miketegra

Just finished doing the timing belt/water pump on my 94 GSR.
Tips:
1. The Helms just says to take off the power steering belt, but taking off the whole P/S pump and res. makes the rest of the job alot easier. IMHO it was well worth the time to take it off. Keep a small cup ready to catch the P/S fluid, and be sure to have a 12oz. bottle of Honda P/S Fluid to refill it when you put it back on. Don't forget to bleed the P/S system when you are done - its real easy, just let the car warm up, then turn the wheel back and forth from lock to lock 5 times.
2. Mark the OLD timing belt and the corresponding spots on the cam pulleys with a paint pen (before taking the old belt off). Then, transfer the marks from the old belt to the new belt. This way, when you are putting the new belt on, you can be sure it's lining up correctly.
3. Use the old timing belt to tighten the camshaft pulleys when putting them on after replacing the water pump. The only way could figure to tighten the cam shaft pulley was to A. use an air wrench (seemed like a bad idea), B. somehow hold the cam while I tightened the cam pulley while using a hand torque wrench(seemed impossible), but option C worked quite well. What I did was put the old timing belt back on, put the crankshaft pulley bolt back into the crank (minus pulley), then held the crankshaft pulley bolt with a wrench and tightened the camshaft pulley with a torque wrench. The old timing belt kept the cam pulley from moving it while I tightened it down. UPDATE: apparently, simply wedging something (wedge of wood or a screwdriver covered with a rag) between the cam and rocker arm is ok to do also - this will also hold the cam from spinning while you tighten the cam gears.
4. Not sure if I was just blind or what, but the Helms doesnt mention anything about removing the drivers side engine stabilizer, but it must be at least loosened to get the A/C belt and timing belt off. Also, not sure if its required, but I put a jack with a block of wood under the motor after taking the stabilizer and engine mount off - seemed like a good idea.
5. Be sure to have some radiator fluid around if you are doing your water pump. I think mine took about 1.25 gal of 50/50. Having a couple buckets on the ready is a good idea since the radiator fluid will get everywhere when you take the water pump off.
6. Crankshaft pulley bolt - freaked out when my air wrench with supposedly 600ft/lbs of takeoff torque wouldnt budge the bolt. Tried upping the pressure on the air wrench to 100psi, no dice. Borrowed a friend's air wrench, no dice. Used a shorter air line, no dice. Took off short extention, and zoom, it came right off. Lesson: extensions rob lots of power from air tools. Many of you probably knew that already...now, so do I.
I'll try to think of more and edit this later. Just wanted to share my insight into doing the job. Its quite easy actually, and took maybe 4 hours of actual work, but I take my time, **** around looking for tools, smoking, etc. I did have a helper too.
I replaced the following parts:
Timing Belt
Water Pump
Timing Belt Tensioner
Valve Cover Gasket
Crankshaft pulley - my old one had hairline cracks - $150 from ahmotor - ouch
Crankshaft pulley bolt - not cheap, but not bad idea to replace
Alt, A/C, P/S belts - NAPA has Gates belts - very good IMHO
I also checked the valves and they were all just as I left them 20k miles ago.


Anyway, hope this helps some folks out, email or im with ?'s



[Modified by miketegra, 2:33 PM 2/21/2003]

garados

iTrader: (3)

good info The idea about the marking of the new timing belt from the marks on the old one is a good idea. Oh, I also agree on the statement of taking the power steering pump off. It frees up much needed space when trying to get other stuff off.

MachAF

Good info..

BUT QUIT SMOKING!

GSRaCeRbOI

good info... if you have the time.. do a step by step (or whatever you can remember) I'm sure a lot of people will benefit from it..

deepgreengsr

I just did a T belt yesterday. I dont know what the paint is fore? I just align the crank pulley at TDC and the cams line up on their marks. Make sure you advance the intake cam and retard the exhaust before tightening them up.

tilt

Honda should have put timing marks on the belts in the first place like other car companies. I ended up using white-out to make things easier. Marks on the belt takes out any guesswork of being off a tooth, which im sure plenty people have done one time or another.


[Modified by tilt, 2:12 AM 2/21/2003]

dip-set

anyone wanna come do mines....

emr88

Thanks for the info Mike. I'm getting ready to do mine pretty soon (car is at 88k) this is the kind of info that makes H-T great. Thanks!

PatrickGSR94

iTrader: (1)

I don't get this, why are you messing w/ the cam gears while just changing the timing belt and water pump? What do they have to do with the process?

miketegra

You gotta take off the "back cover" (I think that's what it's called) to get to the water pump. You have to take the cam gears off to get the back cover off.

The Toecutter

You do not need to take off the back timing belt cover to remove the water pump. Water pump comes off after removing the front cover and the four bolts that hold the pump to the block. I agree with removing the power steering pump but just remove the two bolts and the tensioner bolt and lay the pump with hose still attached on something. That way you do not need to worry about draining the fluid.

miketegra

We are talking g3 GSR -B18C1, right?
I can't remember every detail, but I'm pretty damn sure that the cover needs to come off to get access to the water pump. I couldnt see any way to get the pump off without taking the cover off.
The Helms manual agrees:
Water Pump Replacement - Section 10-9 step 2:
"Remove the camshaft pulleys and the back cover - see 6-58"
Maybe there IS a way to do it without taking the cover off, but I dunno. I'm not about to go check and see - ha ha.
My car is running GREAT now!

The Toecutter

Yep, 97 GSR. Just took the 4 bolts off and off it came. I'm glad your car is running well. You may want to re-tension the tensioner after a few miles.

deepgreengsr

Well for 5 bucks i bought new cam shatf seals, so while i had the belt off I replaced those. ya know preventative maintence

miketegra

Yeah, not a bad idea, esp. if the car has alot of miles.
I'll re-check the tension soon, thanks for the tip....