carljwnc
Emeritus Forum Staff
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2008
- Messages
- 3,103
- Location
- Fairview, North Carolina USA
- Car Year
- 2016
- Car Model
- Forester Touring
- Transmission
- CVT
Continuing on with helpful tech write up's, here's a good easy one for y'all. 2003 Forester N/A
Remove the screws circled in red, this will allow you to remove the plastic belt cover on the right. Metal cover is still held on by the bolt in the green circle, this is the pivot bolt for the alternator, the cover is slotted so you only need to loosen the bolt to remove the cover.
Covers removed, now you need to release the tension on the belts, the bolt in the yellow circle pivots the alternator which is what tensions the belt. Counterclockwise and you'll be releasing tension. I had to pretty much loosen it all the way to get the belt off. The green circle shows the locknut for the tension pulley for the A/C belt space is tight and I could only get my box end wrench on it, the nut was tight enough that I had to use a breaker bar to get it loose.
Showing the wrench on the nut. Also (I forgot to circle it
) the tension adjuster screw above and to the left. The Subaru engineers made it nice and intuitive how to release the tension, again counterclockwise will release the belt tension (screw is actually a left hand thread), you will need to release this one almost all the way too in order to remove the belt.
YAY!!! No more belts.
Alright, reason this all came about, Blubaru started making this awful squeeeeeeling noise as soon as she started up.
One bit of neglected maintenance , these belt (original) have 97k miles on them. I think they should be changed every 30-50k mi.
Ahaaaaa, nice fresh belts. I ran the tension back up to where I thought it should be, but don't put the covers back on yet. Important Note; tighten the A/C belt tensioner locknut before you do this. With the A/C on start the car and let it run for a minuite, let the A/C compressor cycle on and off a few times and watch the belt. When the A/C kicks on the belt will resonate and deflect. Mine was deflecting about 1/2" so I shut the car off and added more tension. The only trouble I ran into was the A/C belt jumped over one groove toward the engine, my theory is that the first time I started the car I did not tighten the tensioner locknut and the pulley had enough slop in it to allow the belt to jump, hence the note above.
Now tension them up again, running the engine has allowed the belts to strech out some. Start the car again, make sure the belts are staying in the proper grooves and the tension looks good. Shut it off, and NOW you can put the covers back on.
Results; a much smoother and quieter running Blubaru. Took me about an hour, including taking pics.
Now, go check your belts!!!
Remove the screws circled in red, this will allow you to remove the plastic belt cover on the right. Metal cover is still held on by the bolt in the green circle, this is the pivot bolt for the alternator, the cover is slotted so you only need to loosen the bolt to remove the cover.
Covers removed, now you need to release the tension on the belts, the bolt in the yellow circle pivots the alternator which is what tensions the belt. Counterclockwise and you'll be releasing tension. I had to pretty much loosen it all the way to get the belt off. The green circle shows the locknut for the tension pulley for the A/C belt space is tight and I could only get my box end wrench on it, the nut was tight enough that I had to use a breaker bar to get it loose.
Showing the wrench on the nut. Also (I forgot to circle it
) the tension adjuster screw above and to the left. The Subaru engineers made it nice and intuitive how to release the tension, again counterclockwise will release the belt tension (screw is actually a left hand thread), you will need to release this one almost all the way too in order to remove the belt.
YAY!!! No more belts.
Alright, reason this all came about, Blubaru started making this awful squeeeeeeling noise as soon as she started up.
One bit of neglected maintenance , these belt (original) have 97k miles on them. I think they should be changed every 30-50k mi.
Ahaaaaa, nice fresh belts. I ran the tension back up to where I thought it should be, but don't put the covers back on yet. Important Note; tighten the A/C belt tensioner locknut before you do this. With the A/C on start the car and let it run for a minuite, let the A/C compressor cycle on and off a few times and watch the belt. When the A/C kicks on the belt will resonate and deflect. Mine was deflecting about 1/2" so I shut the car off and added more tension. The only trouble I ran into was the A/C belt jumped over one groove toward the engine, my theory is that the first time I started the car I did not tighten the tensioner locknut and the pulley had enough slop in it to allow the belt to jump, hence the note above.
Now tension them up again, running the engine has allowed the belts to strech out some. Start the car again, make sure the belts are staying in the proper grooves and the tension looks good. Shut it off, and NOW you can put the covers back on.
Results; a much smoother and quieter running Blubaru. Took me about an hour, including taking pics.
Now, go check your belts!!!
I think it's important to write up even the easy ones. It's going to benefit someone at some point in time, hopefully anyway.:iconwink: I also think it makes the forum more valuable, and desirable for new (and old) members.
Not 100% that they have the belts, but please check them out; 
.
