Nhull97

I was driving my car home today(1998 prelude h22) and it made a couple clunk sounds. Then the battery light came on and I lost power steering. So I pulled over and as I was stopping the oil light came on and the car died. I popped the hood and no pulley on the crank. I had it pulled home and I tried to start it and by the sounds of it there's no compression. Assuming the timing belt came off too? Or the tensioner pulley came off? Prob screwed up the timing and ruined my head by the sounds of it. What do you guys think?

holmesnmanny

Dont assume. Get in there and see if just the crank pulley simply came part. Its not likely anything timing related got damaged.

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like your crank pulley bolt came loose. How exactly did u try to start it if you weren't even sure if the status of the tbelt? That was real dangerous to your engine. My guess would be that the woodruff key snapped too or damaged the keyhole in the crank, balance pulley and or crank pulley. Then again, maybe u lucked out. This has happened to me, however the timing belt didn't come off so my engine was fine. Just needed a new key. Since your pulley is already off now, time to remove the lower timing cover and see if there's any damage. Take some pics if ya can.

Like I say.. Maybe yr lucky, maybe not. But ya gotta take some stuff apart to see

Nhull97

I'll do that either tonight or tomorrow. Thanks!

snobordboy

Yeah, at this point you may still be lucky.

If your engine is stock, you were at low rpm, and nothing else was damaged, i.e. the crank slot for the woodruff key, you may not have done internal damage. Once I lost my crank bolt, and the pulley and key just backed out enough to let the timing pulley spin. Car died, but everyhting was good once tightened back up in correct time.

If you did damage the crank snout at all, it could be adifferent story just to get it all put back together. But if you were also at high rpm especially in vtec when it happened, you may have hit valves.

Check out the lower end, put it all back in correct time if you can, then start it up and see how it runs. Once up to temp, do a compression test to verify health of the engine.

Next time somthing like that happens, if it won't start with a normal turn of the key, let it be and check it all over thoroughly.

ESP.net

Lol sounds like a similar issue I had haha...

Had a fully built H23V Turbo Crx... went to make a half pull on the street... car shut off... wouldnt start...

Looked around saw the Crank Pulley a little **** eye. Bolt had backed out. Trailered it home...

Here is the lucky part lol doing any work on motor in a Crx is 10 times harder usually means pulling motor. I spent about 10 minutes rotating the crank in order to get the key way lined up with the balance shaft pulley and timing gear lol. Luckily I got it pretty quick. Coulda taken hours. Bolted it back up to spec. Fired right up... Did a compression test... same as before... lucky.

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

I have to wonder how so many of us have had the crank bolt come loose or completely off on us.. lol. I'd rather have a wheel fall off than that feeling happen again.
Edit: I say that with absolute certainty because I've had a wheel fall off too

Although..I've noticed the crank bolt to be of different length depending on H series engine. Either that, or my jdm h22a for some reason came with or someone previously used a shorter crank bolt than others I have seen.

snobordboy

I have had the bolt loosen off twice, and lost a timing tensioner once. Never a good feeling. The tensioner went with Pro1 cams on my H23V as well, so that killed a head.

spoolinlude

You guys need some torque wrenches and lock tight....

And anytime you have a modified car you should periodically check things like that, the cam gear bolts, etc....

ESP.net

I always use loctite on the crank pulley bolt... torque wrench didn't go high enough lol I figured got close by muscle memory. Was wrong and or just the harmonics caused it to back off.

backinblue92

iTrader: (1)

Ouch.

Mine happened because I had a shop loosen the crank bolt for me prior to a timing belt job, but the guy loosened it waaaay too much and unfortunately I didn't check it and it came off before I could make it the 1/4 mile home.

The lost wheel, I was 16 and had a shop mount new tires. Didn't check that the wheels got torqued down. They didn't.