Engine Pulley - Warn Woodruff Key - Loose Alt Belt
 

Hello,
I took my 2001 Civic 1.7ltr in to a large well-know shop for a precautionary timing belt and water pump replacement a few days ago. (It was overdue, but running fine) I picked up the car from the shop on completion of the job and then after 5 minutes of driving, the battery light went on, so I pulled over and lifted the hood to find that the serpentine belt was completely loose. In fact, it was so loose that when I jiggled it, it came right off in my hand so that I could put it in the cabin of the car.
I suspected that the mechanic had forgotten to tighten the belt adjustment lock-nut, or some accidental oversight like that.
The shop had the car towed the car back to the garage and informed me the next day that on their inspection everything had been re-assembled correctly when they did the job, but the lower pulley had loosened off due to a warn key. This warn key, they explained, enabled the pulley bolt to come un-torqued which led to the subsequent loosening of the serpentine belt.

This does not make sense to me. A warn Woodruff key, in my mind, would simply enable the pulley to rotate a very slight fraction of a degree on the crankshaft until the shoulder of the keyway in the pulley came hard up against the key once again. Certainly, unless the pulley actually fell off the shaft (which it didn't) the tension on the serpentine belt shouldn't change.

Has anyone ever experienced this - or am I being bamboozled here?
Your opinions very much appreciated.
Cheers
Dave.

Re: Engine Pulley - Warn Woodruff Key - Loose Alt Belt
 

I have seen keys with over 200k looking like new. Kind of a dumb story really. Look at the wing nut around the alternator. It tightens the belt. Is it loose?

It sounds like they did not tighten the wing nut. If the nut was tightened, the tension of the belt would hold the pulley in place. If it did "wobble" off, you would have heard it.

Re: Engine Pulley - Warn Woodruff Key - Loose Alt Belt
 

Bullsh!t. Bull-freeking-sh!t.
Integrity is completely missing here.

The key only keeps the pulley in proper position during assembly. The clamping force of the crank bolt (when properly torqued) keeps it locked in that exact position for the rest of its entire damn life.

The key got trashed after the loose pulley beat it to death.

Then the crank pulley would have to come off of the crankshaft in order for the belt to be as loose as you described. You said it did not, so I think that must mean the alternator brackets were not tightened. (The alternator has to be removed to do a timing belt job on the 1.7 engine.)

Their mechanic farked up, you do not owe a thin dime for it to be fixed correctly. I hope it gets done correctly this time, because it might get real expensive if it doesn't.

Good luck.

If the alt bolts are left loose, it can smoke the PCM... Hope that doesn't happen to you.

Re: Engine Pulley - Warn Woodruff Key - Loose Alt Belt
 

i agree with ezone,

but just to add....the crank pulley is also a harmonic balancer, if the crank bolt comes loose and the key comes out or is damaged, this can cause the pulley to become out of alignment, if this happens it can cause serious damage to your crankshaft bearings,

if they made a simple error like this i would be very concerned about what they did with the components under the timing cover,

good luck

Re: Engine Pulley - Warn Woodruff Key - Loose Alt Belt
 

I am having this problem in my 92 junker. Is this crank salvageable if I do a little rigging. How long do you think jb weld would hold in this case?


Attachment 92568

Re: Engine Pulley - Warn Woodruff Key - Loose Alt Belt
 

AFAIK these don't have any counterweights in the harmonic balancers, so they could essentially be stuck on in any position if nobody cared about the ignition timing marks. (I could be wrong though, I've been wrong before.)


Seriously agree with the questions about the rest of the work done.

Big question ought to be about the timing belt gear. Has it slipped out of its proper alignment, has its keyway been beat to death too?

If it's ok there, then I might slap the harmonic balancer on and see what happens with a properly tightened bolt in it.
It already needs a crankshaft, right? Can't hurt it much more at this point.


(I used to do this with Mazda 323 1.6 SOHC engines too, for whatever reason this was a fairly common occurrence on those....only they beat on the timing gear until it went out of time and ran really bad.)
Again:
Are any of the mating surfaces damaged? This may work if they are still good.
JMO, YMMV.