99 Civic VP Sedan - stock D16Y7 with new timing belt and headgasket job.

I had went and checked out a friends D16 and it sounded like it was in the beginning stages of having a rod knock. It wasn't terribly loud yet but was clearly a knock.

Some weird symptoms though:
-his alternator and power steering belts were so loose, they wouldn't even spin when the engine was running.
-a random misfire across 3 cylinders

The oil level was almost completely full and was not milky.
It's an automatic so he couldnt have mis-shifted..

Any ideas?

 

Check timing.

 

It sounds a bit like what happened to me. My belts actually came loose, though. My harmonic balancer wobbled and caused the crankshaft bolt to loosen, which caused all of the belts to not line up correctly. The solution was putting a new harmonic balancer on and correctly torquing the bolt. I'd check the harmonic balancer, and particularly the tightness of that bolt!

 

yeah, that's what had happened. his belts were very tight before but now they were able to be taken off by hand with ease.