I’m looking to change the cam belt on my WRX in the next couple of months. I want to do this myself and have done it for other cars (Audi, Corsa etc). I know that there are manuals about for the Impreza (Legacy) by Chilton and Haynes, but these are for the American market. Has anybody got either of these and if so are they worth getting. By that I mean would they be useful in performing a cam belt change.

Or failing that does anybody have any useful tips on performing the change, I know that the hydraulic adjuster has to be compressed slowly over an hour or so.

Is there any thing which I should replace or adjust while I’m in or is just a straight forward replace.

Cheers
Yee

 

nope it's pretty straight forward and as for compressing the adjuster you can do it over a few minutes not an hour or garages would charge 40-60 pound to just compress it

 

This subject was discussed in some detail recently:-

 

one problem you might have is undoing the crankshaft pulley and you prob need a second pair of hands when fiting the belt round the pulleys can be a bit tricky as the cams can flick round the adjuster just push in with a vice a put split pin in or drill bit there is a measurement to be taken it has to be within if over you need new one.
find a autodata cam belt book
i can fax you how to do it from this book it also has good pictures

 

Guys
Thanks for the replies.
Scoobyboy don’t why I typed an hour I meant to type a “minute or so” ‘onest
DaveD Thanks for the link – very useful
AndyMc you don’t work for Haynes do you?? Cheers some very useful advise.
Pmr147 I’m not at work at the mo so I don’t have a fax number – when I turn up to work I will post it to you and if you could fax them over that would be great.

So now I know how to do it would I just be wasting my money on the workshop manuals or would they be useful for other things?


Once again thanks for you time
Yee

 

I have the Chiltern manual.Our engine is very similar to the 2.5 litre quad cam engine sold in America which is covered by the manual.Typically there are drawings showing the timing marks for all the engines except the 2.5 so the book can only be used as a guide.
They also show a different tensioner arrangement to my UK MY98 but I think there might be a couple of different designs fitted to Imprezas.

As for the cambelt change it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be especially since the tensioning is automatic which means you can't mess it up LOL.
It is a good idea to draw a picture showing the routing of the belt as there are about 10 pulleys if I remember correctly.
I believe it is a bit more involved if your car has air con.I have also seen somebody post that they had to move the radiator out of the way but this was not necessary on my car.

The only thing you need to work out is which markings on the pulleys are actually the timing marks,when you first look there are a few different markings.
On the camwheels it is the single lines that should line up with the cutouts in the rear cambelt covers.On the upper camwheels the cutouts are at the top of the rear cambelt cover and on the lower camwheels the cutouts are at the sides of the rear covers, for example near the battery on the passenger side.
When the camwheels are lined up properly there should also be a set of double lines that line up where the camwheels nearly touch each other.
On the toothed crank pulley(only visible after removing the alternator drive pulley) there are two sets of marks.The one to use is the single line which should line up with the mark on the housing for the crank position sensor.Ignore the other one which is triangle shaped.The position of all the other pulleys does not matter.
The belt I fitted had lines on it which lined up with the other marks making the job a bit easier.

Some people like to clamp the camwheels together so they can't move.If you do it this way you should still check the timing marks line up afterwards.

By the way all of this applies to the UK98 engine.I don't know if the earlier/later engines are different.
hope this helps.I have probably made it sound more complicated than it is.

Bugger where did Daves post come from :
Andy



[This message has been edited by AndyMc (edited 24 May 2001).]