Hello everyone. This is my first ever forum post so I apologize if there are errors. Please let me know if there is for future postings.

Anyways, this is my last resort to correcting a mistake I made when recently working on my 1997 Integra. I’ll try to make this as simple as possible:

My car battery was constantly dying every 6-12 months and I was suspecting a power draw somewhere, so after eliminating other factors, I installed new grounds as it had almost none (been slowly restoring and fixing this car as issues arise) and long story short, I ended up verifying my alternator wasn’t working. Which means it hadn’t been working for the entire 5 years up to this point I have owned the car. So I ordered one, changed it, and went to start my car, and it didn’t start. I had power, I had spark, I even sounded like I had fuel, but every time I let off the starter, it turns off and doesn’t stay running. A friend suggested since I’m running e85 and the car has sat for a bit, it could be my injectors. So I am having them cleaned right now and i told the guy doing it that this is what I suspected was wrong and he said that they were barely off and shouldn’t be causing my car not to start. As I await those to be picked back up tomorrow and reinstalled, I am back to troubleshooting….

I was thinking back to when I was installing the alternator, and I remember I decided to change the 3 belts (alternator, ac, power steering) while I was working in that area since I had to remove the alternator belt anyways to change it at the same time as the new alternator, so this required me to remove all the belts as this is the furthest one installed on the crank pulley of those 3. When trying to put the new belt on, I saw a video on YouTube where the guy put a ratchet on the crank pulley to slowly move the pulley to help with the belt install. So, I put a ratchet on the crank pulley and turned it a little bit to assist with the belt install onto the pulley, but with heavy resistance because everything was still fully assembled at this point (spark plugs still installed). But, I am 100% sure that In the midst of this process I moved the crank pulley in both directions, not just counterclockwise like I have seen in countless forum posts. However, not moved by much since it didn’t help me much with the belt install anyway, and I ended up just removing the alternator I had already installed and gotten it on easier by using another method instead. Further, as I said I shouldn’t have messed with the timing belt tension since I barely moved it in either direction since it was so hard to move, and I can still see I have plenty of tension right now.

Basically, I’m trying to figure out what I have to do to unscrew up what I have done with my timing because obviously this is why my car isn’t starting. Every other forum post I see about this issue is people who are still in the phase of adjusting their timing before the crank nut is torqued, cam gears aren’t at TDC, etc. Everything in my car is good to go and I shouldn’t have messed with timing at all since it’s all torqued still and I’m sure I didn’t adjust the crank too far off from where it was, but obviously it’s an issue since this is the only system I have messed with recently and now it won’t start. I literally just moved the crank pulley with a ratchet to help with a belt install. Stupid, yes. But I’m also a noob at this. So please, I am hopeful that someone can help explain to me what I have to do to simply reverse what I did by barely moving my crank pulley by that ratchet. Please ask any questions and I will answer them to best of my ability as I might have missed valuable information here. Thanks!

 

check your ignition.

 

Hello, I should have mentioned that I have bypassed the starter with a push to start button hidden in my cabin. I haven’t used my ignition to start the car ever since the motor build in 2014.

 

You cannot bypass the starter.....

​​​​​​​

 

check your fuses and that alternator you replaced.