Hi guys. Last weekend I bought a 2002 Honda Accord 1.8 Sport (UK model) with the F18B2 engine. The car looked very well maintained and has a part service history up to 60,000 miles, however I'm told it was serviced last summer. The mileage is 107,000 miles.

Anyway, what happened was I was driving home with my girlfriend at night, and I had the foot down to overtake a car, I was at about 5,000 rpm in third when I heard a belt squeal and 2 lights came on in the dashboard. It sounded like a loose belt with a large squeal and lasted about 2 seconds. In that time the battery light came on and the oil light came on, and the headlights dimmed down. I slowed down to maybe 20mph and everything was back to normal, and I decided to drive it safely...and slowly home.

When I got home I popped the hood (bonnet as we call them in the UK) and could smell a burning rubber smell. The clutch is fine as is not slipping, I dont want to go revving the car at 1am to see if its in limp mode or not either. On closer inspection I noticed what looked like melted rubber spray on one of the belts. The engine sounds fine and drove us the 6 miles home happily. I have noticed some of the pulleys sound squeaky, but I cant tell which from looking over the top of the engine! There is also a rattle which sounds linked with the belts. Whenever the revs are over 3,000 or that you physically cannot hear the rattle over the roar of the engine, which sounds pretty healthy!! I checked oil level but it's fine.... also the cleanest oil I have ever seen on the dipstick (Golf TDI for 2 years....they get soot everywhere!!).

So....here are my questions:-
- Which belt is which, timing belt closest to block obviously, but what is the belt next to it? Alternator belt?
- What could cause low RPM rattles towards nearside of engine bay, possible tensioner or pulley?
- Have you heard of any problems with F18B2s and belts slipping?
- Is it possible for the 2 belts running side by side to rub against eachother?
- Why would oil light come on at same time as battery charging light?

Definately sounds like the alternator belt slipped, but after slowing down and putting clutch in immediately the belt may have went back onto pulley and car recovered. The headlights dimmed as the belt squealed, so this makes me think alternator belt....however I'm not sure why the oil light came on?

Any advice/help appreciated! Been watching this site for years just never ever posted!! (My first Honda)

 

Check your crankshaft pulley and see if it has seperated from the rubber damper causing it to slip. Happened to my 93 Accord.

 

I actually noticed a string of frayed rubber on the edge of the pulley, looked like one of the belts had slipped and came into contact with something, and the string of fibre had sheared off the edge of one of the belts and wrapped around that damper you mention. I just cant figure out which belt is damaged, both look good, but one has definately slipped. My guess is the timing belt didn't move but the other belt did. Had the unfortunate event of a timing belt going on my old 2000 VW Golf (Rabbit for the Americans) 1.9 TDI....I know that when an engine comes off timing it's usually pretty fatal, thankfully I don't think that is the case! Engine sounds fine, just some of them belts/pulleys dont sound healthy! That VW was the worst car I owned, very unreliable. Had to be towed 7 times in 2 years!

 

The timing belt is sealed under the timing covers. You can't see it. You will have an alternator belt and a power steering belt(if you have power steering..if not, then you won't have a ps belt)

It sounds like your alternator belt is basically going out. Perhaps you just need to get a new one. They aren't hard to change at all. I'm no expert on your car but normally you just loosen the top major thorough bolt and then loosen up the lower nut that points in the same direction as the top thorough bolt(just look under the top bolt somewhere). Then the adjusting bolt that goes through the bolt that goes through the lower nut you just loosened just needs to be loosened to loosen the belt and tightened to tighten the belt up. Then tighten the thorough bolt back down and the nut.

You can take the belt down and have an auto parts store match it up..even if they don't carry parts for your car they will have a belt that fits.

 

Ok thanks guys heres an update:
jdowen2 - I'm not sure why I have found rubber on the crankshaft pulley, maybe wear and tear from old belts but the source of the problem appears to be the power steering belt.
holmesnmanny - Feel so much better now knowing that the timing belt is under a cover. After doing a bit more thinking I realised that the timing belt has teeth unlike the power steering or alternator belts, so I can rule it out as if it did slip off it would be a disaster. Anyway I noticed the power steering belt has rubber spray on the back of it, so I think it has rubbed off something while running and melted whichever rubber object it has came into contact with. Unfortunately I don't know what it has touched!!

The sound appears to be vibration in the belts or pulleys and will go away and come back, my guess under the heavy load last night (-2*C / -28*F) with the headlights and heater on 3 setting put extra load on the alternator which may have contributed. I have uploaded a video of it now below. You can hear the noise goes away in the middle of the video and comes back towards the end, it will also disappear at higher revs but this may be due to exhaust sound drowning it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3btt...ature=youtu.be

Below is the power steering belt. The rubber spray was definately from it slipping last night as the smell of burning rubber has still not cleared and the spray was still warm and sticky. Today when I checked again the rubber spray has cooled down and dried onto the back of the belt, so it was definately from when it slipped last night. My guess is the belt has touched off something when it slipped, any ideas what but?

 

Ok another update, the rubber on the water pump pulley appears to be damaged, anybody know anything about these? Sounds like the bearings are damaged in the water pump or water pump pulley. Any suggestions?

 

Ok so the water pump was wrong, my dad followed the pipework and recognised the air valves on the pipes, realising it was the air-con motor pulley or else air-con clutch has destroyed itself. The pulley has damaged rubber around the centre, my dad thinks the air con bearings may have been damaged?

 

I had a 92 Ford Tempo that had the A/C compressor seize and let me drive for 2 days. Didn't realize anything was wrong until the belt broke and left me stranded in New Mexico.

 

Yeah didn't bother driving it today, just moved it into the back of the driveway out of my dad and sisters way. The F18 is almost the same as the F23 engine, so has a belt which runs alternator to air-con to crankshaft. So what I'm gonna do is put the belt for the F18B2 without air-con on, that way the air-con pulley wont be turning. Over here in Ireland we wont get temperatures anywhere near 20*C/68*F for another 5 months roughly, plenty of time to fix the broken air-con motor or replace it! Can't see myself using the air-con! In the 2 years I owned my VW Golf I never turned the air-con on once, even in summer driving!

 

Just looking at the power steering belt, unless there's water on it, it's completely and totally bad looking. That's probably one of the cheapest things you'll ever have to replace on your car.

 

Thanks holmesnmanny I replaced the power steering belt yesterday to be on the safe side while I was replacing the serpentine belt. My dad figured it was the aircon compressor and told me to run the belt for the model without aircon, thus bypassing the whole pulley. So we went ahead and did this, and thats it, problem solved! What happened was the aircon clutch must have packed in and the compressor pulley bearings seized/destroyed themselves. When looking at the aircon compressor it is actually visible that the plate off the centre of the pulley (either the clutch or a bearing housing) has ripped completely off and melted into pieces! We found this to be the source of the melted plastic everywhere. So I will happily run without aircon for a few months until I pick up a used compressor and fit it and have system regassed. Weather isn't warm enough for aircon anyway in this country!

I just want to put a big thank you to anybody who contributed to this topic. The car is now cured. The noise you see in the video was the air-con compressor clutch or bearings failing, which means it needs a new air-con compressor. It is not serviceable unfortunately, unless you have access to specialist parts or work for the original manufacturer (Denso). So thanks guys that's me happy again!!

 

the cheapest place for denso air conditioner compressors is rockauto...be sure to do a search for "rock auto coupon code" before you buy so you can save an extra 5 percent.