Deanrocker

I think I may know why my Integra stopped running and now won't start, despite having fuel, spark, air, compression and timing. My alternator belt broke. I'm guessing maybe when the belt whipped around, it could've sheared the CKF sensor wire (and harness) while doing so. BUT ... My user's manual does not show a picture of where the harness is connected. Is it outside of the lower cam cover? Should I see it near the alternator? Would love to see where it SHOULD BE, so I can try to figure out what might be missing. Fo course, if the harness is inside the lower cam cover, out of reach of the alternator belt, there goes my theory.
Thanks.

tony_2018

should be above the alternator

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

It's outside of the lower cover. I believe there's a bracket that that part of the harness clips into but I'm not positive. Give me a bit and I can get you a picture from my car.

wunfstgsr

Yes its possible the wire tore when the belt ripped, when its not properly seated the harness wire can also get rubbed against the alt. belt and get torn and will need to be replaced or repaired this happed years ago to me. You must remove the crank pulley, lower timing cover to access the sensor. Just look too see if the harness that comes out the bottom side of the oil pump is intact and plugged into the engine harness, you shouldn't have to remove anything to see that, if you see the harness ripped or missing you know what to do..

Deanrocker

The ckp sensor wires actually looks intact. I'm almost confident now that there's a sheared key inside the timing belt. Right now I'm struggling to get off the crank holy not I need to go buy a breaker bar tomorrow. Hopefully I can then slide off the crank pulley removal or cover and access the entire timing belt mechanism to see what's going on in preventing the crank from turning more than 45 degrees each Direction.

wunfstgsr

Well if the engine wont turn by hand you might have other serious issues like the engine seizing. But if you removed the spark plugs and all the drive belts ( A.C, PS, Alternator) it should turn freely by hand with a ratchet. But if you leave the spark plugs in its going to be a pain in the *** to turn same as the belts.

Deanrocker

I can't remove the crankshaft pulley nut. I need to get a breaker bar tomorrow.
It was turning freely prior to today, when I decided to adjust the belt tension. I did it exactly as the service manual stated, loosening timing pulley adjuster 180 degrees, then moving the crank 3 teeth ccw, then tightening the belt tensioner nut back to 40 pounds. AFter that I turned the crank ccw 5 times. At that point, it seized and I could no longer rotate ccw. When I tried going back to cw, I could only move about 90 degrees. So ... I've effectively locked up the timing belt. I'm guessing that key sheared off and is prohibiting me from rotating the crank more than 90 degrees. Hopefully I can get off the crank pulley nut tomorrow when I fashion a breaker bar for leverage. I'm sure then I'll struggle to get off the crank pulley, and perhaps then I can easily remove the lower timing belt cover and see what the hell is going on inside.
What a ******* nightmare this has turned into. I honestly don't feel like I've done anything recklessly, either, as I followed the field manual to a "t."

wunfstgsr

You need to use the Honda crank pulley tool for easy removal, you will still need a breaker bar but this tool holds the pulley while you break the bolt free, You can use a propane torch and heat up the bolt to make it easier to remove.

https://www.ebay.com/p/for-Honda-Acu...d=122716646255


Watch these vids on the timing belt install, this guy shows step by step how to install and tension the belt properly. Its a great vid that I brushed up on recently when I did the belt change on my ITR.





See if you missed or did something wrong. You may have installed the belt wrong and had the crank move when you put the belt back on and the valves are open causing you to not be able to rotate the engine because the valves are probably hitting your pistons!!!! ... Make sure the crank gear mark points to the oil pump mark and lines up and that the cams are at TDC and the arrows and lines line up then install the belt make sure nothing moves when putting on the belt. In vid # 2 he goes over this.

