Subaru Impreza Cam Belt Idler Pulley Failure

[Mopar1973Man]

Our local mail person drives a little Subaru Impreza its either 2002 or 2003 model. Well needless to say she came over to visit MoparMom and she mention that her car its making a squeaking noise now this coming from a lady that is 80% deaf. So when she fired up here car I was in the house this thing was SCREAMING! I told her to drive it home and park it. I would come over and deal with it tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and I show up at her place and started working on diagnosing the noise. First thing I did pull the belts off and still screaming and grinding. Uh-Oh! I'm going to have to pull the cam belt covers off and look and see. So I proceeded to pull the covers off and relized I need to pull the dampner off the end of the crank. Oh Great! This isn't like a old Chevy truck where you just reason down and nail the the bolt with a impact gun and whizz it out. There is little to no room. So I created this redneck tool. (I'm showing pictures of the re-assembly and torqueing to 130 ft/lbs)So I get the dampner off and get the remaining cam belt covers off. Everything appears OK in place but there is ton of metal dust and rust. So after rolling the crank around to TDC's of the cams I relize the belt wasn't siting on the idler pulley correctly. Got a flashlight and a better angle of view and barely you can see bearing shrapnel. I told the owner hey you got to see this. So I start twisting the bolt out and pull the pulley out here jaw dropped. Then her jaw hit the floor when she saw the bolt that held the pulley in place. As you can see the bearing had completely failed and seized up then spinning on the bolt till it ate about 50-60% of the bolt.Whats worse is the hole the bolt goes into is all stripped out. Thinking OMG! Ok. The owner is not exactly dumb either she asked, " Can you remove that part and replace it. Well being she got another engine in the back of her shop I looked and sure enough the hole is part of the water pump. Great! All I got to do is pull the water pump and change it. So I started on the other engine so I could see how to get it apart first then moved over to the car. What was really wonderful was that the water pump I popped off the extra engine came off so clean and prefect the gasket was totally undamaged! So I reused it again. I told her was too so she is aware of this. But Got it put back to together and running last night. Then I got back down tonight to finish the oil change I was suppose to do too. So as of tonight she gave me a big ol' hug and was extremely thankful to have her car back and running again. So I know the mail will keep flowing in the canyon.

[CUMMINSDIESELPWR]

nice! i did neighbors sparkplugs on a ford suv, had to remove the intake plenum to get to the rear 3 plugs. took about 1.5 hours but saved her and her hubby a couple hundred in labor.they pay me with steak and taters. im happy with that!

[Rogan]

Wait til she wants you to replace a head gasket on the Impreza! Don't worry, though. They can be done in the car.

[Mopar1973Man]

nice! i did neighbors sparkplugs on a ford suv, had to remove the intake plenum to get to the rear 3 plugs. took about 1.5 hours but saved her and her hubby a couple hundred in labor. they pay me with steak and taters. im happy with that!

Like myslef I got a huge sandwich for lunch and big ol' hug for fixing her car... I'm good with that. I know later on she do me a favor to some day..

Wait til she wants you to replace a head gasket on the Impreza! Don't worry, though. They can be done in the car.

Shhhh... The car already had the head gaskets done a while back so I'm safe for now. But no I'm not wanting to do it. My problem is the car is very very low to the ground and I'm 6'2" so I either hunched over killing my back or kneeling on the ground trying to reach over the grill but can't see worth a crap.

[Rogan]

Like myslef I got a huge sandwich for lunch and big ol' hug for fixing her car... I'm good with that. I know later on she do me a favor to some day..

I could soooo take this somewhere...

Shhhh... The car already had the head gaskets done a while back so I'm safe for now. But no I'm not wanting to do it. My problem is the car is very very low to the ground and I'm 6'2" so I either hunched over killing my back or kneeling on the ground trying to reach over the grill but can't see worth a crap.

all in all (having owned a version of the Impreza) they're VERY dependable and rarely suffer failures. And they're flat-out phenomenal in in-climate weather conditions. Even with 500whp on tap and the 18" Z-rated hp tires, it would go just about anywhere I pointed it, in the snow, with little to no effort. Until it just got too deep.. I've pushed a lot of snow over the bumper, grill and hood in mine. When I put Blizzaks on it, it was almost unstoppable.

[Mopar1973Man]

For last 10 year that car has gone up and down the highway every day with over 300K on the clock and still delievering mail. Standard left hand driver (yes, she lean over the passenger seat to stuff boxes). Snow, rain, ice, etc she just keeps going...