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Hey forum I have a major question. Well to make a long story short, my friend and I are replacing the head on a 93 civic lx with 1.5. I have the manual but while I was reading it my friend just tore into the motor and removed the timing belt (Just slipping it off the cam). So the timing belt is not off but he did mark where it was talking off at with a market. And then continued to tear the rest down. Now my question what do I have to do because the motor was not at TDC when everything was apart. His response was how hard can it be? So what exactly do I have to do? Details please. I am replacing the head with a used one which has been checked at a machine shop. Its a long story about this car. Just any help would do plesase and thanks. I do appreciate it.

Brian

 
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First of all, tell your friend not to touch your car if he's going to be so careless! He is wrong with his "how hard can it be?" attitude. I had a similar problem just yesterday when replacing the water pump on my 91 Civic LX sedan. I didn't know a whole lot about it, and came close to causing damage because I didn't know the details of determining and maintaining both the camshaft and crankshaft at TDC.

Fortunately for you, you are replacing the head, so you will have plenty of opportunity to realign everything once you're ready to put the replacement head on. The cam has certain marks to indicate TDC. On mine, it has the word "UP" cast into the face of the cam gear (looking at it from the cam gear end) and two individual marks which line up with the head. If these are aligned, the cam gear is at TDC. The lower timing belt cover has a pointer which lines up with a notch with a white dot) on the crankshsaft pulley (visible when looking down from the top of the engine compartment). However, the drivebelts will need to be removed from the crankshaft pulley in order to make the TDC mark visible.

Here's an illustration to help you understand what I mean:



I actually haven't finished putting everything back together on mine from the water pump I just replaced, so if you want, I can get some pics of it today and post them if it would make it easier for you to grasp that way.


- soltero -