I thought I was coming down with the flu last night, but this morning I feel fine. After I got done working on the Subaru yesterday, I started feeling like crap, and eventually my body got achy and I had a slight fever. I took some NyQuil and went to bed, then woke up in the middle of the night just sweating like hell–literally dripping. I guess my fever had gone away then, and when I woke up this morning, I felt alright (but still really tired).
I’m almost done putting the Subaru back together. All I’ve got left to do is install the intake manifold, air cleaner housing, radiator, fans, alternator, and exhaust. After that, I’ll need to add all new fluids (engine oil, transmission gear oil, and coolant), then I’ll see if it’ll fire up. I always get nervous when I start wrapping up a project like this–I can’t help but wonder if I spent all this time only to have something go terribly wrong when I start the car.
When I put the new timing belts on yesterday, one of them was misaligned by half a tooth on the camshaft sprocket. There’s nothing I can do about it, since adjusting it would just put it off by half a tooth in the other direction. I noticed the other day while looking at some pictures of the last head gasket job I did (see the camshaft case and cylinder head pictures), that engine looked nasty–the oil looks like it was cooked onto all the inside surfaces. The Subaru I’m working on now, however, looked great inside. All the interior engine surfaces are silver, like bare metal should look. Hopefully that’s a good sign that this engine has been taken better care of.