My V6 accord with 244,400 miles had a break down on the highway this afternoon. The timing belt broke while driving at 65MPH after only 4,500 miles of use. I'm at a loss as to why it failed and wondering how to go about replacing the belt and timing the engine. I know it may have damaged the valves but I figure I should replace the belt and try to start it to see if it's worth saving. The rest of the car is still in very good condition. Any advice on timing belt kits? Notice the damage to the cover which appears to be caused by the harmonic balancer.


Timing belt cover lower

 

You think the timing cover bits contributed to the belt failure? Wouldn't take much between the belt and the cog to put a lot of stress on the belt.

 

I believe that the damage to the timing cover was from the timing belt breaking at 4000 RPM's and ending up at the crankshaft sprocket. I pulled everything apart now and found that the metal crankshaft sprocket was damaged by the belt when it broke. I ordered a new sprocket and timing belt from O'Reilly just to see if the engine would run again. I'm not going to spend too much if the valves are damaged given the high miles on the vehicle. I think the problem may have come from a leaking water pump that dripped onto the timing belt at the crankshaft. I'll fix that after the car starts and runs without issue. The next problem is installing the timing belt by turning the camshafts and crank pulley without damaging the valves. Not sure how to line everything up given the crankshaft rotates two times for every one turn of the cam sprockets? I think I read that somewhere years ago.

 

How old was the timing belt?

 

Installed 10/19/2019. Drove the car less than 5,000 miles before it broke. I pulled the old parts off the engine and I noticed two failures: belt tensioner was leaking hydraulic fluid and the seal on the water pump against the engine block had failed which caused it to leak anti-freeze. I ordered a new timing belt, water pump, and belt tensioner that are Aisin brand this time. I also read that turning the engine by hand will not damage the valves. Hopefully when the engine was running and the belt broke it did not damage the valves but I was driving on the highway at a speed of 65mph.

 

I put on the new timing belt, water pump, pulley's, and belt tensioner. Rotated the engine several times. Had a tough time figuring out what TDC was on the number one cylinder. Did a compression test and found cylinder 1 was 90psi and cylinders 2, 4, 5, and 6 were 180+psi. Put the rest of the engine parts back on and called my nearby mechanic for a diagnostic. Not sure if it's worth fixing given the age and mileage but the mechanic is going to check it now and let me know the damage. My heart is broken given this car gave me five good years of service.

 

What was the end result from this?

Would you mind sharing how you set the timing when replacing the belt? I noticed there was no replies regarding that..it is extremely difficult to find this information!!

Thank you.

 

Sorry about the long delay. I ended up replacing the engine with a salvage yard engine. After running a compression test I pulled the rear head off the damaged engine and took it to the machine shop. The machine shop told me all the valves were bent and it was going to cost about $500 to redo each head. I was then going to have to replace all the piston heads given they were scored from the valves hitting the heads. The total cost would have been about $1200 so I decided it was best to buy a used engine for $550 delivered to my house. I probably could have rebuilt the old engine but it was unknown in the end how well it would have worked.
In terms of timing the engine it should be easy. Just line up the mark for the crank on the engine block and the marks for the camshafts on the head. Put the timing belt on and rotate the crank bolt clockwise. You can pull the number one spark plug (front left) and put a screwdriver in the hole and turn the crank bolt. When the piston reaches top center and the screwdriver is poking out of the spark plug hole the furthest you should see the mark on the crank pulley line up with the mark on the engine block.