Is that baling wire?

Question

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 · Accepted Answer

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 · Answer

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 · Answer

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 · Answer

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.TheSeeker wrote:

Is that baling wire?

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