TommyV

Hi, new guy here. I've done a lot of work on other cars, but new to Honda's. I'm doing a timing belt change on my son-in-law's 2001 Civic LX. This car is new to us with 160,000 miles and a beater we bought at auction for him to get back and forth to work. I've been trying to do some catching up on maintenance. I changed the camshaft position sensor and noticed the timing belt was getting chewed badly on both sides and had left a lot of debris behind so I ordered parts to change it out. All went smoothly until I tried to torque the tensioner. It got tight then loose again, oh crap! I know what that means! I pulled it out and the threads came with it. I had wondered why the head of the bolt was painted red. I had cleaned up the threads and put a tiny bit of anti-seize on them before I put it in, but after cleaning it up again I found trace amounts of what I think is red Loctite. I suspect the last person to do the timing belt stripped it and tried to cover their mistake with the Loctite. This was letting the tensioner wobble a little and make the belt wander and causing the unusual wear. The belt itself didn't look old.

So what to do? I've done Time-serts before, but the problem is the frame is blocking access to the hole to get a straight shot with a drill to drill it out and fix it. Any suggestions? I don't have the facilities to drop the engine in my garage so unless someone has a brilliant idea I'll probably tow it to a local shop and have them repair it and pay the piper.

TIA

ezone

Search the forum, I know solutions have been posted in the past

TommyV

TommyV

I wanted to put in a big thank you to Time-Sert! I went on Amazon last night and ordered the Time-Sert M10x1.25 kit. It doesn't come with a tap guide though, so I started looking for tap guides and none of them would get here until middle to late next week. This morning I called the Time-Sert folks in Reno, NV and asked if the M10x1.5 tap guide would work (I could get one by the weekend). They said no, it was not the correct size. Bummmer! The nice lady on the phone looked at the cost of sending me the tap guide 2 day and it was $44! Then she said look for the 1012c kit on Amazon as it includes the tap guide. That one was available from another seller, but with a week delay. She was surprised because they make it available to Amazon and it should be under Prime. She said let me talk to the boss.... A minute later she came back and said "I'll send you the 1012c kit direct and get it to you by Saturday (2 day) with free shipping, just sent the 1012 kit back to Amazon when you get it." Now that is customer service!!!