Looks like things got a bit hot in there. Was it low on oil?

 

After removing the bolts, you should remove the timing belt tensioner pulley to relieve the timing belt of its tension. It’s a 14mm head bolt.

Now remove the timing belt, wiggle off the cam pulleys (inspect them for cracks, and if you had a really hard time removing the pulleys and MAY have damaged them, junk em!), and unbolt and remove the rest of the timing belt idlers.

Now on both heads you need a 10mm socket to remove the bolts that hold the back of the timing belt covers on. Remove rear covers.

Next to remove is the timing belt tensioner, tensioner mounting bracket and the water pump. The tensioner pictured is held on with two 12mm bolts. The bracket directly behind it is held in place with three 12 mm bolts. The water pump is held in place with six 10 mm bolts. When you remove the water pump, you can easily leave the hoses and metal hoses attached. Simply unbolt the 10mm mounting bolts and the water pump and hoses should come off as a for you to deal with later.

Next is head removal. Remove the various (depends upon the head model) 10mm bolts that hold the cam cover on.

Next you need to remove the cam caps. They are held on with 12mm bolts. They are labeled so you don’t need to worry about mixing them up. Just look at them to understand/remember where they will be returned to.

To remove the cams, tap GENTLY on the front of the cam UPWARDS and they will pop out. Now you need to remove the 6 head bolts. Using a 14mm twelve point socket and a ½” breaker bar, remove these 6 long bolts. PLEASE NOTE I am NOT removing the bucket and shims at this point. The buck and shims are the eight shiny ½ dollar sized parts. Note that some heads are bucket only, some are rocker arm, and some bucket and shim. The shim is a thin piece of metal that sits on top of the bucket. Of any head that has shims, DO NOT mess up the order in which they are placed!!!!!!

 

Once the bolts are removed, the head will simply lift off. Repeat for the other head. Set heads aside in a safe clean area. If you are going to be reusing the head without a valve job, then you don’t need to do anything with the buckets and shims. If you are going to have a valve job done, YOU NEED TO pull out the bucket and shim and keep them in the EXACT same order they started as. You screw it up, its your motor…. Reinstalling and calibration of heads is not to be discussed in this thread.

Now rotate the engine back to UP. We will next remove the crossover pipe and oil pump.

There are four 10mm bolts holding the crossover pipe on. BE GENTLE!!!! These four bolts like to snap. The crossover pipe then lifts off.

Last item to remove is the oil pump. Whoops, didn’t do a before photo…. Anyway, the oil pump is held in place by six 10mm bolts. Remove those and gently tap the bottom of the oil pump AWAY from the block to break the seal. There are two dowels that locate the oil pump to the block. Gently wiggle and pull the oil pump and it will come off. Remove the little black gasket near the bottom on the block.

OK, that’s it for now. I will continue when I crack open the block and remove the bearings……..

 

Next we remove the flywheel. These eight bolds are 14mm fine thread. Don’t lose em. I prefer to use an impact wrench to remove them, but if you need to use a breaker bar, keep the wrench wedged in to hold the flywheel in place.

Once the flywheel is removed, we have to pull the four pistons from out of the block. On the rear of the block are two cover plates held in place with Philip head screws. These guys WILL strip using a hand screwdriver unless you get lucky. Preferable use an impact driver to loosen them, or get a GOOD tipped Philips head and smack that as your attempt to loosen.

Pry off the covers to reveal the insides.

Here you will see the 14mm hex plug that hides the access point to the wristpin. The other side does not have a plug.

Using a 14mm hexbit, remove the plug.

On the front of the engine you find two hex plugs. Remove both plugs

Now rotate the crank so you can see the cir-clip holding the wristpin in. Either the front two will be visible, or the rear two. Using needle nose pliers, pull these clips out. You can reuse them, its up to you. Obviously if you damage one (I don’t know how the hell you would), you should replace it. But since there is NO stress on them, I reuse them.

 

Now comes the fun part where you need to fabricate some sort of wrist pin removal tool. Subaru uses two types of wrist pin. The EJ22 and EJ25 are “easy” to remove and use the lower tool. These pins have a simple hole through them that allows the tool to slip through and hook the edge. The EJ20 wrist pin SUCKS. The hole is tapered and so requires a lot of patience and often some help. The tool to use is on top.

You can see the difference in this photo.

Using the top tool in conjunction with a section of 12guage wire, you fish both through and then pull back on the tool to jamb the nub in the small section of the wrist pin so you can yank out the pin. Plain and simple, this can take awhile if the pins are really stubborn.