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

Yea, you WILL need the Honda crank pulley tool to hold the pulley in place. You'll also need TWO breaker bars and preferably a long (3 feet) pipe extension for at least one of them. Working on it with the engine in the car can be tricky but try to jack the car up as much as you can to give yourself more room for leverage. When it comes to getting off a crank pulley bolt with hand tools, leverage is your best friend and you'll need a lot of it. If you can't get the breaker bar that's attached to the crank pulley tool to stay stationary, you can help yourself by putting the car in 5th hear and having someone stand on the brakes.

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

also, here's that picture. The bracket for the harness that plugs into the ckf sensor is on the top of the lower timing belt cover just above the water pump bump and on the back side. This picture is from the top down and you can see my plastic bag and zip tie around my unplugged connector and you can just make out the bracket that it's attached to.

Deanrocker

Thanks a bunch for all the info guys.. Let me recap what has happened for my own sanity, and maybe you folks can tell me what's gone wrong and/or if I compounded things along the way. Note car battery has always been fully charged to 12.8 v or so by trickle charger each night after the repeated attempts to start.
1. Vehicle loses power while driving 75 on highway. Jump start attempts fail. Towed to my house.
2. Diagnosed missing alternator belt, and half-frayed a/c belt. Also, removal of spark plugs shows oil in all 4 cylinders, including halfway up in cylinder 4.
3. Dried spark plug wells and replaced 4 plugs. Replaced alt belt and a/c belt. Tried starting, but crank no fire.
4. Tests show compression at 120 psi on all 4 cylinders. Spark on crank at all 4 plugs (#2 ignition coil was bleeding spark, so I replaced all 4 ignition wires, being careful to put on right spot on dizzy). Also, removal of nut on left end of fuel rail, and having wife turn key to on, yields high pressure gush of fuel. Therefore, I feel confident I have spark, fuel and compression. I also test ohms at dizzy, and it falls within specs.
5. Removed valve cover and spark plugs and had wife watch cams and crankshaft pulley mark while I rotate crankshaft. We also had a long scewdriver with tape around it in spark plug well for cylinder 1 to denote when piston is at peak. Take extensive notes on location of cam "up" arrows each time the #1 piston is at peak/ when the crankshaft pulley mark is below the arrow on the cam cover. Am able to rotate crank ccw until cams are pointing at noon, # 1 piston is at peak, white tick mark on crank pulley is below arrow on cam cover, AND dizzy rotor is positioned at 7 o'clock, where the ignition wire going to cylinder 1 is located. Twice I repositioned the crank to get to TDC, and these were by far the 2 closest times the car came to starting, as it coughed originally, but never turned over. after 2 seconds or holding key down, it turned into more of a "whirring sound," something not nearly as close to starting when I manually reposition everything to TDC. This confirms my suspicion that it's timing related, especially since I have fuel, spark and compression. Am assuming "air" is always present, since nothing in the intake was plugged.
6. Resumed testing conditions on timing. Further inspection reveals that cams are infrequently at 12 or 6 position, as they should be, when #1 piston is TDC. I chart out 6 half-rotations of the crankshaft pulley. Upon the first 4 ccw revolutions, cam arrows are pointing at either 12 or 6. However, subsequent turns it starts drifting to 1 and 7, 2 and 8, with cams getting farther away from noon and 6 each revolution of crankshaft. Crank and piston #1 being at TDC is confirmed by scewdriver height within well, and tick mark on crank pulley. I rotated the crank clockwise to see if the timing syncs back up with the cam when I turn it backward. It does. So in other words, if after 6 ccw rotations, cam arrows were pointing at 2 o'clock, after 6 clockwise rotations, it was back to cam arrows pointing at 12 o'clock.
7. I decide to loosen the timing belt adjustable bolt to see if belt tightness could be affecting the timing of everything and keep the cams synced with the crank. I back it out to what I assume is 180 degrees, but it's hard to gauge as I can only get a slight crank of socket wrench each time. Anyway, I thought I did 180. I then move crankshaft 3 teeth marks ccw, and believe I tighten the adjustable bolt back to 40 pounds. I then try to rotate the crankshaft pulley 5 or 6 times ccw. At this point, it gets to a spot where I can no longer turn ccw with any amount of force. The cams are still drifting out of time with the crank being TDC. Adjusting the belt tension does nothing to improve syncing of cams and crank. In fact, it jams things up so I can no longer crank ccw. When trying to turn clockwise, that to halts at around 75 degress of turn of crank. I also notice metallic-looking whitish powder on the crank pulley.

