My friends 92 Prelude Si has been sitting there for about 2 months or so. He wants to get it back on the road and his cams jumped a lot. I know he might of probably bent valves and we will find out on start up. For example his intake cam is about 1 o clock and his exhaust is like at 4 o clock. What is the correct way to set them back correctly? We will be doing the whole timing belt, tensioners, and water pump also. Thanks guys

 

Why dont u read a repair manual?

 

x2 .. follow the repair manual guide for timing belt change.

Do a leakdown test first, though, there's a way to check for TDC by putting a long stick or ratchet extension in the cylinder (spark plug removed) and turning the tire w/ transmission in gear... when the extension is at its top and goes to come back down, that very top is TDC.

Sometimes, when it's at TDC you can pull the timing belt off of the cam gears, turn them to their rightful place (arrows up) and slip the timing belt back on.

get it aligned, then do compression and leakdown tests (do these "wet" by putting a bit of oil in the cylinders.

Time to start reading.

 

We did it, and with the exhaust cam jumping 180 degrees, no bent valves, engine still runs good.

 

How does the cam "jump around?" Set mechanical TDC and timing belt tension. Not sure what your issue is, OP.

 

Not sure how a camshaft can jump 180 degrees. Sounds like you got real lucky there was no damage, assuming as such.

Be sure to let the springs tension the belt and don't touch the belt at all this time. If you manually added pressure to the belts you did it wrong.

 

Well, it's my friends Prelude, but he got lucky twice, he told me his Lude didn't start so we checked everything and noticed the engine turned over really slow and the cranking didn't sound normal, we took off the valve cover and noticed the belt was loose and the cam jumped a few teeth, well alot actually, anyways he took it to a shop and got just the belt replaced, 2 weeks later, same thing, but this time the exhaust cam jumped 180 degrees, We changed the tensioner and water pump, his old pump's bearings were shot, sometimes it was hard to move it, I'm assuming the pump might of seized for a bit, but we got it all back and she started and sounded normal, checked compression and it came back to 180 PSI on all 4, and I'm like damn, not bad for a 305k mile engine.

 

then you first might want to check your auto tensioner to verify its not weak, which is causing the belt to jump?

 

It has a manual tensioner which we changed the second time

 

How exactly are you tensioning the belt ? No offense, but you gotta be doing something wrong or something isn't installed correctly.

 

The first time we took it to a mechanic. Car runs great now no problems. It seemed his water pump bearings seized, that thing was really hard to move at times.