Honda Oops

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:01 am

A while back I picked up a 95 Honda Accord to use a daily beater. The car had 199,000 miles and the timing belt was replaced at 120,000. Yes, you know where this is going. Before anyone chastises me, I have valid excuses for my tawdriness (race car, work, hardwood floors, burying a dog, etc, etc).

Jumped into the Accord last night, hit the ignition, briefly caught and then just spun over. I think the timing belt gave up the ghost at that moment.

What are the chances that I did damage to the valve train?

I don't plan on replacing the belt until next week after returning from the final race weekend of the year. Figure I will replace the belt and run a compression test.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:09 am

Jim, IIRC, the timing cover is only a couple of bolts on that car. I'd pull that first and see. Hopefully, it didn't break, because it's likely to have had valve to piston contact. Good luck. - AB

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:44 am

jimpastorius wrote:

(race car, work, hardwood floors, burying a dog, etc, etc).

Setting tech aside briefly, which pup have you lost? Sorry to hear.

Now back to regularly scheduled program.

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:47 am

Gwen Baake wrote:

jimpastorius wrote:

(race car, work, hardwood floors, burying a dog, etc, etc).

Setting tech aside briefly, which pup have you lost? Sorry to hear.

Now back to regularly scheduled program.

I had to put Sara down two weeks ago. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Autocross related, she made more trips to Topeka than most :-)

And she loved race weekends. You ask her if she wanted to go racing and she made a beeline to the truck!

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:58 am

Jim, that's awful. Sara was really cool. I'm sure you and Rudy will miss her. :cry:

- AB

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:07 am

I am guessing there is an inspection port in one of the timing belt covers that you should be able to see if the belt is still broke or not. If the belt is not broke, you might have tensioner issues and it may have jumped.

Not sure if you have a 4 or 6, but if it's a 4 (probably roughly similar to the Civic's engine in design), then like Aaron said, you can probably easily remove the top timing belt cover if the inspection port is not usable (or found). You may have to remove the valve cover to get the timing belt cover off.

I have changed three Honda timing belts (two Civics and one Odyssey) all at around 100K or a bit more. All three looked like they could have gone much much longer. I would be suprised if you found that the belt broke.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 12:13 pm

I agree with Richard's assessment. When I did the timing belt on my sister's Civic (which was 35k OVERDUE), it was very hard to distinguish the new belt from the old belt. - AB

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:18 pm

I respectfully disagree with Richard and Aaron. A timing belt can *look* perfectly fine, and snap several minutes later. I've experienced this first hand. Always, always change them on time.

EDIT: maybe it's not that I disagree...but telling a new belt from one that needs replacement is impossible from my experience.

Jim, it's *possible*, although unlikely, that you haven't hurt anything. I've been there - my Mom had an Integra GS-R a few years ago which had its timing belt break. It happened at idle/startup speed, just like you're describing. A later compression and leakdown test confirmed that the motor didn't get hurt. With that said, this is definitely the exception to the rule.

An easy way to check and see if the belt's gone is to pop the valve cover off. The hardware holding it on is easy to get to.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:27 pm

Karl,

Just curious, but what are the details on the one you said looked fine and then it snapped?

I think the problem is that you can't tell if a belt is good unless you pull it off and closely inspect it. That just a visual while on the engine is not going to work. I think they probably crack from the inside (teeth side) out and that is pretty hard to see when on the engine. If you have torn it down enough to pull the belt to inspect it, then you have done all of the hard work that is needed to replace the belt. Honda timing belts are dirt cheap. it's the labor to get to the point of removing it that makes it expensive.

Like Aaron, the belts I pulled off looked nearly new. But I also don't suggest that anyone push their luck on running much past 100K. I used new belts and didn't put my old belts back on. It sounds like the belt on Jim's car right now has less than 100K on it so that is why I am thinking it may not have broke. I actually wonder if maybe it lost tension and slipped a few teeth. I can imagine there being a 200K idle pulley or tensioner going bad before a 80K belt. Another thing to check is to see if the crank pulley has come loose. But the bolt for that is usually highly torqued and doesn't come loose on it's own.

Either way, I hope it turns out that there is no head damage.

Richard

Frank Catena · **Joined:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 1:08 pm **Posts:** 418

Agree with Karl, I've seen belts that looked perfectly good except for the part where it was broken.
Not sure about the Accord but you can usually see the cams by removing the oil fill cap. Crank it (or rotate the crank by hand). If the cams don't rotate then your belt be broken.
To get a sense of how bad, you can just pull the plugs and inspect the piston tops with a flashlight. Bright shiny "smiles" where the carbon has been cut off the piston tops by the valves is not what you want to see.

Odds are worse case maybe a bent valve or two ...

Frank

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:52 pm

Got home, pushed the Accord into the garage, let the dogs out and then pulled the valve cover. The belt looked like was still there. I then decided to turn the motor over. The cam spun, the valves were moving up and down. So maybe it is the tensioner or something else.

Any ways, this will have to wait until next week. I have three races in two days coming up. So I need to focus on that and the job that pays for my addiction.

It is a shock going from working on the Camaro to this Honda. Everything is just crammed in there. But one nice thing about Japanese cars, there is not a big variety of sockets that I need.

JamesFeinberg · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:24 pm

Sorry to hear about Sara Jim. I know that had to be tough.

Jim

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 8:58 pm

Richard, it's pretty much like Frank said. To my eye anyway, there's no way to just look at the timing belt on any Honda I've ever owned and determine how much longer it will last. Obviously a brand new belt is a little less dusty and whatnot, but as for being able to look at something like the belt's teeth for indications of wear, I don't think that's possible. At least, it's not possible for me.

OK, back to Jim. I've never owned an Accord, but I've owned plenty of Civic-based cars, so maybe they're similar. If it were my CRX that just went kaput like that, I'd look for / replace the following things, in this order:

- The tiny screw that holds the rotor button onto the distributor may have backed out
- The ignitor - which is a box that lives inside the distributor - may have died. Was the tach jumping around at all? Usually that's a tell-tale sign
- The main relay crapped out. On a CRX, this lives by your left shin as you sit in the car
- The ignition coil, which also lives in the distributor

When you turn the key to "on," do you hear the fuel pump cycle like I presume you usually would? If you don't, my guess is main relay.

http://www.honda-tech.com is full of uselessness these days, but buried in there is a lot of great tech. You might consider digging around in there - shouldn't even need an account to do that.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:06 pm

Every belt that I've pulled off a Mitsubishi looked brand new. Even the one that was snapped into.

You can't look at these belts and tell if they're good.

Jim, since you were just starting the engine there's a chance the damage is minimal. On my mirage, all eight exhaust valves were bent. Everything else was fine. New valves, valve seals and valve replacement was somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 at the local machine shop. That was probably 8 yrs ago though.

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:12 pm

JamesFeinberg wrote:

Sorry to hear about Sara Jim. I know that had to be tough.

Jim

Thanks Jim

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