Is that baling wire?

[TheSeeker]

This was my wife's response upon looking at the engine of our 2002
Forester.

A little history:

I wanted to inspect the cam belt, as indicated in the periodic
maintenence, so, reading the service manual, I located the three bolts
that hold the driver's-side cam belt cover on. When I tried to loosen
these though, the metal nut, embedded in the back portion, turned and
broke the boss it was supposed to be held in.

There seemed to be no way to loosen these bolts without breaking each
and every boss!

Is there a trick to this?

I inspected the belt, and then used two loops of wire to hold the cover
back on. Rest assured, this cover is being held securely. I am just
trying to cash-in on some knowledge of the members of this group: is
there a way to do this without breaking the nuts from their bosses?

Thanks,
Duane

 

[Edward Hayes]

I never had your problem but, I always tighten the bolt an 1/16 turn
before trying to loosen anything that has a captive nut.

 

[Sheldon]

This may be one of those things that an experienced or schooled mechanic
knows about, but we don't. Some nuts and bolts on cars require liberal
amounts of WD40 followed by a waiting period, or some heat or whatever to
get them off.

Heck, for all I know they might just snap 'em all off and use baling wire.

 

[Remco]

This was my wife's response upon looking at the engine of our 2002
Forester.

A little history:

I wanted to inspect the cam belt, as indicated in the periodic
maintenence, so, reading the service manual, I located the three bolts
that hold the driver's-side cam belt cover on. When I tried to loosen
these though, the metal nut, embedded in the back portion, turned and
broke the boss it was supposed to be held in.

There seemed to be no way to loosen these bolts without breaking each
and every boss!

Is there a trick to this?

I inspected the belt, and then used two loops of wire to hold the cover
back on. Rest assured, this cover is being held securely. I am just
trying to cash-in on some knowledge of the members of this group: is
there a way to do this without breaking the nuts from their bosses?

Thanks,
Duane

You're talking about the belt cover, right?
I suspect that this is a common Subaru problem, because my daughter's
impreza had the same problem with those covers - whomever worked on
this car snapped two of those bosses off.

To fix it, I molded a form onto the cover in the shape of a boss. Then
poured some epoxy into it and stuck a stand off into it (filled with
playdough so the hole doesn't fill up with epoxy).
Let it dry, peel off the playdough and you got yourself a new boss -
works like a chimp.

Remco

 

[AS]

Yes, common problem, and to change the back of the cover it is going to
cost you. I think you even need to remove the camshaft sproket to
replace the cover, not sure about this though.