New Parts Installed; PWR rad, Perrin LCP
 

Installed my new PWR radiator today, and while I had the old one out, I dropped in a Perrin lightened crank pulley, since the OE one was coming apart and unbalanced.

It was kind of stressful for me, but I got it all in, and everything seems to be holding okay so far. It is a 65km commute home from the shop, so if nothing bad happened in that space of time, I'm guessing that I did everything correctly.

All was not sunshine and lollipops however. The rad is a tight fit; I had to really muscle that thing into position so that both top brackets fit on correctly. The hoses appear to be routed properly though; the top neck on the rad doesn't seem to be too long. The cap, on the other hand, may be causing a clearance problem... or it could have been the plastic top from the coolant bottle sitting in the way, I'm not sure yet. It closes ok with the stock cap now that I've moved the debris out of the way :o

The pulley went on just fine, and the wobble from the old unbalanced one is gone. One discrepancy came up though, and I'm not sure if I should be worried about it or not; the instructions from Perrin say to torque the retaining bolt to 90 foot pounds, but Ali, the journeyman who is teaching me, says that Subies should have 130 foot pounds on the crank pulley bolt. I went with the 90 foot pounds, figuring that the manufacturer of the product might know something that Ali doesn't.

If anyone has any thoughts on either of these issues, feel free to post them.

Well, so far so good, as I said. Temp gauge is right where it should be, and the Butt-O-Metre™ says that there is a little more snap with the lighter pulley.

The Tourque could be lower due to the construction of the pully.

What does the pulley do? Sorry for my huge ignorance.

Also, I thought the PWR radiator would be an identical fit. Is it too big? How did the old radiator look -- was it in good shape?

The pulley basically runs all your accessories off the crankshaft of the engine. The stock one weighs about 4 pounds and has a rubber insert to dampen vibration, and in my case, the rubber insert was coming apart, causing the pulley to wobble, thus putting undue strain on the crank bearings. The replacement one weighs 1.2 pounds, thus reducing rotating mass on the crankshaft. This allows for faster revving.

The PWR rad is a little larger than stock, and it could pose clearance issues. I think I got it to fit so the hood closes now, but I had to reuse the old cap. I will re-try the new cap soon and post my findings. Also, the upper mounting pins are a few mm wider than the stock rad, so the rad upper struts were tough to get in, but it does fit.

The rad is only 2 years old, an OE replacement for the one that blew a month after I got the car. It is going into my other SVX to replace the rad in it that blew a month after I got the car. Sheesh. Bad luck with rads, or what!

The FSM says to torque the crank pulley between 108 and 115ft-lbs. I torqued my aluminium one to 110.

It does make sense that an aluminum pulley would not want to be torqued as much as a steel part. The aluminum pulley could crack under too much pressure. :eek:

My PWR radiator came with an eight sided 'Stant' lever style cap and it works just fine. I still have to deal with the overflow outlet mismatch.

Dan

Well, after sleeping on it, then trying the locking cap they sent, it does in fact clear with the hood closed. I'm just retarded. Actually, I was just burnt out and not thinking straight (or at all) at the time. I'm better now.

I agree - torque it down to subarus spec or you could end up with a nikfu'd pulley.
I have 2 svx's with an aluminium pulley on each that I torqued to the fsm specs with no issues and no problem of stripped out keyways. Crank that sucker down.