Subaru Forester 2.0 timing belt failure

b.harte

So my latest bangernomics purchase, a '00 2.0 automatic forester AWD, has given up prematurely with timing belt failure.
The background.
The car was picked up about 4 weeks ago, with a good bit of history and even a receipt for the full belt & kit replacement approx 30k miles ago. it is in generally good condition for a '00 and the previous owner seemed honest etc. in short the car appeared to check out okay and I was more than happy with it - even with the thirst for petrol.
Today it packed up, looks as if the aircon drive belt snapped (seized tensioner - maybe) and whacked the timing belt cover sending some of the plastic and belt inwards which wrapped & snapped the belt. Some of the aircon belt is jammed onto the compressor body as well - which to me might indicate failure originated with the ancillary belt.
It seems plausible given what I can see and the deformation on the timing belt cover is inwards but it seems a bit odd that so much carnage could result.
What seems more plausible is that the failure came from inside - possibly the WP - but this is listed on the receipts as well. If the timing belt fail it seem plausible that this could deform the cover which might jump the ancillary belt and show similar damage inside and outside.
Either way it gone - just wondering from those of you in the know what is the likely carnage level of a low rpm belt failure - occurred in moderate town traffic <1500 rpm and car seemed to loose power first before stopping.
With Christas here funds are low, a belt is approx 100 and I'm reasonably well tooled-up for tackling the change myself - current worse case is I need a replacement car - obviously dont want to waste time and money if valves etc are fubarded. Don't have a compression tester it there and other option to pre-check for other damage - when I drop the rad and remove the belt cover I can check WP and idlers / tensioner etc.
Finally, what sort of ballpark cost would I be looking at to have someone else do the work for me, or even an engine swap?
Its a '00 non-turbo 2.0 (SF?)

Thanks,

Bertie

Special Circumstances

What part of the country are you in? If you're in limerick I can recommend a guy. I've had other garages full of more popular cars show zero interest in taking on work on a subaru.
Hard luck, in bangernomics land that could just be a write off unfortunately.

b.harte

I'm in North Cork.
If you could pm me details that would be great.
Thanks.

rex-x

You will be looking at valves and guides for sure, maybe pistons and heads. Not a hope you will have gotten way with it sadly.

b.harte

Just too the rad out. It was definitely the AC belt that caused it, obvious wear / cut on the cover and lots of belt dust.
Timing belt cover is in bits, main pulley wrapped with plastic and shredded AC belt.
Have a friend of a friend of a friend with a compression tester so might consider it over Christmas.
In the mean time back to donedeal for some <1k motoring :-)

b.harte

[Not sure if this should be in the "today I did something to me car thread"
So after 22days of having to chauffeur Herself and the kids around in my own crappy octavia the Forester roared back into life today!
I got 3 quotes all above 1k and almost everyone was telling me to just scrap it, even without anyone actually checking the car out, as soon as I said belt failure.

Put a fresh belt on it and when manually cranking I could feel that there was no compression in 3 of the 4 head - didn't even need a pressure gauge to tell me.
Priced up a set of valves and pulled off the damaged heads to see if this was all I would need, 12/16 bent but no obvious damage to piston faces.

Due to a severe lack of funds, and hte cost of valves, I ended up buying a 100euro engine on done deal and stripping the heads from this to rebuild my own.
(Timing gear on crankshaft was faulty and the owner's mechanic put a reconditioned engine in before realising)

Fitted the timing belt to this engine in the boot of my car and manually turned, could feel the compression so pulled the heads off this for the rebuild. Checked all valves and found that on cylinder 3 there was a lot of crap and a small leak (used water down the ports) on both valves. Pulled these valves and polished the seats and valves faces before lapping back on.
No leaks- Used a milled edge (tool-room at work) to check for flatness with feeler gauges, as they were okay I opted not to send for skimming.

Ordered up head gaskets, oil, coolant, manifold gaskets and waited for the delivery - which was delayed due to Christmas and New-Year.
While waiting I removed all traces of old gasket from heads and block using a variety of blades, scrappers, scotch-pads and solvents / degreasers until everything was squeeky clean.

This was done with the engine in-situ, albeit with the engine mount bolts and transmission mounts loosed to allow me to lift and slide to get better access.
Once everthing got here (Wednesday PM) I set about rebuilding. I started at 11AM Saturday and worked until dusk on fitting and torquing both heads and refitting and setting the timing belt and belt covers etc checked valve clearances and put rocker covers in place.