SUMMARY: I think the alternator belt snapping, the a/c belt being narrowed down to half its width and the oil in the spark plug wells are all irrelevant to the larger problem of the crank and cam timing being off. Perhaps in my efforrts to change the alt belt, I did something to disrupt the crank/cam timing, though I can't imagine what that would've been. It's possible with the vehicle in park, that I cranked on the crank pulley too hard (something that I've since learned was totally unnecessary when changing the alt belt), and sheared the key inside the timing belt cover. I could still turn crank, though roughly at times, But at this point, timing was disrupted between cams and crank. The problem worsened when I loosened the timing belt adjustable bolt. Perhaps that allowed the sheared key to fall into a position that made turning the crank more than 75 degrees either direction impossible.

So up next is getting the tools to remove the crankshaft nut and pulley. Sure wish I could just see inside the lower timing belt cover to see what's up before going to more trouble and possibly screwing up more stuff.

maxwellmercer

You didn't shatter the keyway because the crank pulley wouldn't spin with the motor if you did so. At this point, especially trying to mess with tension, a timing job is in order at minimum. You are definitely out of sync now from when you tried to re-tension. You are probably making P2V contact based on the motor not being able to rotate freely anymore. Anything is possible really, I would try a leak down test for piece of mind as well.

Deanrocker

What is your theory as to why the cams are not keeping time with crank?

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

Your alternator belt and sudden mechanical timing issues could be related though not likely as it would be very apparent. The plastic timing covers tend to warp outwards over time and dig into the alternator belt. You would see this though as you'd have a giant gash in the lower plastic cover. Anyway, it's a moot point right now. You DEFINITELY have a timing issue though and that's why it's not starting. I would stop trying to rotate the crank as well because the reason it's not moving is something metal is hitting something metal, i.e. valve on piston contact. Just so you know, when your crank is at cyl #1 TDC and the tdc mark is lined up with the mark on the plastic cover, that's also cylinder 4 TDC. The cams can be in TWO different positions with crank at TDC. They can be either at 12 o'clock for cyl 1 or 6 o'clock for cyl 4. If after rotating your crank a bunch of times back to tdc and cams are not always at either of those two positions then that means you have a tension issue with the belt. I guess that's the question you were asking. If it's not tensioned correctly, you're effectively changing the operating size of the belt. I would change the timing belt, tensioner pulley and spring with new ones. One quick tip the FSM doesn't tell you is, when you're lining up cyl #1 TDC on the cams with TDC on crank, it won't and can't be perfectly lined up before you tension the new belt. The reason being that the effective length of the belt is different when it's tensioned and that's when you want things to line up. Not when the belt is still loose. I would put the crank at TDC and get the cams as close to 12 o'clock as you can and then tension it when installing a new timing belt. Other than that, follow the FSM, the videos posted in a previous comment, and get yourself two breaker bars, pipe extension and the Honda crank pulley tool.

Deanrocker

jdmark1 ... This is the most beneficial post yet. For starters, thanks for not challenging my statements about positioning of cams on TDC. I did know that pistons 1 and 4 rise and plunge simultaneously, as do pistons 2 and 3. In the awindow of turning the crankshaft I am now limited to, I can see pistons 2 and 3 go to peak and then plunge away. Pistons 1 and 4 can almost reach TDC, but not quite, due to crank being stuck. Since all 4 pistons will rise and fall, that tells me two things: 1. I'm probably closer to having 180-degrees of crank rotation, not 75, as I estimated before; and 2. Maybe the fact that the pistons rise and fall mean no serious damage to anything other than the cams??? Perhaps that latter statement is wishful thinking.

