Hi, can someone please help? I would appreciate it.... I have a 1998 Accord 2-door EX 5-speed with 210K miles (I used to commute).
The problem started after timing belt and water pump changes. There is a loud cranking noise coming from crank pulley. My mechanics told me that my crank pulley was bad and he wanted $300 to change a new one. I changed the crank pulley myself and the problem is still there. The very same cranking noise.... Lucky that I didn't pay him that $300....

The noise appears when:
1) I cross speed bumps in NEUTRAL
2) RPM is around 1500 to 2000 in first gear. It probably shows up in other gears but wind, engine, road noise probably cover it up.

The noise sounds like 2 gears grinding on each other. But it would show up even though the car is in neutral crossing speed bumps.

Thanks......

 

Sounds like maybe something is loose flying around inside the timing cover?

Id take the pulley back off and remove your timing belt covers. If all looks good, id crank it with the covers off and see if everything is ok.
Sounds like something was left loose because it makes noise "when going over speed bumps".

 

Thank you for your advise!! This weekend I will perform the diagnostic as suggested.

Thanks....

 

Just a closure on this problem.... The cranking noise was actually because of bad "side" engine mount although there was no obvious defect on the engine mount. And what's confusing is that the noise was very much like 2 rotating gears knocking on each other.

Here is the story of how I found it. I removed the timing belt cover and tried to identify where the noise was from. One of the bolts on the side engine mount was removed, but later I figured this was not needed to take off the timing belt cover so I tightened the bolt again. It was still difficult to find the source of the noise without the timing belt cover. But I noticed that the noise was reduced a little bit. This leaded me to suspect that it might not be problem of moving parts.

I ordered the side engine mount anyway to give it a try. And today I finally had a chance to work on it. I was so happy that the problem is fixed now.

Front engine mount has already been replaced. And I want to replace the rear engine mount as well. I understand that rear engine mount is far more difficult to be replaced. Hopefully I will be able to find some good info here on this great website.