it's nice and red instead of brown. A messy job to be sure, especially as my funnel wouldn't fit all the way inside the stupidly small trans. dipstick/filler tube. I couldn't even fit my hose style funnel in it that fit easily inside the front diff dipstick/filler tube. Regardless though, even at only 46k miles the fluid looked to be in need of changing. I can not even believe Subaru says this service is optional! I don't know if I'll do this again in another 30k miles or another 50k miles. I think I'll go ahead and change out the filter next time too.

I found a really interesting product over at Amazon. An air tool that stretches new boots on. Pretty nifty tool but not one I'd spend the $116.00 for unless I had a fleet of Subarus to maintain. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEKY0uFlBpc]CV Boot Replacement - STRETCH Boots - YouTube[/ame]

It all depends on how quickly the boot is replaced after it tears. I replaced my boots on a '92 Nissan Maxima (famous for going through boots) when the car had around 60k miles on it. They were still going strong when my wife wrecked the car at 138k miles. The thing is though, I checked under the car at every oil change and caught the torn boot when it had gone only 100 miles or so. The joint and bearings were still completely covered in grease when I pulled off the old boots. The reason I'm so hesitant on reman. axles is I've had problems with them in the past. Vibrations, poor fitment, shoddy quality, etc. From my experience the best thing to do is keep the stock axles and reboot as long as you take care of a torn boot immediately. The only way I'll go reman. again is if there's a lot of good feedback from users on the forum about a certain brand.

Picked up the Subaru ATF-HP at Hueberger yesterday. Used a 20% off coupon and got it for $5.94 a quart. I forgot to get the stupid crush washer for the tranny drain pan though. I'm thinking of just reusing it as I do with most crush washers. I never get leaks from reusing my oil drain plug crush washer. One question though, is it better to do this job when the car is cool or hot or does it even matter?

After reading how this is done and watching a video on Youtube, I think I'm going to go at this job from under the car instead. I was over at Harbor Freight the other day and was standing there trying to talk myself into buying this unusual looking ratchet: http://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_12707.jpg http://www.harborfreight.com/3-8-eighth-inch-heavy-duty-flexible-ratchet-96369.html Of course I couldn't come up with a reason to buy it then but now I have one! Between the spark plug job on this Subaru and the thermostat job on my Nissan Maxima, this ratchet should prove to be invaluable. One question I have though. I see some people changing out the plugs on their GT's before the 60k mile recommendation. Is this due to a loss of power/gas mileage? The reason I ask is I'll be taking our's on a 2k mile trip the end of March and I want the best gas mileage and of course power that I can get.

My local dealer quoted me $500 for the timing belt replacement, which seems amazingly cheap as my normal independent mechanic quoted me $1,000.00! I've done timing belts on Nissan Maximas before, but they are not my favorite job. I think I may let the dealer do this one.

I'm going to use this procedure soon on my wife's '05GT, but I'm going to drain the pan first. I assume it'll have a magnet on the drain plug and I want to clean it off and also make sure it's not loaded up with metal shavings. Is there a copper washer on the tranny plug that will need to be replaced?

So is the general consensus around here still T6 with 3,750 oci? I was planning on going with T6 and a 3k mile oci but it seems like 3,750 shouldn't be a problem. Then again, this forum has me so petrified that the turbo is going to blow up, destroy the engine, and Satan himself is going to show up at my door proclaiming he's the only one that can fix it and it will cost me my soul so I'm probably just going for overkill here.