yeroks

If a tensioner fails, can that cause damage to the engine similar to a failed or broken belt? I am trying to decide if I want to spend another $70 to replace the tensioner when I do my Timing Belt. The dealer told me they do not normally replace the tensioner when they do a timing belt.

briand17a2

I have made my crank pulley bolt my bitch.

In case anyone gets worried, the bolt loosens in the COUNTERCLOCKWISE direction (lefty loosey, like most normal fasteners).

I heard three, almost gunshot loud, pops before it finally broke free. It takes an insane amount of torque to remove this fastener, so dont worry. It will break loose eventually, but it seems like the world is going to come apart immediately before it comes loose.

I broke my 3/8" drive extension in the process, sheared the ext. head right off. My 1/2" drive chrome extention, socket and wrench made it happen (with a 6' weight bar over the end of the wrench).

I had propped the crank pulley holder tool up on a jack to keep it from turning, but when I leaned on the breaker bar, the car started to lift off the ground. So I braced the pulley holder tool against the frame of the car.

Great DIY sir! +1

briand17a2

180lbs out to 5 feet comes out to about 900 foot pounds force or so. That bolt sucks big time.

reddawnman

Good question. Not sure.

Looking at the way the tensioner is engineered, the bolt that you have to tighten twice is always on the roller, and the roller is held in a position such that if the gas cartridge fails, the spring you have to put on the post will hold the tension on the belt to some degree. I'm not sure how effective that is, or how long-lasting it would be.

Anyone want to jump in on this one? Making a SWAG (Scientific Wild-*** Guess) I'd think that with a failed tensioner AND spring it would cause the belt to slacken at idle, and under quick acceleration I guess the slack could cause the timing to be off by a fraction, but I don't think it would cause the belt to skip a tooth unless the tensioner was completely failed AND the belt was off the roller some how, which would definitely cause a FUBAR'd engine exactly like a broken timing belt.

When I was trying to figure out that woodruff key, I attempted to remove the timing belt after removing the spring / post and un-tensioning the belt to the max without removing the belt from the camshaft. It was pretty difficult, and you'd really have to try to do it.

That being said, I match-marked the belt to 2 places on the crank pulley, oil pump, and water pump. even when I didn't remove the belt EVER from the camshaft and I had the matchmarks lined up, I had still jumped a tooth. I would say it is POSSIBLE but UNLIKELY that a busted tensioner could jump a tooth. Jumping only 1 tooth would shut down your engine, but AFAIK unless you were at high RPM's you probably wouldn't bend a valve.

Anyone know the definitive answer on this?

reddawnman

I should have put that in the DIY - Exactly what happened with mine, I thought I'd broken the bolt at first, but yep, it sounds really loud and then it finally goes.

Oh, and thanks for the rep. much appreciated :-)

LoneWolf

iTrader: (8)

where did you get that Crank pulley holder tool?

briand17a2

i got mine at pepboys in the overpriced one time use tool section. Paid $50 for the tool, but seriously, it's worth it. That bolt has about eleventy billion foot pounds on it.

The haynes manual said to use a strap/chain wrench around the crank pulley (only after wrapping the pulley with an old section of belt to protect the pulley surface), but the pulley holder tool did the job for me.

That bolt was insane. I actually bent the arm of the holder tool ~10 degrees in the process. You need a breaker bar to develop torque on the fastener, I actually ended up taking an olympic weight bar apart and slid it over the end of a 1/2" drive 18" breaker bar to develop the necessary torque. But its done now. Dont forget to tension the AC/alternator belt properly, mine was squealing like woah yesterday and its a bastard to tension when everything's hot :P

reddawnman

PepBoys as well here for $44, but Denlors tools has them in stock now, i think.

Crank Pulley Holder Tool

That's probably the cheapest you'll find it - $33 plus shipping.

** EDIT: N/M Amazon Has it for $24.99:

Amazon's got the deals...

speedfoos

iTrader: (17)

Yep, that's where I got mine from. She's still in the box for this summer's rebuild debacle. Good thread here folks. Lots of useful info.

yeroks

Well thanks to this excellent DIY, I started my timing belt job last night. I got pretty much everything cleared out of the way in just about 3 hours and now I'm ready to bust that awful bolt free. My question is where should I place my jack stands while I do it? I currently have them right behind the front wheels on the typical jack points. Is there a better place to put them before I apply what will probably be tremendous pressure as I work that bolt loose?

reddawnman

Nope, they go where they go. I would recommend putting an extra jack stand right below and out a bit from the wheel well where your ratchet extension is coming out of the crank pulley so you can brace the extension on it. When you get that set up, the brace allows you to make sure that all your force on the breaker bar is at 90 degrees to the bolt rotation, which ensures maximum torque.

Good luck - you'll hear a loud bang or two when you finally get the thing. That means you either broke your socket or you finally got the darn bolt.

jimmym86

Red-
Super excellent DIY!!! I changed timing belt/water pump on a co-workers 01 LX this weekend, and it was a piece of cake. I can't wait til my 04 DX gets due for it, so I can do it again.

