ok, replaced the head gasket on my 91 b18a1 the other day.

never touched the distributor on the head. just popped the head, slapped on a new gasket, and back together it went.

the crank gear lines up perfect at TDC and both cams are in the perfect up position. after getting the timing belt on, I rotated the engine a couple times and each time when the pulley was at the single TDC mark, both cam gears were straight up. I cranked it up and can only rotate the distributor about halfway to the triple set of marks (the middle red being the one I want per what I've read)...and the distributor maxes out.

yes, this is with the service connector jumped to lock out timing as well. cut the car off and rotated back to TDC and everything still lines up perfect.

what the hell? any ideas??

I will mention that when I got it back together I had to have a friend hold the intake cam in place as it wanted to slide off "UP" and the belt was a little loose between the gears. Also, when I cranked it up the first time it made a weird worbling noise aside from the regular idle noises and belt slack was on both sides of the belt. I just cut it off, loosened the tensioner bolt and took the slack out of the belt facing the intake manifold.

 

did you turn the crank over three teeth before tightening the tensioner?

 

what? I've never heard of that...

 

Yep, you have to turn the crank a bit to tighten the "tight" side of the belt, this loosens the tensioner side of the belt so the tensioner takes up all of the slack.

 

ok, apparently I missed that step when I was reading the instructions. I've been reading several write-ups online after doing another google search.

some say to turn it clockwise, some say counter-clockwise...

which is correct? Clockwise as that would put the slack between the crank gear and the exhaust cam...or I "assume" counter clockwise to put all the slack around the tensioner to be taken up??

also, since the crank pulley and the cams still line up, all I need to do is loosen the tensioner and turn the engine versus tearing it all back down and re-position the belt right?

 

I can't see the tensioner being the problem but it can't hurt to do it properly. Just turn the crank so all the slack in the belt goes to the tensioner side, then tighten the tensioner bolt. Yep, counter clockwise would put the slack on the tensioner side.

 

yep, when im all done i go <-- that way to pick up slack.

 

cool. I'll set it back at TDC this afternoon after work and recheck one last time that the crank and both cams still line up right and then I'll loosen the tensioner bolt and rotate it counterclock wise a little to pull the slack and retighten the tensioner belt before rechecking the timing.

makes sense that would help with the cam phasing since I do still have slack somewhat on both long portions of the belt lol.

 

Not a little. The book states 3 teeth, make sure you follow the directions.

 

yeah, tried just rotating it yesterday with the tensioner loose and same thing though I got all the slack out. taking it back apart this afternoon to start from scratch and make sure I get it done right this time...the first time...well hopefully haha

 

got it. timing is spot on now.

tore it back down and set the cam gears to the side dots so they were pointing right at each other. the UP arrows were pointing in goofy positions versus straight up when I did that. then got it all back on, and counted the teeth on the crank gear as I turned it just 3 and then bolted it all back together. I set the distributor back to the middle of its throw and then rotated the engine and the crank gear was pointing slightly off but whatever, I didnt care.

fired it up and let it warm up, shorted the connector and the timing was spot on lol. go figure...

 

UP arrows are just for reference, they do not determine TDC. Glad you figured it out.

 

just for future reference, you don't have to tear it back down to adjust mechanical timing. honda put a plug in the timing cover over the tensioner bolt for this very reason.

 

LOL people learn the hard way.

 

Glad you got it sorted dude.