Belts.

"ddavidn" (ddavidn) 12/19/2013 at 18:28 • Filed to: mechanicbynecessity

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So... I really do want to take the Subie to a mechanic, to have them change the belts and check out that whole system. But... somehow cash is always kind of short. So how many of you think I should replace the belts and solve the squealing myself? Timing belt is something I wanted replaced, but could wait as it doesn't seem to have a problem. That's just preventative maintenance. The one that pulls the alternator/power steering definitely needs changed, though. So what should I do? Try the belts myself? Sell my kidney and take it to a mechanic? What do you think? Don't know the root cause of the squealing and occasional power steering issues (first startup on a cold day is a struggle for power steering) but I am willing to tear the thing apart to find out. Thanks as usual, guys.

Not my picture. No snow here.

Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:32

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do the accessory belts yourself they're easy. don't do the timing belt unless you know exactly what your doing that's how I screwed up my first engine in my RS because the timing gear on the crank came loose and took a nice chunk out of the crankshaft.

Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:32

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Where are you located? Is it really that expensive to do belts? I work at a shop, and I don't look at costs much there.

I would try on your own though, the Subaru is a fairly easy breed to work on. Look at the forums and see what you can find on a DIY of it. Should not take more than an hour cause those are bolt tensioners, and not self tensioned. So you need to adjust it

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:33

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I've been reading newer vehicles are trickier to change the belts. it's tight, and some need a special tool, often which mechanics have.

Takuro Spirit > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:36

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Accessory belts are easy, but the tensioner adjuster for the alt/PS belt frequently rusts up on these, making it a bitch to change. Lube it good if it is, and it'll be a cake walk.

ddavidn > Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ 12/19/2013 at 18:36

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Oh yeah, that's why I said the timing belt could wait. Don't want to do that.

ddavidn > Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT 12/19/2013 at 18:37

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Washington state, and probably not. But if it ends up being $100, I'll have to wait for a couple weeks.

KB Garage > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:38

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If the drive/accessory belt is not cracked, you can actually take it/them off and try cleaning it/them with a toothbrush, dish soap and water. Do the same to pulleys before you reinstall. That costs you nothing at least to try and solve the squealing.

ddavidn > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy 12/19/2013 at 18:38

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I don't think I'll ever have a "newer" vehicle... I don't think the subie requires special tools. My BMW just takes an 8mm hex wrench, which I have. I think the Subie is a bolt.

Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:39

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of course it is useful when you have the spare cash and want to do an STi swap but need an excuse.

ddavidn > Takuro Spirit 12/19/2013 at 18:40

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Good things to consider. Thanks.

wkiernan > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:40

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I don't know how hard it is to get to the external (i.e. not the timing) belts on a Subaru but on my car they're pretty accessible, right out in the open where you can get to them. If that's the case for your car, grab your wrench set, go buy a new belt and while you're at the auto parts store get yourself one of these

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and you should be able to fix that squealing problem for cheap.

Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:40

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The belts them selves are cheap, I paid maybe 40ish for mine and mine was a "top of the line" belt. Your car will have multi belts.

ddavidn > Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ 12/19/2013 at 18:42

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Yeah, well... I don't exactly have the cash for that. But it would be fun... EXCEPT this car is a silly automatic. So. Not worth a swap.

ddavidn > wkiernan 12/19/2013 at 18:43

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I knew I would need some special little tool. Thanks for letting me know what it is.

ddavidn > Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT 12/19/2013 at 18:45

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Yeah, seems like that should be about what it would cost. I'm mainly wondering what else I need to be checking while I'm in there. I guess I'm afraid a pulley will be wonky, or something weird like that.

I should probably do more googling.

Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:46

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Take belts off.

Spin the pulleys. Feel for rough ness, or noise.

Make sure the pully is sloppy, wiggle it spin it play with it. Become the pulley.

If all is well new belts on adjust tensioner and move about on your day.

ddavidn > Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT 12/19/2013 at 18:48

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Sweet. If there's roughness/noise, is it a bolt-off bolt-on process, or will I need to take it in for something fancy?

I realize I sound very n00bish, but I don't want to break anything. I have just replaced the radiator in this car, and that worked out fine...

Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:49

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my RS was an auto before I started my swap, I got a whole Ver. 4 drive-train for about 4k. the only thing I'm missing is a merged harness and a few nuts and bolts, and the time to work on it.

ddavidn > Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ 12/19/2013 at 18:50

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Nice.

Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:51

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Depends.

Idler is a bolt on bolt off process.

Alternator or PS pump or AC compressor is a different story possibly..

If you want to go and try to replace the pulley it's not always easy. Some need a special tool. You are ususlly better off replacing the whole componenent. An Alternator on that is easy since its up top. Same with a PS pump. AC compressor looks like a nightmare.

It also can be the crank pulley. Those are easy to do, to check that start the car with the belts on and watch the lowest pulley, if its dancing around and acting up get a new one.

I have had one split apart on the highway and it decimated half my engine bay (it came apart at 9,000 RPM)

Doge_Supreme drives a BRZ > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:53

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Yeah I plan to do a full write up on the swap once its finished but it probably wont be done until the summer.

ddavidn > Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT 12/19/2013 at 18:55

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Yeesh, 9,000 RPM?

Good things to know. None of the pulleys should be doing anything but spinning, right? When I get home to the car I can tell you which one is slightly wobbly...

Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 18:59

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They should all be fairly straight. A little wiggle is alright.

The troublesome wobbler is called a "dampener" or something.

Basically its two pulleys with a rubber isolator to get rid of vibrations in the engine. They come apart in age.