Many thanks for taking the time to write up this great DIY! I saved my buddy about $500 of labor, and he couldn't be happier.

yeroks

I finished my timing belt this weekend and drove the car 29 miles to work this morning. I've never done much with cars except brakes, oil, transmission fluid changes, etc but decided to tackle this one for some experience. Was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. My only observation would be I found it easier to take the bumper off in order to get closer to the Crank bolt. Less extensions made for less twisting and bending and it came off pretty easily with a 4 foot cheater pipe on my breaker bar. Thanks to reddawn for a great DIY!

jackburton

iTrader: (1)

Could you or better yet would you by any chance list the respective part numbers?
Would be much appreciated.

HondaCivicCat

iTrader: (4)

Great DIY reddawnman - 96000 on my 01 LX soon I will join the guild of timing belt/water pump/hell on wheels DIYers (well at least of civics - I have done this same procedure on 2 Saturn's already...never again, never...Honda pwns Saturn's)

+1 for reddawnman

yeroks

CRANK SEAL...........91212-PLM-A01
TIMING BELT..........14400-PMM-A02
CAM SEAL..............91213-P2F-A01
TENSIONER SET......04145-PLC-315
WATER PUMP..........19200-PLM-A01
P.S. BELT..............56992-PLM-003
A/C BELT................38920-PLR-003

GASKET SET, HEAD COVER (Don't have the part number but here is a link to it on Majestic

http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/...DER+HEAD+COVER

Don't forget some of those plastic bumper clips for the ones that are all scraped up on the splash shield.

khmer

I finished the install today. It took me 2 weeks because I broke the pulley and had to order a new one. I also did a valve adjustment, but it is much noisier. It makes a sputters sound at 2nd gear and 3rd gear. Did I mess up the timing or did I really messed up the valve adjustment. I'm thinking about taking it in to a mechanic to do a valve adjustment. How much would that cost?

khmer

I redid the valve adjustment and it was much quitter. Everything was at tdc. so I think the noise on 2nd gear, from 2000-3000rpm is from an exhaust leak from the engine?

Cleft_Asunder

iTrader: (1)

Super DIY! I'm very impressed. I like the video showing proper use of the power built tool. You don't even have to remove the bumper! ****ing ay.

Fox04coupe

how much do mechanics charge to do this?

raj

I know this is an old post. Hope you still reply. What year was your Civic? What crank holder tool did you buy? The OTC or Powerbuilt?

d5685090

I just wanted to add that i am always able to remove the crankshaft bolt easily, especially with my 700 ft per pnd of torque impact gun that i bought for 200 bucks, in my opinion best 200 i've ever spent. very great post tho.

mjlenz

I noticed that the parts you guys list aren't genuine Honda parts. Is it a big deal not to use the Honda parts? Any input would be greatly appreciated. If I need to start a different thread I will. Thx!

tkdtim1226

I flushed my coolant this weekend and noticed that the drain plug was a 19mm, not 17 as stated in DIY. Can anybody comment on this. Is my car one of a kind or is it more likely a typo. Other than that, bad *** DIY.

iplayloudly

This is a great writeup, and I cannot thank you enough. I was kinda scared to tackle this job alone, but this actually made it pretty easy. Took me a total of about 12 hours.

conarl

Finished my timing belt yesterday and took a 275mile trip today. No problems runs great. Used the tool with a 20" extention bar with jack and cheater bar no problem. Any one doing this there are two bolts on the end of the motor mount the second one is well hiddden. Had to loosen tensioner bolt and use a screwdriver to push the tensioner enough to get the belt on. And the gaskets the round ones on the inside of the valve cover I had to use channel locks to pop them out. It took me about 7 hours to finish. Thanks for the DIY and there is a youtube video thats real good. Thanks and it's worth my time to say I did it myself.

chuckd83

Great post! Some problems I ran into while doing mine:

Ok, this mistake cost me $150 (new alternator). I disconnected the electrical connector, but the hot lead (bolt sticking out of the alternator) broke off when I was trying to disconnect it. This is not a bolt - it is a nut. If you put too much force on it trying to get it out, it will break off.

It took me a while to figure this out, but I think the upper timing cover needs to come off first. I struggled for a while until I took off the upper cover and then the alternator bracket came off easily.

With the bolt common to both pieces, this makes it a total of 7 bolts...may need to clarify.

To be at TDC, the most important thing is to match up that scored notch with the arrow - not necessarily the keyway pointing strait up. Consider revising?

My auto-tensioner did not come with a pin. I had to make one out of a coat hanger.

When I began to turn the cam pulley, the bolt started to unthread. I didn't know what was causing this until later (crankshaft not exactly at TDC since I was referencing the key pointing up), but you may want to put a note describing this situation: if the camshaft pulley bolt starts to unthread something is wrong, etc.

korndo1284

Great DIY; i'm looking forward to doing my own soon. Thanks for the TUT.

Whats the name of the girl????!!!!

jackburton

iTrader: (1)

I looked over this a couple times, but there is no mention of ABS. Are there any issues with the ABS being the way?

jackburton

iTrader: (1)

NM I looked at the DIY book from advanced and it does not say anything about ABS