Timing belt, Day One

After getting my fingerprints done this morning it was time to hit the Suby's timing belt…no turning back now!  I ended up breaking 3 rusty bolts that held the radiator fans to the bottom of the radiator frame straight off so out came the radiator as well.  This turned out to be a blessing increasing my work area 2x.  I called Dan the Man to save me on the broken bolts so he came over and took the radiator frame home to tap some new holes in.  Meanwhile:

This was the “exciting” part…not wanting to pay big bucks for proprietary Subaru tools I used the backwoods method for loosening the crank bolt.  Simply place a breaker bar on the frame (snug up the fit with paper towels) put a screwdriver in a spare hole to brace the handle and then crank the engine for a fraction of a second.  “BANG” (and I mean BANG)…Now you have a loose Nut…possibly the guy who just attempted this.

I’ll spare you the minutia (meaning I forgot to take any pics) but this is after the new water pump, t-stat and belt tensioner:

Insert here the obligatory finger mangling required by any Paul car project.

I got the new belt on and Dan helped me rotate the engine thru a few times after coming back with the improved radiator frame.

So here we stand today, belt on.  I need to put it back together, fill the fluids and have a go.  If there is no part two tomorrow…something may have gone wrong and blogging is too painful.