Honda Civic - Broken Timing Belt

[Axe Man]

Since this thread got some recent activity I suppose I'll provide an update.....

This Civic is still on the road. 3 years and 40K miles later. The timing belt broke at 134293 miles. As of this morning the mileage was 174671. The shop that performed the repair was correct. There was no apparent damage to the bottom end of the engine. It runs as well as it always did. No increase in oil consumption and no odd noises. The only unscheduled maintenance since this repair has been replacement of the driver's side axle due to a leaking CV and a DTC P0135 due to a burned out heater in the primary O2 sensor.

It was never proven definitively if the timing belt broke due to a defective part or incorrect installation. So I had to eat the total cost of the repair. And I was certainly beat up for using a Dayco tensioner rather than an OEM part. Was I penny wise and dollar foolish? Maybe. Maybe not. But the one individual who suggested that I junk car was just plain ridiculous. I STILL don't have a car payment and I wouldn't hesitate to take this Civic cross country if necessary.

And as evidence I present the following pix taken this morning.....

 

[The_Eric]

Good to hear! I always get a kick out those here that say to junk a car because something went wrong and that "It's just not worth it to fix".

Wait.. what? So you'd feel better spending thousands or 10's of thousands more instead of repairing? I'm no mathematician, but the figures don't add up.

Axe Man, I'm definitely in the same boat as you- I rather enjoy NOT having a car payment and will fix my junk until the rust claims it or until I come across a good deal for a better car.

 

[Bill_G]

Nice looking Civic - way to go sticking with it!

 

[Denwad]

Originally Posted By: tragfield
Originally Posted By: Vikas
I was not aware that spring does NOT provide the tension once everything is bolted up. Can somebody else confirm this?

Skepticism is helpful, and now I trust the credibility of message boards less.


what do you mean by this?

I can 4th that the d series tensioner spring doesn't do anything after the tensioner bolt has been torqued. ( 33 ft/lb on a d15b2 if i recall correctly )

 

[tragfield]

the tensioner has a base that is locked down by the tensioner bolt. a larger sleeve that the bearing rests on is mounted on the base, free to move and dampened by a rubber boot filled with grease. this sleeve is attatched to the tensioner spring, allowing the timing belt to be tensioned, with a tensioning range of around one centimeter. i know of no car that could operate without active tensioning of the belts. belt wear leads to slack, and without a tensioner, the belt may slip. please let me know if you think the tensioner operation is different than this.

 

[jeffie7]

Last time i did a timing belt job on D series motor the hardest part hands down was removing the bolt off the crank pulley. I didn't have an impact gun and had to use a very long breaker bar, go figure I snapped a snap-on socket trying to get it to break loose.

Never again will I attempt removing a crank pulley without a impact wrench.