So, yesterday afternoon my wife and I were exiting I 95, and at the end of the off- ramp, a terrible rattling, clanking noise started coming from the engine bay of her 2000 Prelude VTEC DOHC. we pulled over when we had a safe spot to stop and check it out, roughly two to three blocks. When I checked the oil, it was dry as a bone- But I knew that it should have had oil in it. So, I walked to a store and got oil, put it in the car, and started it- hoping that somehow ALL of the oil had been drained, and this would solve the noise. Not the case, as when the car was started, the noise continued, and then the engine died. On trying to start it after that, the engine just turned at a high rate, with no fire- as though it was out of timing. I checked the oil level after AAA got us to the house, and it was double what it should have been... I pulled the head cover this morning, and the timing belt is intact, but very loose, and when the engine is turned over a bit at a time, you can tug the belt and it will skip teeth. Now, when trying to start the engine, there is no terrible noise, I don't know if that is good or bad. It seems as though if something were crushed or broken, it would be getting kicked around somewhere in there, right? SO: what is the overall damage? Is this engine designed in a way that valves would be crushed if it were to jump timing? I know nothing about honda engines, as all of the vehicles that i have had have been 60's to 70's BMW's. Sorry for the long post...

Austin

 

My guess ... Auto Tensioner failed on the timing belt and you jumped timing. If you like to DIY, you have to align the crank, the cam gears, and the distibutor all in time. Hope that you didn't cause damage to the engine. Start from there and see as you go. Good luck.

 

auto tensioners FTL

 

If I had bent any of the valves, it seems to me that they would have been stuck in the position that they were struck in, correct? None of them seem to be stuck, as the cam lobes seem to touch the tops of the valves... Could it just be that I am out of time? Maybe the reason that it died was that it was flooded with oil and getting progressively further away from the timing that it should have had? Would the noise that sounded as though someone had dropped their Rolex into the timing cover been due to the auto tensioner giving up the ghost? Does anyone have any idea at all?

 

only way to really find out is to either disassemble the head, or put a new belt(along with tensioner, of course) on and do a compression/leakdown test

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 400m &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If I had bent any of the valves, it seems to me that they would have been stuck in the position that they were struck in, correct? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Honestly, the tolerances on things like valves are so tight that even a very slight bend in the valves will cause problems. You can bend them a little and the engine will still run, but it could be loud and run poorly.

I had my head at a machine shop a while back and they were showing me all my bent valves. You couldn't really tell by eye unless you set it on a table and rolled it while looking at it from just the right angle...