Honda Civic Timing belt change

[Vlad2]

All,
I have emailed Eric early and watched his videos and other online.

Topic

[skim3544]

pretty much all oil leak would end up dripping from the front oil pan so you want to clean the engine block and trace the source of the leak.

[Trcustoms719]

I don’t see any problem with coating the O-ring with a little bit of RTV.. Just don’t use to much.
As for the oil leak, you can buy a UV die that you put in the oil and you use a black light to find the leak, you can buy the die and the little black light at
autozone or what evere autostore you have near by.

[newyota]

My 2000 civic has oil seeping also.I cleaned it all off and drove it for a good bit and checked later.I think it is just seeping out around the oil pan itself and not the crank seal.I don’t feel like tearing it apart, so I just monitor the oil.

[Vlad2]

After looking at it and wiping it down, I think mine is from the oil pan gasket. Its oily all alone the gasket and the right side of the lower timing belt cover was cracked at the right bold, so stuff could have gotten in there.

I wiped it all down and will clean around the oil pan gasket before I put it all together. A new timing belt cover is 20 bucks, so I’ll just pick one up, I don’t like the idea of a lot of grime getting all up on the timing belt.

Thanks for your answers! I am going to leave this open for now to see if anyone else has some ideas.

[EricTheCarGuy]

The only time RTV should be used is to tack the gasket in place and use it sparingly! The gasket does the sealing and does not require RTV sealant, in fact if you use too much you will actually cause a leak not to mention the next person that changes the water pump will have quite a mess to clean up (I HATE finding this BTW, imagine trying to clean that area of old RTV in that confined space).

Looks like you’ve already figured out that the oil pan is the source of the leak an in my experience that’s the most likely culprit. Changing the timing cover won’t have any effect on oil getting onto the belt but to be honest I’ve rarely seen this, the only time I see a contaminated belt is when say the cam seal goes and is leaking a HUGE amount so I don’t think you need to worry about the belt becoming contaminated.

Welcome to the world of Honda, a word of advice is stick to OE as much as you can afford and it’s not like a GM so you don’t have to be working on it all the time. One more thing NEVER replace the fuel pump or distributor especially with aftermarket parts, these are the most common things that get replaced on Hondas and in the majority of cases it’s just not necessary and ends up causing more problems down the road.

[Vlad2]

here is the problem, per the instructions, I am supposed to rotate the cam shaft pulley 2 times counter clockwise, each time check to see if its Top Dead Center. As I do this, I get halfway around and then it gets tight and the Cam Shaft pulley bolt turns loose so it won’t turn anymore.

I carefully put the crankshaft bolt back in and slowly moved it back to Top Dead Center on the CamShaft pulley and the arrow and the line match up on Cranshaft pulley, so its back to Top Dead Center.

Am I doing something wrong here? am I going to break this engine? Sorry, but I am uber-frustrated right now as this is just going horribly bad right now.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Vlad2]

Eric, I didn’t see your response, yea, I didn’t use RTV. Easy water pump to put on honestly.

I have everything lined up nicely, but the cam sprocket bolt came lose as I stated above. The Torque on that is 27 ft/lbs right? Should I get a new bolt or should I just toss on some Red Lock tight (which I hate to do) but should allow this to work.

Also, to tighten the belt and do a couple spins of the engine before i tighten down the tensioner, should I just run in the Crank shaft bolt and spin the engine that way? would that accomplish the same thing?

I talked to a mechanic friend tonight while I watched that horrid pens game, and he looked at me and said, “i have never ahd that happen and I changed these a lot”. LOL, this stuff always happens to me.

[Matt]

Honestly, Eric has a couple videos for sale ($11 or so) that show every bolt you touch on these Honda timing belts. I’ve purchased a couple just for the info, and they are golden. You may want to check and see if one of his vids covers the engine you are working on, because the $11 you spend will be way less than the hundreds of dollars you will spend on a new head if you mess it up. We can’t be there and see what you are doing, but this is the next best thing.

[college man]

I think the problem your having is that your trying to rotate things that should not be moved once the timing marks
are lined up.I just watched two videos on timing belt replacement. nobody is rotating anything. heres the two videos
compare your work to theres.maybe you can spot the problem.C8-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilvZoOLp2gE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoJcAS58 … plpp_video

[hondaslave1342]

eric has a free version of this engine on his youtube channel..check it out ,,,,i believe its the 98 civic he has replace twice…lol..remember dont run engine dry of oil…or it will cost you a subaru…..

[Vlad2]

This video Mimics the instructions I got with the timing belt kit I got. (belt, water pump, tensioner).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTUDMqGV … re=related

I am going ot get a new bolt, throw a little blue locktite on it and install it to 27 ft/lbs for the cam shaft bolt issue.

I left the head on when I pull this apart, just loosened it enough to get the upper cover off. So I wouldn’t loose them, I put the plugs back in (but not to torque),. a major *derp* on my part. I’ll pull the plugs so it isn’t compression the air in the cylinders, thus causing it to be hard to turn. I know better than this, derp.

thanks everyone for your help. I’ll let you know how it turns out tonight, hopefully it starts up and I can get the new accessory belts on it tonight and flush the cooling system out with some distilled water before I put in new coolant.

[college man]

just watched your video. not bad. The only things I saw I would watch out for is. 1-loosen the tensioner to remove the
the old belt.don’t pry with a screw driver. 2- Put grease on the inside crank seal.so you don’t get a dry start up and tear
up the seal. other than that.looked good. once you replace and torque the cam bolt down. remove the plugs to help roll the
engine easier. you should be good to go.good luck and keep us postedC8-)

[Vlad2]

Well, last night I got most of it back together. just have the alternator belt back on but since its new I have to do the 5 min. break-in thing and then loosen it. After that I will put the powersteering pump in with its new belt and do that same. Hopefully it will start fine today (didn’t feel like starting it at 2am and have it fail) and I can bang those 2 things out and then finish the cooling system flush.

but it looks good, I could spin the engine with out pistons and valves banging, so it *should* be good.

thanks eveyone! I’ll let you know how it goes tonight / tomorrow (got to watch the pens game after all).

[EricTheCarGuy]

Keep us posted on your progress then.

[college man]

thanks for the update. keep us posted.C8-)

[Author]

Replies