Anyway, I couldn't get the pulley nut off with the makeshift tools I have now. I need to get the car higher so I can add leverage to the socket wrench handle. I'm going to jack it up more tomorrow, and have my wife sit in it with the car in drive and her foot on the break. Perhaps I can loosen the nut then without the pully spinning, too. I probably will heat it up prior to doing so, to help my odds.

I'll keep you all posted on my outcome. So far, you are the only one on this forum who A: Believes it's possible for cams to not be at 6 or 12 when pistons 1 and 4 are at TDC, and B: Actually explains that it's the result of the belt tension being off.

I will say this ... I was correct then, in my actions to address the timing belt adjuster. I just somehow made it worse by moving 3 teeth ccw, putting me where I'm at now. But we did have the same diagnosis for what might have caused cams to be out of sync. And I did do things as the FSM suggested. Not sure how that made crank get stuck, but maybe there's something else going on now. Wonder if I should put some oil in the valves or do something to ensure everything is still lubricated. I've tried cranking the car 100s of times over the past week. Does that sound necessary?

Deanrocker

Tell me if this is worth a shot ... I'm wondering if I loosen the timing belt adjuster 180 degrees, and then rotate the cams CLOCKWISE 3 teeth, and then tighten things down, maybe things will get back to where they were and I could turn the crank fairly easily.

I'm just wanting to exhaust all options before loosening that crankshaft nut.

Also ... when I originally loosened the timing belt adjuster and did the 3 teeth thing, if I then failed to snug it back up appropriately, and proceeded to turn the crank 5-6 revolutions ccw, could that possibly cause the predicament I'm now in, where I can only rotate 170 degrees? Any undoing of this as mentioned above?

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

Don't worry about cranking the engine for the purpose of running the pump and lubricating the engine. It takes a lot longer than a week IMO to warrant priming the oil pump (which is what that's called). As far as getting that bolt off, refer to my second comment on this thread. You've got the right idea with jacking the car up as much as possible but again, you will need the honda crank pulley tool, two breaker bars, and either one or two pipe extensions for the breakers depending on how high your able to get the car up. The idea is to use the honda pulley tool and one breaker bar to hold the crank pulley in place. Since the engine's in the car, this can be done by having that breaker bar pushing against somewhere in the chasis. If you got the car up high enough to allow for a long pipe extension to slide over this breaker bar, then go for that. But anything less than 2' PLUS the breaker just isn't enough leverage so that's why I recommend that you rotate the crank so that breaker bar is pushing against something under the car to hold it in place. The second breaker bar is obviously going to be on the bolt. Definitely get a 12 point socket for this one, a 6 point can slip and then you start running into much bigger problems. You also may need a deep style socket but I can't remember. For this breaker bar, you'll need A LOT of leverage as this is what's taking the bolt off. I recommend a 2-3 foot pipe extension...basically as long as an extension as you can fit. Thus why the higher the car is jacked up, the better. If you're not able to get enough room under the car to allow for that much leverage, than go buy an impact gun because that is the amount of leverage required to break it loose with hand tools. Also, don't skimp on your breaker bar, as I've actually broken one before getting this bolt off. And remember, when all is said and done, you'll need a torque wrench to put the bolt back on.

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

No, I'm fairly certain this won't work. I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics of the tensioner pulley but I would be shocked if doing that, or any clockwise rotation fixes the issue.

Deanrocker

Thanks. I've already watched a video and one guy removed the driver front tire in order to put a long socket/bar onto the crank nut. He then rested that on a jackstand to keep it level, and had a bar attached to the socket wrench handle for leverage. Some liquid wrench and a minute of propane torch directly on the nut got him the results (as well as that pulley holding tool, which I might try once or twice without it, though I'm guessing that's futile).

So ... You don't think I have a shot at adjusting the belt timing at this point? Keep in mind I can get 170 degrees of movement on the crank. Also when I moved it 3 teeth ccw, I was tightening the belt, correct?

