93 EG DX hatch..just thru in a 95 sohc vtec..same day after the install and 75 miles on the motor later the car dies and smoke comes outta the hood...popped the hood and found smoke coming from the timing belt cover....the cover melted all down into the gears..wtf?! how did this happen...im thinking some how the block overheated and melted this cover all down around the gears and stalled the motor..now it won't start..im thinking because there is melted plastic all around the gears...its a ***** to get to so i havent fixed it yet..but when i try to start the motor it sounds really really weak trying to start up..could this be from all this plastic melted? also what is this piece in the pic? my finger points to where it goes...is it needed? does it perform any function other than just a brace?



and

 

That's the spring for your timing belt tensioner.

 

will the motor not turn over if its not in place....??

 

now, them's a working man's hands

 

It ain't gonna run mang.............

 

JV...are you serious?

 

bought a messed up motor or u didnt install it right?

 

Did you fill the radiator with coolant when you put it in?If it had a blown head gasket before you put it in, you would have known upon starting her up. If the water pump had seized I think it would have thrown your timing belt, so you would have know that immediately too. You also may not have hooked up your thermo switch.I take it you didnt have any check engine lights? Very strange, you definitely over-heated it, and from the way it sounds you overheated it beyond repair. Anytime the timing cover melts, especially that bad...you are screwed. Sorry to inform you of the bad news. Always have a 2nd or 3rd party inspect your engine installs, trust me you can miss something obvious that you didn't hook up, just because you have been the one staring at the engine for so long.

 

It is your timing belt tensioner spring for your timing belt tensioner pulley. You are pretty much fuct cuz this means that your timing belt went free and your cams were not under control so you are pretty much guaranteed to have bent valves. It happened to a friend of mine and costed about 800 only to replace 1 valve, get his valves adjusted, new timing belt, water pump seal, and all of the work but he got a deal b/c a Honda technician that works out of his house did it so he got parts dirt cheap. He got lucky though because it sould have bent 8 valves. I dont know how only one got bent.

 

man...this is going to be bad....time to break the motor down, and see what you can salvage.

 

800$?! repair?! geeeeeeeeez....i may be in the neighborhood of getting a 99 b16a2 or a 2000 b18c for dirt cheap.. .. i'd never spend that much on repairing a sohc motor..it seems pretty pointless to me..

 

Good thing those motors are only like 300 bux a pop

 

yeah dude, looks like you didn't add coolant and didn't pay attention to your water temp guage, then as a result of the motor overheating, the timing belt cover melted causing the spring on the tensioner to get fubared causing no or very little tension on the belt possibly causing it to skip some teeth and tapping valves. Its possible none of the valves were tapped but since the motor overheated that much, I wouldn't even try to salvage anything, just get a new motor and do it all over again, make sure to put water/coolant in this time and also check for coolant leaks and pay attention to your water temp guage.

 

Timing belt doesn't operate the oil pump. Oil pump fits over the crankshaft and when the crank spins, the oil pump spins.