Alright so my car has been squealing on start up the past couple of days so the belt is due. I'm just going to replace both of them at once but where do i start and what tools do you recommend? It looks as if ill have to take off the motor mount but it looks complicated and its in between the timing belt. How would i go about loosening up the belt on the a/c? the alternator looks simple because its on a pivot bolt.

 

See the long threaded rod under the bracket connected to the mount? There's a small adjusting nut on there, that will loosen tension on the AC belt. Go far enough and you'll have enough slack to remove the belt. Do that first. Then just loosen the pivot bolt on the alternator just like you're already thinking, then look for the other bolt that the alternator slides on and loosen it. Same thing, you'll have enough slack to remove the belt.

 

Motor mount stays on.
Good choice to replace both at the same time

There are just a couple bolts to loosen and the belts come right off.


For the alternator just loosen the adjuster bolt.
http://crxcommunity.com/viewtopic.php?t=208







A/C Belt - loosen idler pulley pivot bolt and also the adjusting bolt
http://www.marklamond.co.uk/tech-hon...lt/ac-belt.htm

 

Just to add to the thread a little bit. The belt that requires you to remove the motor mount is the TIMING belt. Just some information for the future.

Good call on doing them both.

 

*Update:
Vehicle quitely started when i went to go to work today but when i got off the belt squeaked loudly, but just at ignition. just one high pitched squeak. is one of the belts to tight? The a/c belt has no slack while the alternator belt has some play if you pull hard enough... IS this the cause? IS there some guideline for me to follow to have the correct tensions? Or could it be a rusty pulley?

 

There should be some slack, but not loose. There is a crazy tool to measure 100% proper! but I have yet to meet anyone that has ever used one let alone seen one.
Typical way to do it is simply press down with a finger on the belt towards the center between the pulleys. Press hard until it gets tight, but don't force it. It should move about 1/2 inch tops. 1/4 inch is better. If it moves a lot it is too loose, if it hardly moves, then it it too tight (horrible for the bearings)

 

Ahh old Hondas. Mine squeals, but only when I park it in my garage. When I park it outside it never squeals. Just put a new one on too. I might adjust my tension.

 

I found when tightening the alt belt its best to have two people. One needs to have a prybar inbetween the alt and the alt mount, the other guy tightens the bolt.

 

So ive been tightening and loosening for an hour now and no results. Called my mechanic (better than me) friend and he said it could be a pulley or bearing. What do you guys think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91TM...ature=youtu.be

 

If you've done all you can adjusting and still getting a squeak, then your mechanic does have a good point.
If a bearing is starting to go bad, it won't spin freely and will require a little more effort to get rolling.
Some bearings are serviceable so you can take the pulley off and re-grease the bearings.
Pulleys should spin freely with no belt.

 

gonna go turn the pulleys for squeaking now. will update

 

should have turned everything by hand when the belts were off, to see if any of the bearings felt rough

 

*UPDATE: Pulled the belt tensioner pulley off and bearing does not squeak but while i had the belt off i rotated the compressor pulley and it made a small scraping noise, not too significant... i didn't have time before the sun went down to check the alternator pulley (the last pulley besides the BIGASS crankshaft pulley) and after i put the belt back on i started her up and it gave me a SUPER SCREECH
then i killed it and cranked one more time then a tinier screech, and the same intensity screech from that point on only after ignition thought, not when driving. it seems like everytime i let the vehicle rest after i start it backm up it gives me the same pattern of being incredibly loud and steadily quieting down after consecutive ignites. On a side note, does anyone know the code to embed videos on this forum?

 

Copy paste link direct from YouTube with no code

 

Could be your alternator bearing is on its way out, this makes the alt very hard to turn and will cause the belt to slip and squeel. you could remove the AC belt and see if it still happens. That would narrow it down to the alt or the AC belt.

 

Took off the A/C belt yesterday and it still squeaked. Gonna take the alt belt off today and give her a spin, will update

 

If after replacing the belts and adjusting you still hear a noise, it is the water pump going bad. You will hear the noise at start up and acceleration because the pump shaft and seal are seizing.
I had a pump so bad that I couldn't turn the belt wheel by hand. I'm surprised the belt didn't break.

 

So i took the alternator belt off and turned the pulley and it spun great with absolutely no noise... Im becoming frustrated but i guess its just part of learning. So what your telling me is that its the water pump? Are there and pulleys on the timing belt? And could it be possible that the crankshaft pulley bearing is going out? Does that even happen? I tried getting access to the timing belt today but whenever i tried taking the cover off i realized you have to take the valve cover off in order to remove the timing cover...

*UPDATE: spoke with a friend and he's saying that if my water pump were bad, my engine would overheat or I would be leaking water, not happening. He also told me that since the squeal is only at ignition, it is most likely the alt bearing, even though it's not squeaking when I turn the pulley, he said that it may be inside the housing of the alt.. have to remove it from underneath, gonna be a pain in the ***

 

Your friend is wrong. As long as the belt is turning the pump, water will flow. When it totally seizes and the belt breaks, the engine won't overheat because the engine will stop running.
Here's an easy test to determine if the water pump is making the noise. Loosen AC and Alt belts enough that they don't operate AC comp. or Alt. Start engine, if you still hear the noise, it's a bad water pump.
If so, you can buy a pump, belt, tension wheel kit for $80

 

I had thought of doing that but I was afraid that if I started the engine without a belt then it could somehow cause damage... for the past two days my vehicle has been not starting off and on, but when it does start it squeaks 10 louder at first now... I will take the belt off and see