Pulled into work and heard this weird vibration/racket. Turns out that the front side of the timing belt has some big time slack. Talked with Rashan (Former owner) and he's pretty sure it still has the auto tensioner :eek: . So I am thinking that she's out of time now. Hope nothing internal has messed up. Didn't seem or sound like it but who knows.

So what might be some problems I'd encounter with this issue? Bent valves most common? Any chance I'm ok? How many teeth can the crank be off before things start to hit (best I can tell, the cams are still even with each other)?

to more problems! Just when I thought I could start enjoying this thing (just got the VTEC problem fixed yesterday!)...

 

you may be ok. Sounds like you caught the problem before you had a serious failure. If you had contact, you would know it. in all honesty, i have never had any sort of problem with my auto tensioner. The only way to know for sure is to pull the head, or just replace the auto tensioner and fire it up. Set everything to TDC, then check all the timing marks to see if you jumped teeth or anything.

 

What are the chances of while I crank it around to TDC that I mess up a valve? Then again, the engine was running with this issue so it would have already hit...

 

OK, I can tell for starters that the cams have jumped. Intake is about 2 to 3 teeth behind the exhaust cam gear. can't tell about top vs bottom as I don't want to rotate even. I started to but the intake cam skipped another tooth while trying so I'm just going to take it home (tow) and swap for a manual tensioner and hope for the best.

If compression test comes back bad then I'll have to open her up. At least this will give me the opportunity to up the compression back...

 

OK, after trying to spin the motor to see if everything lines up TDC, I notice immediately that the intake cam gear skips a tooth. It appears to be either 2 or 3 teeth off now so I've towed it home.

What's the best way to manually set the engine to TDC w/o taking the head off and at the same time not bending any (more) valves? Take the valve cover off and set the cams TDC first and then rotate the crank (while holding the cams TDC)? Will taking the cam mounts off (effectively removing the cams) help the valves not get hit (like all of them would be all the way up then)?

Anyone have an electronic copy of the Helms (or know where I can download one)?


Modified by Daily Interlude at 7:41 PM 1/1/2005

 

Anyone help?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Daily Interlude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Take the valve cover off and set the cams TDC first and then rotate the crank (while holding the cams TDC)?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, as soon as the head (cams) are at TDC, the piston(s) will not hit the vavles (if they are not bent already, it *sounds* like the are not.).

This is for a B-series, but same idea

 

Perfect...thanks!

 

I've been told by a friend of mine that the H22A is non interference when it's not in vtec. meaning the valves can't be bent when it's not running in vtec

 

While I hope that's true, I have never heard that before. In fact, I've never heard of any HOnda motors being non-interance.

If I'm wrong/misinformed, please let me know!

Then again, I'm not sure when it started to jump teeth or just got out of alignment. I did hit VTEC just a few miles before I heard the noises (VTEC's like a drug!)

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PowerUser &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've been told by a friend of mine that the H22A is non interference when it's not in vtec. meaning the valves can't be bent when it's not running in vtec </TD></TR></TABLE>

I can verify that that is NOT true. if your timing belt snaps or skips teeth you are in for some down-time for repairs. I do not think that any of Honda's automotive engines are non-interference.

Daily Interlude, get the manual tensioner conversion and set everything to TDC and you will not have any issues. Steer clear of another auto tensioner.

Pirate