This morning I refitted the manifold and all ancillaries (except the A/C tensioner 0 as I can live without..:rolleyes:)
Checked and rechecked everything, dropped back onto the mounts and torqued everything down. Added oil and coolant and cranked by hand a few times.
Connected the pllug leads and crossed my fingers, a bit slow to turn over, battery had been sitting in shed for 3 weeks so jumped with my own car.

I coughed and sputtered a bit but settled down to that nice boy-racer hum, then I realised I had forgotten to put back on the exhaust .
Went to do this spotted one of the transmission fluid cooler lines was off and had sprayed fluid everywhere.
Refitted the exhaust and all pipes.
Topped up the transmission fluid and did a few forward and backs on the drive befoe going for a longer test spin.

All good.:)

So, the summary:
Engine 100,
Diesel to go to get engine 40,
Timing Belt 56,
Oil, Coolant, Gaskets, 106
Torque Wrench 35 (I might use again)
Hose clamps, 8
Total 345
About 15hrs of my time, mostly because I was finding stuff out as I went along.
Would I do it again, absolutely - as soon as I build a garage / shed, working in daylight only out of doors this time of year was the hardest part.
:pac:

kavanada

Fairplay to you b.harte. Rewarding work and good write up.

Enjoy the next 100,000 miles.

jca

b.harte wrote: »

[Not sure if this should be in the "today I did something to me car thread"
So after 22days of having to chauffeur Herself and the kids around in my own crappy octavia the Forester roared back into life today!
I got 3 quotes all above 1k and almost everyone was telling me to just scrap it, even without anyone actually checking the car out, as soon as I said belt failure.

Put a fresh belt on it and when manually cranking I could feel that there was no compression in 3 of the 4 head - didn't even need a pressure gauge to tell me.
Priced up a set of valves and pulled off the damaged heads to see if this was all I would need, 12/16 bent but no obvious damage to piston faces.

Due to a severe lack of funds, and hte cost of valves, I ended up buying a 100euro engine on done deal and stripping the heads from this to rebuild my own.
(Timing gear on crankshaft was faulty and the owner's mechanic put a reconditioned engine in before realising)

Fitted the timing belt to this engine in the boot of my car and manually turned, could feel the compression so pulled the heads off this for the rebuild. Checked all valves and found that on cylinder 3 there was a lot of crap and a small leak (used water down the ports) on both valves. Pulled these valves and polished the seats and valves faces before lapping back on.
No leaks- Used a milled edge (tool-room at work) to check for flatness with feeler gauges, as they were okay I opted not to send for skimming.

Ordered up head gaskets, oil, coolant, manifold gaskets and waited for the delivery - which was delayed due to Christmas and New-Year.
While waiting I removed all traces of old gasket from heads and block using a variety of blades, scrappers, scotch-pads and solvents / degreasers until everything was squeeky clean.

This was done with the engine in-situ, albeit with the engine mount bolts and transmission mounts loosed to allow me to lift and slide to get better access.
Once everthing got here (Wednesday PM) I set about rebuilding. I started at 11AM Saturday and worked until dusk on fitting and torquing both heads and refitting and setting the timing belt and belt covers etc checked valve clearances and put rocker covers in place.

This morning I refitted the manifold and all ancillaries (except the A/C tensioner 0 as I can live without..:rolleyes:)
Checked and rechecked everything, dropped back onto the mounts and torqued everything down. Added oil and coolant and cranked by hand a few times.
Connected the pllug leads and crossed my fingers, a bit slow to turn over, battery had been sitting in shed for 3 weeks so jumped with my own car.

I coughed and sputtered a bit but settled down to that nice boy-racer hum, then I realised I had forgotten to put back on the exhaust .
Went to do this spotted one of the transmission fluid cooler lines was off and had sprayed fluid everywhere.
Refitted the exhaust and all pipes.
Topped up the transmission fluid and did a few forward and backs on the drive befoe going for a longer test spin.

All good.:)

So, the summary:
Engine 100,
Diesel to go to get engine 40,
Timing Belt 56,
Oil, Coolant, Gaskets, 106
Torque Wrench 35 (I might use again)
Hose clamps, 8
Total 345
About 15hrs of my time, mostly because I was finding stuff out as I went along.
Would I do it again, absolutely - as soon as I build a garage / shed, working in daylight only out of doors this time of year was the hardest part.
:pac:

Fair play to ya. Well done I hope you get many happy miles out of. Doing it yourself is very satisfying indeed.

alan partridge aha

Ya as above well done, would love to be that handy.

jca

I was that man I just got too fat and lazy. There's nothing like that buzz when the engine fires up and everything is perfect. Lovely stuff...

Special Circumstances

Awesome, even if I was that handy I don't think I'd attempt it without a shed to be working in.