Hey, I finally got back to this car, because the winter is coming and I need something with snow tires again. Anyway, I'm still really mad at it.
When I got back to it, the battery was dead. No surprise after sitting for four months. Why didn't I work on the car when it was warm instead of snowing? I dunno.
After charging the battery, I gave it the first fire, to which it didn't want to start until I put it in flood clear mode. After that, it started, and then stalled after a bit.
Another start produced a loud clacking sound, but not as frequent as you'd expect from lifter or rod failure. I assumed, at this point, that I had a case of The Knocks. Then a glorious squeal came out of the engine bay.
I removed the AC belt, since installing a new tensioner was the last thing I uckfayed with, and started again. No difference, except now the clack was much louder and easier to place. It sounded like it was coming from the mid-front of the engine.
I recorded a quick cellphone video while wanting to die:
After looking through every "Subaru make weird noise help ok?" video on YouTube, I found this one:
I think this is the sound.
If that's the case, then the Gates timing belt tensioner I put on this thing has failed, just like it did for everyone else (I bled the itshay out of this thing, Gates sucks). I will pull the inspection cover sometime this weekend and hopefully I can get eyes on it without having to remove the crank pulley again (I mangled the crank keyway by putting the pulley on cockeyed during the initial timing belt job, necessitating a replacement crank pulley).
TL;DR:
- Car still starts and runs;
- Either a broken engine or a broken timing belt tensioner?
- The exact same timing belt tensioner has been fingered in another video where it makes kind of the same sound;
- Watch me delude myself into trying to pretend this isn't a dead engine.
- Who wants to help me redo my timing belt in my driveway?