Hi I’ve got a 2000 Honda prelude with a h24 engine and manual trans. I recently bought this car from a dude who claimed to have rebuilt it, all he actually did was destroy the engine and now I’m left to clean it all up. So far done every oil deal there is and now have a new issue. I recently replaced the harmonic balancer because it had seemed the one he put on was bad, but even with the new one on there is obviously some wobble left. The problem is now once the car warms up and drops to 900 rpm there’s a wierd clicking/ ticking sound from the harmonic/crank location. One shop told me the guy might have dropped the block or the crankshaft was bent somehow, to me that seems to be the worse case scenario. Is there anything else it could be ? Possibly bad bearings or improperly seated ? Please help I’m at a loss at what to start repairing. The car only makes the noise at idle, once it has warmed up, it’s gone during any revs at all it seems to straighten the crankshaft out.

 

If the crank was bent, that engine would have grenaded almost instantly after revving it up.
maybe the timing belt is too loose, or piston to wall clearance is too big.

 

Buy a known good used engine and move on.

 

see that’s what I’m looking for just other things to check, personally I think that shop was full of bullshit they never even saw the car so they can’t say anything about it, I’m thinking it could still be the harmonic, is it possible it isn’t on properly or the crank screw is f*ed up ?

 

It also has a hard time starting once warm, it struggles to turn over once or twice and then starts fine, is that a sign of bad or wrong sized crank bearings ?