Timing belt snapped, how to assess if you have valve damage?

[drewbabich]

2005 Legacy 5 spd manual 2.5 I non turbo.

 

My belt snapped on the highway yesterday. I know for a fact its the belt because it broke the timing belt cover plastic case and you can see it all bunched up and poking through the plastic.

 

Question: How do you know if you are going to need new heads because the pistion smashed into all the out of timing valves?

 

I assume my valves are trashed but it'd be great if they weren't.

 

I was doing about 65 mph when it happend. Before I confirmed the broken belt i obviously tried to starte the car a couple times as well.

 

I never heard any bad metalic sounds like valves hitting pistions, but you probably wouldn't hear that.

 

175,000 miles. Timing belt last changed at 80,000 by previous owner. I was told the service interval was 120,000 miles so I was planning on doing it at 200,000 miles. Maybe I had bad information. Either way, whats the diagnostic for assessing the damage and moving forward.

[Brian3676]

99.99% chances your valves are smashed. Specially if you tried to start it a few times. If there not, I also suggest buying a lotto ticket.

 

You can do a leak down test to be 100% sure though, and find out what cylinders.

[lockmedic]

+1 for a leakdown test.

 

It only takes one strike to bend the valves. You probably wouldn't have heard it.

 

I have an 08 parts car that broke the timing belt during a crash. Just did a leakdown test on it and found only one cyl. with leaky valves, and it's on the exhaust side only. I consider that very lucky as it means I've only got to buy and reshim 2 valves instead of x=<16.

[drewbabich]

How about buying replacement heads? I have a buddy that bought replacement heads for his 2000 for 115 shipped each side. That sounds like the best way to go about it.

 

The cheapest I can find on side of heads for is 190 and 250 on ebay.

 

Anyone know of some great subaru specific salvage yards?

[Berzerklo]

What part of the world are you in?

 

Either the belt itself snapped or the timing belt tensioner went - which may or may not have been replaced at 80,000 by the previous owner.

[drewbabich]

New Hampshire/ Maine.

 

Yea it might be the tensioner or some pulley in there. It looks like the belt is still a continuous loop from the ribbon of belt I can see thats sticking out of the broken belt cover case.

 

It looks like it snapped from the passenger side of the engine and is bunched up above the center of the engine.

[lockmedic]

If you can get good heads for that cheap that's not bad. It's not terrible to replace valves and have the machine shop rework them tho, as yours should still be adjustable rockers (not bucket on shim like the turbo cars).

 

Valve replacement really isn't that big of a deal on non-turbo cars. It just sucks on the hairdryer cars as the shims are ridonkulous to buy.

 

First thing I'd do is a leakdown test to see which, if any, sides you need to pull.

[drewbabich]

Thanks for the good input. So far I've hacked it up a good bit so far...

 

I sprayed every bolt with pb blaster but only gave it like an hour to sit.

 

I rounded off the bottom two 12 mm bolts on the driver side tensioner bar for the serpentine belt.

 

The long bolt on the passenger side tensioner sheared off so I'll have to replace that hardware.

 

I got all bolts off except two around the timing belt cover. A few were so rusted I had to go a size down for 10 mm.

 

Tonight I take the MAP gas to it and see if I can get those rounded off 12 mm bolts....

 

I have them sitting with some acetone/atf mix right now.

[drewbabich]

Another thing, a few mechanics, one a subaru specialist, says that I have a decent shot that the valves are ok since my car is SOHC....

 

Most people say I'm at 99.99 percent probability of trashed valves which seems to make sense to me.

 

Anyone have a belt break and not have it ruin the valves? What speed were you at when it broke.

[KartRacerBoy]

drew, how many miles on the car when the belt broke? Just curious since I had my belt changed at about 110,000 miles and the belt wasn't too bad. Mechanic thought it could've gone 20k more miles and I have an LGT.

[drewbabich]

175,000 and the previous owner was meticulous with maintenance. He had it done at 80,000 miles.

 

I called the shop it was done at and confirmed they did it. I didn't have the reciept or actual proof but I purchased the car with 120,000 miles and it was like a brand new car when I bought it so I'm sure he did do it.

 

The other thing that suprised me I was thinking since 90% of the miles on this car are highway that it would be less stressful on the belts and that they'd surely last the 105,000 miles specified.

 

I got the driver side cover off last night and there is no belt on that head pulley, its all bunched up on the passenger side.

 

I'm guessing the belt snapped but can't confirm yet what exactly failed.

[LatentWagen]

Another thing, a few mechanics, one a subaru specialist, says that I have a decent shot that the valves are ok since my car is SOHC....

 

This. The SOHC cars are non-interference, so you should be good.

[lockmedic]

Um, yeah they are. . . unless you're talking about a 1996ish or earlier EJ. Even the 97 2.2 is interference, as are all the phase 2 motors.

[LatentWagen]

Um, yeah they are. . . unless you're talking about a 1996ish or earlier EJ. Even the 97 2.2 is interference, as are all the phase 2 motors.

 

Yea, I was basing that statement on my '95 2.2. Not the same?

[lockmedic]

lol yeah I wish Subaru had stuck with that architecture. The 2.2 is pretty much bulletproof.

 

Anyone have a belt break and not have it ruin the valves? What speed were you at when it broke.

 

lol that's kinda like asking "how deep were you f*cking her when you knocked her up?". . . it's purely conjecture and really doesn't matter as just like the analogy involving sperm, it only takes one hit.

[GTEASER]

:lol:

[drewbabich]

lol that's kinda like asking "how deep were you f*cking her when you knocked her up?". . . it's purely conjecture and really doesn't matter as just like the analogy involving sperm, it only takes one hit.