Once the wrist pins are removed, you can rotate the crank to remove the pistons. First rotate the crank around and this will push the piston to the front and leave them there. Now push the piston back into the cylinder while twisting it.

Then rotate the crank again and this will cause the rod to hit the back of the piston and push it out.

Keep track of which piston came out of which hole and label them.

---------------------------------------------------------
Video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How to piston pull!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR0Ed6qTIVQ

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Next step is to separate the two block halves.

Using a 12mm 12point socket, remove the 5 upper bolts.

 

Remove the 3 front bolts

Remove the two bolts inside the water jacket.

Spin the block around and remove the 6 bolts on the other side inside the water jacket.

On the back where the flywheel was is a single 12mm bolt. You need small breaker bar to remove this bolt. DO NOT use a wrench, it will round over.

The last bolt to remove is inside and requires a 10mm socket. You need a small breaker bar to remove this bolt. DO NOT use a wrench, it will round over.

OK, that’s all the bolts.

To separate the block, you WILL have to tap it apart. Sometime you will have to REALLY tap it apart, hard enough to deform the aluminum. There are two places that have a small tube that fits into the other side of the block and these get sticky. I tap the block apart in the back, left to right on the tranny housing area.

Then I tap apart in the front.

This is where it will stick together.

Finally, you can lift the block halve off the other.

DONE!

Next I will reinstall bearings. But that will be awhile, I am going to have the block hot tanked to get it nice and clean.

 

Congratulations. Enjoy your new boat anchor.

 

I seldom reply to dipshit replies, but WTF does that imply?

 

Get yourself a sense of humor. I hear that Nasioc has an overabundance of them.

 

^^wooooah easyy buddyyy...hahaha

thanks for the DIY, between this and Brydons i should have no problem tearing apart my ej255 block on saturday!.....

 

Nice Write-up. Thanks!

 

excellent write-up, and excellent pictures...im sure this will give a lot of people a bit more courage to get into actually fixing their cars themselves.

 

Thanks for the write up! This will come in very handy when i am tearing apart my spare long block that i have for my swap.

Question: How can i get the cam pulley's off if there is no timing belt? I removed the valve cover. I tried using a breaker bar on the pulley hex bolt thingy and a long wrench on the cam. I still cant get those pulley's off. I am going to try a heating up the pulley bolt and use a impact gun to loosen it. Anybody have an easier way to get them off?

 

Question: How can i get the cam pulley's off if there is no timing belt? I removed the valve cover. I tried using a breaker bar on the pulley hex bolt thingy and a long wrench on the cam. I still cant get those pulley's off. I am going to try a heating up the pulley bolt and use a impact gun to loosen it. Anybody have an easier way to get them off?

You may need to get a cam gear wrench from either Subaru or Cobb, I just ordered one directly from Cobb and it was $50. You could probably do it without the wrench but I decided to go with the tool.

 

Thanks for the write up. I have learned alot just reading from it.

 

or you can take the head covers off. under those, on each of the cams is a little hexed section that you can put a open end wrench on.

 

Great writeup dude!

Alan

 

judging by the mounts I'd say thats a ej20h. yeah?

 

gad damn the last step it hard. I cant split mine! Going to the store to buy more hammers!

Between Brydons, Jefffffffs and reading this one I took the entire block apart by memory (except splitting it lol)

 

how did u remove the crank pulley bolt, while the motor is on an engine stand?

I did the 22mm socket with a breaker bar method when i changed my timing belt

but i don't feel like dropping the motor backin the car to do so. Any ideas?

 

Impact

 

or buy a crank holder tool, it goes into the crank pully and holds it while you break the crank pully bolt off

you can also buy a fly wheel holder, most auto stores sells them, grips on the teeth of a fly wheel/ flex plate and you can break it off that way

 

or you could not be a pussy and get it off with a friend lol its called a 23mm socket breaker bar and a pry bar against a flywheel tooth. or just break then nut by starting the car.

 

hurry up and rebuild that

 

for anyone who is having a hard time splitting a block, got a great way to do it.

after you take the pistons out and ALL of the bolts holding the block together. Slide a long extension, like 18inches long (or a long peice of metal), through the wrist pin access holes while passing through the small end of the rods. Do this on both sides of the block. After doing this, spin the crank with a 22mm socket on the crank bolt. the block will EASILY split in half. No hammering.

 

did you perform this on a ej20?

thanks for the write up

 

two of my pistons are 180 degrees off, can I just pull the clips rotate them and just throw em back in? That simple?

 

yep. it sure is.

 

then I don't have to deal with a pison ring compressor either right if i just flip it while it's still in the cylinder