jarz21 Posted March 2, 2010 Author Share Posted March 2, 2010 (edited) Do let us know what your mechanic finds! Will do! I suppose now would be a good time to just have the passenger side headgasket replaced too, if the driver side gasket has already failed at just over 82k miles. Edited March 2, 2010 by jarz21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 Will do! I suppose now would be a good time to just have the passenger side headgasket replaced to, if the driver side gasket has already failed at just over 82k miles. If that is what happened......it isn't an engineering or design fault. The 2.2s very rarely loose headgaskets and never at this low of milage. You must have sucked up a gulp of water into the engine....which you are lucky ONLY blew the headgasket. Could have bent rods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarz21 Posted March 8, 2010 Author Share Posted March 8, 2010 (edited) Well, I was finally able to get my car into the shop to diagnose and repair my what I had originally suspected as a fuel issue and then thought was actually caused by a bad head gasket causing low compression. Well, it looks like we were all wrong, though Gloyale actually came the closest: it wasn't the camshaft locating pin, but the camshaft itself that broke! Oddly enough, the mechanic was less surprised about the camshaft failure than he was about my thought that it was a blown head gasket. He asked me if the engine ever ran out of oil, which it hasn't, but when I first bought the car I had to add nearly 2 quarts in less than 400 miles because of a series of major oil leaks that had been half-assedly fixed by the previous owner (unbeknownst to me). Granted, that was around Thanksgiving last year and the car has run perfectly ever since. At least now I know, and I should have a fully operational car by the end of the week. Edited March 11, 2010 by jarz21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 it wasn't the camshaft locating pin, but the camshaft itself that broke! :-\ pics:banana: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnceggleston Posted March 8, 2010 Share Posted March 8, 2010 so it was timing related and not leaking head gasket between 2 cylinders. when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarz21 Posted March 9, 2010 Author Share Posted March 9, 2010 (edited) so it was timing related and not leaking head gasket between 2 cylinders. when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras. In this case, it was hoof beats that logically should've been horses, but when no horses appeared, zebras became the next likely thing. In the end, it turned out to be wildebeest. I personally never would have suspected a broken camshaft unless I had gotten to the point of pulling the cylinder head off myself, which I never would've done if I only suspected a timing issue. I'm anxious to see the broken cam. Edited March 11, 2010 by jarz21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eppoh Posted March 9, 2010 Share Posted March 9, 2010 Sorry to hear about the cam. If that cam broke due to oil starvation, it is the beginning of your problems with that motor, not the end. Think about all other parts in that motor that rely on good lubrication for longevity. You might want to think about finding another engine, instead of patching this one up- Chances are pretty good the rest of that herd is not far behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted March 9, 2010 Share Posted March 9, 2010 Sorry to hear about the cam. If that cam broke due to oil starvation, it is the beginning of your problems with that motor, not the end. Think about all other parts in that motor that rely on good lubrication for longevity. You might want to think about finding another engine, instead of patching this one up- Chances are pretty good the rest of that herd is not far behind. Well it totally depends on WHY it starved. If it was from pump failure....then yes.....the engine is in need of a full rebuild with new bearings. If it was because of a blockage to the gallery that supplies that cam......then it could be unclogged while the head is apart. (one of my favorite things about EJs is that all the oil galleries have removeable plugs at several places, so clearing them is pretty easy.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarz21 Posted March 9, 2010 Author Share Posted March 9, 2010 (edited) Hypothetically, if the the oil starvation was caused by the engine leaking out all of the oil while the previous owner still had the car, what are the chances that this was some sort of delayed cam failure? I ended up having to replace the plastic oil separator with a metal one (and oil-soaked clutch because of the leak), as well as all of the front oil seals and the cam o-rings. There were signs when I replaced the clutch that the original oil separator had leaked before but they just resealed it. The primary shaft seal had also been replaced already. So, I didn't realize it until after I had bought the car back in November that it had such major oil leaking problems until I had to drive it 400 miles home for Thanksgiving. At least when it started leaking oil at an excessive rate, I managed to catch it before it got too low. But I agree; the real concern is when and how the oil starvation occurred. Edited March 11, 2010 by jarz21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankosolder2 Posted March 9, 2010 Share Posted March 9, 2010 Ahem, I believe I was the first to mention cam bearing seizure in post #17! No big thing. Might just be the safest bet to go for a good used engine, they're not that expensive. Nathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarz21 Posted March 11, 2010 Author Share Posted March 11, 2010 (edited) Ahem, I believe I was the first to mention cam bearing seizure in post #17! No big thing. Might just be the safest bet to go for a good used engine, they're not that expensive. Nathan Sorry Nathan, you're right! Anyway, I had run out of justifiable vehicle downtime, so I had already told the mechanic to replace the cam. I just picked it up and so now have a functional car again. I have attached a picture of the broken cam. I've checked that thing up and down and can see no signs that the cam had actually seized prior to breaking. The mechanic said that it's uncommon, but he has seen EJ22 cams simply fail in the past. I am still skeptical, but there's not much I can do right now (except update my AAA membership to the Premium level). Edited March 11, 2010 by jarz21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankosolder2 Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 Glad it's running OK for you again and thanks for sharing the picture. It's an odd failure, for sure and I think your mechanic would have seen some galling on the cam "bearings" if there had been a seizure. Metal fatigue perhaps? Interestingly enough, the Rover P6 2000 TC (the car in my avatar) was known for snapping the camshaft if revved very hard when not under load. There's just a touch too much torsional loading or some such thing. Hard metal tends to be brittle.... Nathan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarz21 Posted March 14, 2010 Author Share Posted March 14, 2010 Thanks, Nathan. Yeah, I'm stumped by the failure as well, but I'm just happy to have a working car again. I changed the oil yesterday (before the pouring rain came to Boston), and today I drove an hour to a junkyard so I could find some cruise control parts and a variable intermittent wiper switch. The car never skipped a beat, so I'm content for now. I got completely drenched working my way around the 'yard, but I got a great deal on the parts, so both my Subie and I are happy. Once I find an MT cruise ECU, my Outback will essentially be everything that I could ask for in a car, so I hope for my wallet and sanity's sake that the cam was a fluke and that I'll get another 150,000 trouble-free miles out of this thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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