gotz2b16

So, I was dealing with a kid that wanted me to replace his LMA's. Needless to say the sound was misdiagnosed and it was a loose Cam pulley. However, I had a few in hand and was wondering just what they looked like inside.. Here's how it works..

Here's the old style LMA.



The way you get them apart is by cleaning them a little using some brake cleaner or something of the sort and blow dry them..

Get a pair of vise grips and compress them so you can see the retaining clip.
Here I'm using a sharpened Snap-on AWL but you might also have similar results with your own custom tool or a sewing needle or something..



The idea is to find one of the ends of the clip, pry it from it's groove and push it down in the bore ****-eyed.. This will give you enough room to stick the awl in the lifted part of the clip and pull it out..



After the clip is removed you can disassemble the LMA..

Here's an exploded view of it in order..



Here's the top piece.



Then the small lash spring (This spring is only used to remove excess lash between the rocker and cam assembly. This is the spring you compress when you push your VTEC rocker down by finger.)



Then the differential washer.. (When you press the vtec rocker down and it stops, it's because the small lash spring compresses and allows the washer to bottom out on the lip of the top piece of the LMA effectively making the stronger Secondary LMA spring compress. This is the point when the LMA gets difficult to compress by finger.)



Then the secondary LMA spring



This whole inverted assembly then receives the main body (inverted) and placed over the already inverted top piece during assembly)

Here's the inside of the lower main body.



After the LMA top and bottom halfs are put together, you should have a LMA that looks like this with no retaining clip..



To install the clip, slightly compress by finger to exposing the locking groove, and press the clip in and it's back together..


I'm sure you could use this to inspect and or clean your old style LMA's and possibly save some money.. There's not much that could possibly go wrong with them aside from one of the springs breaking or slightly losing it's tension which is far and few between. Other possibility is varnish build up.. This is solved with some solvent and a wire bottle brush.. =]

Hope this helps or educates someone..