pmf

Well, you were all correct…it was indeed the failure to rotate the crank 360 ONCE! It’s all back together now and running like a champ. Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU!!! This has got to be the best group online. This is in fact my first Subee but will not be my last, I’m hooked!

Alright, me thinks that’s the problem! I’ll take it back apart tomorrow and post the “favorable” results. Thanks again, this is my first post on the group and I’m truly grateful to you all!

Thanks sooooooooooo much everyone! And especially to Pat for that very detailed explanation. You know, I followed the instructions in the manual and it did say to do the 360 rotation prior to installing the r/h belt but it never said anything about the timing mark orientation being 180 degrees opposed. In fact the pictures showed them both up. I probably thought it was just to take out any backlash and so did another rotation to line up the marks, does this seem likely? So just to clarify; I should see the cam timing mark on the dist side up and following a 360 degree crank rotation it will now be down and then I put the non-dist side belt on with its cam timing mark up. Is this correct?

alt.autos.subaru suggested I post this here as expert help is needed! My son decelerated to a stop light and then according to him, when he tried to accelerate the engine started missing and would not go at all. When I towed it home, I removed the r/h timing belt cover to find a shredded belt which I replaced along with the other side. The motor behaved to the best of my recollection, about the same as it did the night we towed it home. Had a mechanic friend come over and we did compression checks (ok), timing re-checks (ok), all of the things one would normally think of (ok). The distributor was a little loose so I replaced that with no change at all. The symptoms are: a.. rough idle (or none) b.. starts up as though it's flooded (full throttle needed) c.. vacuum oscillates wildly at any speed (it uses the full gauge) except when fully loaded and then it's at near zero d.. backfires through the carb. at all times except when fully opened up e.. changing ignition timing while running make very little difference Does this sound like a blown head gasket and if so, how does one diagnose that? (the compression check showed between 120-140 on all cylinders. Thanks in advance, Peter