 

Ha ha ha interesting analogy and this is a little off topic but my girlfriend is four months knocked up... I don' t recommend Nuva Ring to anyone.

 

So pretty much no one reading here thinks I have much chance at having safe valves after the belt broke. So sad.

 

I've priced out used ones at around 180 each sent in the mail plus the cost of head gaskets and the timing belt kit and the broken tensioner so far.

 

I'm looking about about 700 in parts assuming I don't break more stuff and I get it all back together correctly.

[lockmedic]

My ex was on Nuva ring. . . dodged that bullet fortunately. . or at least if she got preggers she's been very good at hiding it for the last 4 years.

 

You could be OK. . . hard to say, really. tear that sucka down and get it to piss on the stick!

 

Congrats, btw!

[drewbabich]

How do you line up the two cams and crank pulley on a belt that already snapped?

 

As it sits now my passenger side cam white idicator mark is facing me at about the 7 o'clock position.

 

The driver side cam is facing with the white idicator about about 10 o'clock.

 

I know when you line them up both cams are supposed to be at 12 o'clock with the crank pully indicator also at 12 o'clock.

 

But I'm concerned about moving the cams and causing further damage by striking the pistions. I have no idea where each piston is inside of its cylinder... (i assume damage is already done anyway but...)

 

Should I just move the crank to 12 o'clock, then move the cams to that position?

[GTEASER]

Move everything the shortest distance around the clock, either clockwise or counter-clockwise, to the 12 o'clock position, starting with the crank.

[lockmedic]

Once you park the crank where it's supposed to be, you can move the cams freely without damaging anything.

 

Use the mark on the rear flange of the crank pulley, not the one on the face of the pulley.

 

Marks on the cam pulleys should line up with the mark on the belt cover, or the seam between the head & rocker box (same thing).

[drewbabich]

So I walked through the lining up process of the cams and crank wheels with a subaru mechanic that is looking for my heads for me.

 

Hopefully the sequencing of moventments was right but I'm not so sure they are.

 

First he instructed me to move each cam till I found the area where the cams had about 45 degrees of free play back and forth (the safe zone where they are in the home position).

 

The passenger side one located it at the 12 o clock position, but he was suprised that the driver side cam did not have free play at 12 and we kept cranking the cam

till it had free play at about 6 o'clock....

 

Then he instructed me to move the crank based of the tic mark on the back of the gear to the TDC position near 12 o'clock.

 

Not sure if thats right or not....

 

But, next step I plan on ratcheting each cam at this point to the correct position which has them near 12 o'clock in accordance to whatever indicators my new belt shows or the tic marks show on the cams.

 

I didn't have a ton of resistance on any of the three cams/crank pulley that felt excessive as I ratcheted them in place. I almost could of moved all three with two bare hands I think if I grabbed it as hard as I could. I used a ratchet to make it easier, but its not like I was putting of ton of torque on it and crushing valves into pistons is my hope, but maybe the valves are so frigile it doesn't take much torque to mash them past a piston thats possibly in the interference zone.

 

We'll see.

[lockmedic]

The cams will spin pretty freely until you start to hit one of the lobes and the valves start opening, then it gets a little harder.

 

When setting the cams to install the belt, the passenger side will park in a 'free' area (it'll wiggle back and forth with little resistance). Driver's side usually has to be held in place as the belt is installed but I can often get them to 'rest on top of the hill'

 

It's virtually impossible to tell if there's valve damage from the way the cams feel as you spin them from the pulleys. The valves will still open just fine, they just don't close all the way, which makes it rather difficult for the engine to do it's typical otto-cycle suck squeeze bang blow thing.

[Max Capacity]

drewbabich, do you have the service manual for your car ?

 

It's all in there.

 

Also read the timing belt threads in the DIY forum.

 

You need to set #1 up on TDC at the crankshaft. That's the front piston passenger side.

 

Once that's done, pistons #2 & 4 will be at mid travel point, piston #3 will be at the bottom.

 

2 & 4 are the drivers side pistons, so those cams will hard to move.

 

don't worry about the timing marks on the belt, they mean nothing to the engine. You need to make sure the crank and cam marks line up.

 

The belt marks will change position as the engine rotates so don't worry about having them lined up with anything. Do you real think the belt cares where is ?

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/timing-belt-replacement-2-5t-106809.html

 

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/replacing-timing-belt-94193.html?t=94193

[drewbabich]

Short version: I got it stripped down to the head bolts and just want to make sure I don't strip a head bolt or snap one. Any advice?

 

Long Version:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Good instructions. Yea I just ordered one. I was just nervous on sequencing since nothing was lined up to start with.

 

Got everything lined up according the tic marks and on the belt which was fun. The clothespin on the driver side cam wheel trick did help. As did the 'make sure to slowly vice down the timing belt tensioner in order to not blow the seal' trick.

 

Car would not start after belt was installed. You could hear the lack of compression compared to how it usually sounds on start up. Instead of a strong 'pump' sound you could hear a weak 'whoose' pumping sound as the engine was cranked. Compression testing showed 0 PSI in cylinder 1 and 2. I didn't test the back two.

 

At this point I have the passenger side intake removed and the valve cover. I have access to the six 14mm head bolts but those bolts are set in place pretty good. They weren't budging even with a two foot breaker bar on them.

 

I was afraid of stripping heads of the bolts off or shearing them so I wanted to check for tricks before I went to town on them. They are 12 point bolts (which I've never played with before) so they seem pretty tough. Any advice?

 

--------Side note on using a drill bit to lock down the timing belt tensioner---------------

 

At first the tensioner could not be held down with a simple nail because it was bending the nail. (I didn't have a grenade pin that'd come with a new one). So I used a drill bit. That bit had hard enough metal to hold the tensioner pistion down to get it on.