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

I missed why you tried the tensioner pulley adjustment in the first place, but the only reason you should be doing that procedure is to tighten the timing belt as the last step when installing a new one. It's not a regular maintenance sort of thing. The only thing you're going to accomplish by touching it is messing with your timing. And no, I really don't think this issue will be resolved without taking off the crank pulley. Maybe if you can get the crank at TDC while both cams are exactly at 12 o'clock and then try the tension procedure of loosening it, going 3 teeth CCW and torquing it down you could accomplish something, but I doubt it. As far as getting it off, you do NEED someway of holding the pulley in place. you can't get it off with just loosening the bolt unless you have a strong impact gun. The two way of holding the pulley in place are the pulley holding tool or there's a way involving putting an allen wrench into your pulley and attatching that to a chain though I don't recommend it because the allen wrench can break off and then you're left with part of it stuck in the pulley. Either way, don't even waste your time trying to get the bolt off without something physically locking the pulley in place...it's not going to happen. Just run down to your local parts shop and pick up this here. And get a 12 point, deep 19mm socket.

Deanrocker

Reason I tried adjusting the timing belt tension is because my cams were out of sync with the crank. I thought I had nothing to lose by trying to sync them back by tightening or loosening the belt. Had effectively troubleshot the issue to be that of timing and figured what the hell ...
I was under the impression if someone held the break or it was in gear, that the pulley might not spin when I try to take the nut off. Thanks for telling me it doesn't work that way. I'll buy the part tomorrow and try to get off the crank nut. Once that's off, can I assume the pulley will slide off easily? And the lower timing belt cover should be just 1 screw. Am very anxious to see what's going on in there, if anything.
BTW, my timing belt was nice and taut and appears in great condition. I'll still replace it anyway, but just sayin'.

Deanrocker

Thanks for all your time and help. I would never have touched the timing belt adjuster had the timing not already been severely out of whack.

jdmark1

iTrader: (2)

I gotcha, no biggie. Logically, you would think that would work for fixing the timing belt issue. Also, you are right about putting it in gear and holding the breaks down. That does help, just not enough to be the only thing holding it in place. That method's only used as more assurance on top of something else already holding the pulley in place.

AllMtrRex

If you hadn't already bent a valve by forcefully trying to rotate the crank when contact was made you need to do the following if possible.

Try and turn the crank until the cam gears are pointing "up" and the two marks on the cams are facing each other 3 oclock and 9 oclock. The valves will now be shut and out of the way. Stop right there and don't turn any more until doing the following:

Loosen the tensioner fully, remove the belt from the cam gears only( if you do not have a crank pulley tool), have someone pull hard up on the belt and keep tension so it doesn't slip off the crank gear below as you turn it. Turn the crank very slowly until the pointer on the timing housing is aligned with the TDC park on the pulley (Note: the pointer is at a angle on the cover, so you will need to look from the top, at the correct angle to make sure they are in line.)

Now slide the belt back on the cam gears. Get the tensioner to where it's finger tight. Get all the tension out of the belt by pressing on the tensioner being careful not to disturb your TDC crank alignment because it will certainly try to move the crank pulley. I suggest someone hold the crank still once aligned and another person push on the tensioner until there is hardly any slack. A little slack on the front is normal (This will come out on next step), you do not want any slack on the intake side. Now with the tensioner still finger tight and everything hopefully aligned, turn the crank over 6 full rotations. If everything is still aligned, rotate the crank 3 cam gear teeth. Tighten the 14mm tensioner bolt down.

Check to make sure you rotor is pointing at number 1 spark plug, if not remove distributor and turn until it is.

Should start if fuel, spark, compression (even on lower side) is there.

Deanrocker

There isn't enough slack in timing belt to do as you suggest. Plus, I need to get lower timing belt cover off to see what's going on and why cams aren't at 12 or 6 when piston 1 is tdc.I wish I could do as you suggest. Removing crank nut will not be fun.