Mine happened to tear apart as I was whipping onto the highway. I heard a thunk thunk immedietly killed the ignition and coasted off.....I thought I killed the engine haha

ddavidn > Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT 12/19/2013 at 19:01

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I had a belt on my Toyota snap on the freeway. Didn't know quite what was wrong. Got off, into the turn lane of a big intersection (SMART!) and it died. Had the cops push me out of the intersection...

Nick, Drives a Cobalt LT > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 19:03

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I shredded a belt on the cobalt at the drag strip.
That was fun. We spent an hour roaming parts stores to get my belt haha

desertdog5051 > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 19:18

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All I can tell you is the front belts are easy (Mine is a '98.) The timing belt is the big problem I had. The idler pulleys on the timing belt failed on mine and caused massive failure of the engine. (they are an interference engine).

NaturallyAspirated > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 19:30

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Subaru eh? Belts should be perfectly straightforward. I drive a '98 Subaru Legacy with the 2.5L engine, I imagine yours is the 2.2 or 2.0 but it should be pretty similar.

Tools needed: basic metric socket set, and a little spray lube never hurt.

Parts needed: New belt, I like Gates brand but it really doesn't matter.

The front belt is the one that runs the power steering and alternator.

Step 1: Remove the belt cover, 2 bolts and 1 nut.

Step 2: Loosen, but do not remove (1 or 2 turns should do it), the lock bolt on the belt tensioner, which is on the right-hand side of the alternator when viewed from the driver's seat.

Step 3: Loosen, but do not remove (again, 1 or 2 turns should do it), the lock bolt on the alternator pivot. On my car, a little bracket for the cover fell off at this point. Just hang on to it and remember to put it back when you put the new belt on.

Step 4: Loosen the long tensioning bolt on the alternator until the belt is loose enough to remove.

If you want to do the A/C belt at the same time:

Step 1: Loosen, but do not remove, the lock nut on the A/C belt tensioner.

Step 2: Loosen the long tensioner bolt until you can remove the belt.

Put your new belts on one at a time, installation is the reverse of removal, and don't forget to tighten down all the lock bolts and nuts.

You want the belts pretty tight on the Subaru. They should be tight enough that you can't easily twist the belt much more that about 1/4 turn by hand when grasped in the middle of the longest straight run you can get ahold of. You can use the tool that wklernan posted instead, but I've found that those are not very useful on Subarus because the belts are too short to get an accurate reading. I just use the "twist test" on my belts.

While you have the belts off, wipe behind the power steering pulley with a white paper towel. If there's any moisture or red or reddish-brown fluid back there, then I know what your power steering problem is and I can help with that, too, since the exact same thing happened to my car.

Let me know if you need any other info. Now, it's back to watching the mailbox for my Tonx delivery.

MonkeePuzzle > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 22:51

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what year? pre 97 should be non-interference so letting the timing belt fail is LESS of an issue that post 97 interference engine.

I just this year taught myself to do timing belt on subarus, its time consuming, and finicky, but NOT hard.

For the alternator, A/C belts, dead easy! seriously one bolt on both to loosen, then off they come, put on new ones and tighten back up.

TheDon > ddavidn 12/20/2013 at 00:12

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I wouldn't wait on the timing belt unless your engine isn't an interference engine.

ddavidn > MonkeePuzzle 12/20/2013 at 00:47

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1998. How long would you estimate between timing belt changes?

I really think a mechanic should do it for me.

That's pretty much my plan. I just need to find good info on how to tell if anything is wrong besides the belt itself.

ddavidn > TheDon 12/20/2013 at 00:47

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It's a 1998. How long do you think the belt should last?

MonkeePuzzle > ddavidn 12/20/2013 at 09:16

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if its timing belt, then you should do the whole shebang, water pump, idlers etc etc. because its a ton of labour to get to those.

If you just have squeaking belts, thats far more likely to be the A/C and power steering belts (two separate belts), and changing those for yourself is really very easy. AND as a bonus, if you mess these up all that is impacted is accessory items so you can still drive it to someone else to fix it for you.

ddavidn > MonkeePuzzle 12/20/2013 at 09:51

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Yup. I've no reason to believe that I need a new timing belt right now, it's just for preventative maintenance since the car just turned 200k. I'm going to replace the two accessory belts myself, and hope it takes care of the problem. Then get the timing belt done next month.

TheDon > ddavidn 12/20/2013 at 14:10

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Well I don't know subarus but the belts usually on cars with them have a life of 50-70k miles. It just depends. They are not a lifetime part like a timing chain can be( chains still need to be changed when the stretch can no longer be adjusted out with woodruff keys or whatever the method).

If you have no records on the timing belt, replace it so you don't grenade the engine. Also do the water pump since they are usually driven by the timing belt and it's difficult to get in there anyways.

ddavidn > TheDon 12/20/2013 at 14:12

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It's been about 50k now. I'll take it in for replacement next month, I think. But the other belts need to be done for sure, so I am going to get them out of the way.

TheDon > ddavidn 12/20/2013 at 14:27

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Look into what the chane interval is before wasting money. Your serpentine belt is cake to do. Usually only takes a 3/8th ratchet

ddavidn > TheDon 12/20/2013 at 14:29

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Yeah, not expecting problems with the accessory belts now that nobody has brought up anything that I would likely mess up in the process.

TheDon > ddavidn 12/20/2013 at 21:14

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find a good subaru forum and join if you haven't already.

ddavidn > TheDon 12/21/2013 at 01:41

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That's a good idea. I guess I didn't think of it because I'm not really a Subaru enthusiast. Good call, thanks.

TheDon > ddavidn 12/21/2013 at 15:00

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I've joined a forum for just about everything. I've been a member of thesamba.com for almost 10 years and still have not gotten an air cooled vw.

ddavidn > TheDon 12/21/2013 at 15:09

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I used to be on a lot of forums, then I dropped it all because I had no time for any of them. Just decided to be on Oppo.