Just the other day my engine started to make a chirping sound that I believe is the timing belt (its coming from that area). Am I correct about this? If I am I would like to do this install myself. I have the factory Helms for 1995 which explains it all, but I would like to know the difficulty of this from you guys. I spoke with my parts rep. at Honda the other day and he ran me up an order for the timing belt, tensioner and a water pump. I know that this would be an expensive thing for the dealer to do, but how expensive exactly? Am I going to be saving a couple hundred by doing this myself or would I be better off letting a (better) skilled mechanic doing this? Thanks for answering.

 

i dont know about anyone else but i did a full h2 swap in to my lude and the timing belt was one of the biggest pains in the ****

 

The big pain you will come across is trying to remove the crank pulley bolt. The other things i think are not too hard.

 

The crank pulley bolt is only going to come off if you have access to air tools...I took mine off with about 140lbs of pressure and came off real easy... I'm pretty sure it doesn't take that much, but my friend and I didn't realize we had it up that high. Once you get that off, its pretty easy from there....

 

we tried using huge breaker bars, 3/4 air wrench and we couldnt get it off, i took it to a trucking tire place and had them use one of there huge guns to get it off

 

The cost to replace timing belts seems to range between $350 - $500 at the dealership. You also get as part of the price a 12/12 warranty I think. Is it worth doing yourself without air tools, not sure. I'm getting one on today on my Civic and that is no fun. I am not looking forward to having the Prelude belt replaced either.
If you do it yourself - make sure that the camshft(s) and crank do not move at all.

 

It's a big pain in the **** to do, period. Either you'll have trouble taking **** off, putting it back on, or aligning it right. Take it to a <u>reputable</u> mechanic or get someone to help you do it yourself. It's kind of expensive, but it's worth not f**king it up and blowing ****. Case in point: recall my original story w/my timing belt replacement. If ya don't: first mechanic put wrong water pump [nonvtec] in, timing belt skipped 2 teeth, intake cam therefore became 30 degrees retarded, car did not want to drive. 2nd mechanic took it all apart and redid it, no prob and i watched most of it...course he's a honda/acura whiz. Even he had fun breaking torque on the ****. But I've had friends do it themselves no prob...just gotta know your stuff.


[Modified by liddlelude, 9:15 PM 8/12/2002]

 

if you have NO knowlege of replacing the belt or friends that do, i wouldnt recommend doing it. If you have someone helping you as well as all the tools you need, i say go for it. If you know what you are doing its still a pain in the *** but just time consuming due to the small clearances you have to work with.