2000 Prelude SH

First may I state I have very little automechanical know-how beyond oil changes and spark plugs. I bought this car new back in 2000 and lightly modded (bolt-on's) when i was younger.

I will start with what I feel is the most pressing problem and that would be a wobbling crankshaft pulley. I had a family friend who is somewhat knowledgable about Hondas look at it and he believes its a "Harmonic Balancer". Now I have driven it like that for about a year having never paid much thought to it but every mechanic I pop my hood for seems to believe its a problem I should have fixed asap. how much of a job is this "Harmonic Balancer" is it a DiY thing?

I have 3 seals that I think need changing out due to oil leaks. They are the main engine seal, crankshaft seal and the seal between the distributor and the valve cover. I seems to have to drop 3 quarts of oil in every 3 weeks now. Same question as above how much of a job is it to get to these seals and is it a DiY thing?

The last section is dealing with suspension. With the exception of having 1.5 inch drop springs and 18" RH rims since 2001 my suspension is pretty much stock. Over the past 10 years the springs seemed to have compressed over time because I have absolutely no tire to wheel-well clearance in the rear (can't even slip my pinky finger between tire and wheel well. It looks tucked) and the front is not much better. I have both my driver side and passenger side front rack and pinion boots ripped. I checked both wheels individually (jacking up one side then the other to see if there was any play at all with the wheels) and the rack and pinion seems to be fine. Can this just be re-booted on both sides and how tough is this to do? I believe the ride height of the car is what caused the rack and pinion boots to rip due to the boot scrubing against the metal lip in the wheel-well. SO I want to remedy this by raising the car a bit, I do not have my stock springs anymore, should I just buy 1 inch drop springs to replace the ones I have now or get adjustable coilovers? The coilovers I have seen on ebay seem to be too cheap to be true ($49 to $69?). how reliable are these? Then there are others that are $600 to $800 for coilovers, why such a difference? are the cheeper ones not reliable? spring vs. coilovers.

Thankyou in advance for any input feedback yo can spare. I just want to know how much cash I am gonna have be shelling out to fix these problems so if you could give me an idea of how much a shop will charge if you have experienced the same problem yourself in the past.

 

If you've been driving around with a wobbling crank pulley then more than likely the end of the crank is going to be bent, should have kept up with maintenance. If so start shopping for a new engine since you don't know how to rebuild and paying someone to rebuild will cost more than replacement.

Lowering springs on stock struts suck, your struts have more than likely collapsed from staying compressed more than they were meant to be. You're probably gonna need more than just coilover sleeves and new springs to fix this.

Start with replacing the crank pulley, I'd put money on the new one wobbling too, if so then crank is trashed.

 

even off of a slight wobble, it couldn't just be a damaged or slipped key?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHBDId1H2UI

Above is the link to a 1 minute video of the wobble in action

 

What minologuy said above....Invest in a new crank pulley, if it still wobbles then you are in sol. :/ Hopefully you get lucky.