First of all, thanks everyone for being here, I'm honored to finally join the honda-tech community - the people here really are knowledgeable!

Yesterday night my '97 CRV died on a freeway, and I had only about an hour to start diagnosing what's wrong (I don't have an indoor garage, and outside got dark quick). After finding no spark, here's what I found:

The distributor (only 12 months old) died, with a lot of Red Dust in it, along with many small broken plastic pieces inside the Cap. Turns out the rotor screw fell out and melted into the plastic housing.

I took off the valve cover, and here comes the worst part: camshaft doesn't turn at all. When I turn the engine over with a wrench by hand (counter-clockwise, the correct way), the crankshaft turns over fine, as usual. But no matter how many revolutions I turn the crankshaft - the camshaft doesn't move at all. (the same result when I try to start it with a key: the alternator works, and the crankshaft does turn over - but the camshaft won't move at all). Timing belt is in good shape and is sitting perfectly in position, as tight as usual.

In your opinion, where should I look next? Could it be the crankshaft pulley?

 

you should probably start by posting in a CRV forum. this is not technical support lol.

do your cam gears turn?
you see any cracks in the camshaft
timing belt teeth might have been strippe at the crank so it looks like its still good
take crank pulley off and take the plastic cover off.

and do not buy a remanufactured distributor.
even a used honda OEM distributor is better.

you will probably need new coil possibly ignitor and spark plug wires

 

sorry for putting this into motor section, I only did it cause I know there are integras and civics with b20 blocks in them...

cam gears don't turn.
camshaft is solid, no cracks or any damage.

Thanks for the advice - I'll get the plastic cover off and check the crank pulley as soon as I get home tonight. As I'm not an expert on this myself, I'm sure your lead will save me a lot of time.

And yes, I agree with you on the distributor - its much more worth it to rebuild an oem one. I'm not sure (yet) if the ignitor is gone, but just in case - should I consider any cheap ignitor, or is it worth it to get something like MSD one? (in the interest of long-term performance?)

 

I agree. I bet the belt has stripped teeth around the crank gear this is how I have seen a lot of them fail.

 

keep it oem if your engine is stock OEM= quality and last long

try the coil if it works use it till it dies.
just keep a screw driver and extra coil in the car.

 

Yes, fixing up an oem distributor is the best way to keep them going. I usually get a clean used one and replace the coil, cap and rotor with oem parts.

 

Thank you raverx3m and Runnerdown.

Almost done work, can't wait to go and see if the belt is really stripped on the bottom.

As I won't be able to get a new belt until early next week (even if I needed one), what would you say is the easiest way to check if the valves got damaged ? And, if the belt is indeed stripped, am I correct to assume that on a B20B, pistons & rods aren't likely to have been damaged in this situation?

Thanks again for your help

 

b20b low compression. depends how much the valves were open when this happened.
i would say a leakdown test would show
bent valves wont seal properly causing a leak.

 

Won't know for sure but I have seen more often then not they are ok after a broken belt. Leakdown test like raver said will show damaged valves. Also a good time to check and adjust the valve lash, its an important maintanence item on the b20 and b18b cyl heads.