[Honda Mike]

I've had this happen and found in my case it was split tail light gaskets. 3m spray adhesive and sheet foam from craft store. Use the old gasket as a template and cut 2 per side glue them together and you have a great seal against lake superior back there, lol. Don't crank the 8mm nuts down too tight as that just crushes the gasket, firm snug.
Scrub the housing with soapy warm water and the sheet metal too. It'll be gross back there,

ha ha.
GLWR
HM

 

[Sam_]

That may be something I tackle this weekend. I found a valve cover gasket kit in the trunk so I'm going to do that this weekend as well. That way I can do a closer inspection of the engine.

 

[Sam_]

Actually was able to get a ton done today given what little time I had.

Changed the valve cover gasket (did a valve adjustment in the process and a few were actually out of spec by about 0.005in), tightened the handbrake, fixed the seals in the taillights, and fixed the headlights. The headlights were in loose (every bolt holding it in was hand-tight which ended up breaking all the bulbs). I replaced all the bulbs with bulbs that are the correct colour. Looks and drives way better now. Cleaned up the outside so now it’s looking presentable

 

[Honda Mike]

Sounds like you have been busy. The car looks WAY Better. That drivers side is shweet!!
Your friend is going to be wanting to buy it back, lol.

 

[Sam_]

Your friend is going to be wanting to buy it back, lol.

I can tell he's not happy with how quickly I've progressed with it. Keep in mind it took him over 6 months to (incorrectly) change out the passenger side CV axle. He's not talking to me very much at the moment.

I'll have it 100% driveable next weekend hopefully. I still have an intermittent ABS light I need to figure out as well as the suspension needing some attention.

 

[Honda Mike]

thats the difference between a car person and ppl. If you think about the next little project you want to do on your car and plan it out in your head before you pick up the 1st wrench your a car person. If ya just want to have a nice car without the work, your a ppl.
For example:
I had a little drip from my oil pan on my teg,
It drove me nutz! Have my OCD buddy Mopar Jim, who has a lift in his garage ( he designed ). Woke up 4 hours before i needed to leave to go 1/2 hour to Jim's Totally Auto, mopar thing. Had a list from the week before, checked off everything and tried to get back to sleep. I'm not a car guy, I'm a car nut, lol.
This is his 1968 orginal Hemi roadrunner's under carriage. He did all the work, everything himself and has a log book with every everything in it. Jim built his own roatisery and media blasted the car himself.

 

[Honda Mike]

So I tell that little story, that if you surround yourself with people who love car as much or more than you do ya can't help but improve your abilities.
Keep on wrench'n
H. M.

 

[Sam_]

Yeah, he's definitely a ppl haha.

I spend a lot of time with my dad and cars/motorcycles. He's not so much into cars but he has 8 motorcycles and wrenches with every single one when he needs to. He's taught me basically everything I know, so it's pretty cool when I can do the same thing for my friends. My friend really wants to be into cars but he doesn't really have any source of help for it and he's one of those "always right" people, so I lose my patience very quickly when I try to help him.

I have no problem admitting that I would be a ppl if it wasn't for the support that my dad gave me, but such is life.

 

[Honda Mike]

You're a blessed man to have a strong bond with your dad! Pass it on...

 

[Sam_]

Quick update from the last few days...

Did the timing belt/water pump because the last one was improperly installed (improper tension). Also discovered intake cam was off by a tooth and the thing pulls like hell compared to before (did a GPS-monitored 0-60 and there's a full 2-second difference). It's making a faint whining noise, and it's increasing with my revs. I've eliminated all the belts as culprits (except for the timing belt but I'm pretty sure I didn't overtighten it and I definitely didn't under-tighten it) and it's not the AC pump, PS pump or alternator. Voltage reads over 14 so that isn't an issue either. I could be seeing things but it looks like the crank pulley may be wobbling ever so slightly and that would probably cause the whine. I just don't want to have to rip the damn thing apart again haha

 

[EFB055]

Quick update from the last few days...

Did the timing belt/water pump because the last one was improperly installed (improper tension). Also discovered intake cam was off by a tooth and the thing pulls like hell compared to before (did a GPS-monitored 0-60 and there's a full 2-second difference). It's making a faint whining noise, and it's increasing with my revs. I've eliminated all the belts as culprits (except for the timing belt but I'm pretty sure I didn't overtighten it and I definitely didn't under-tighten it) and it's not the AC pump, PS pump or alternator. Voltage reads over 14 so that isn't an issue either. I could be seeing things but it looks like the crank pulley may be wobbling ever so slightly and that would probably cause the whine. I just don't want to have to rip the damn thing apart again haha

Sure sounds like an overtightened tensioner pulley...

 

[Sam_]

Sure sounds like an overtightened tensioner pulley...

Damn it... I was reaaaaaally hoping someone wouldn't say that

 

[drtalon123]

I was gonna say it like 2 days ago, but hoped that maybe it was gonna be something else for you.

Yeah, the tensioner pulley for whatever reason is super sensitive to a belt that is tight.

"Correct tension" is where the belt flop in the trailing edge of the belt between the exhaust cam and the crank pulley when revving up is a "wtf, this doesn't look right" kind of thing. It will literally flop like 1/4" from the centerline at the middle point of the belt between the exhaust cam and the crank pulley, when at like 3-4000 rpm. It looks sketchy when the guards are removed, but this is what you get when the tensioner spring is the one solely doing the belt tensioning, which is the way Honda intended. You also get no noise from the tensioner afterwards. Any tighter than spring tight, andyou begin to get that indescribable whine when you rev the engine.

You shouldn't have to remove everything to re-tension the belt, Honda thought about this a little lol.

NOTE: Only follow the below procedure if you reinstalled the tensioner spring! If your tensioner pulley doesn't have a spring, this will not work:

See the small teardrop looking hole in the TB cover above the crank pulley hole?




That is your timing belt tensioner bolt access hole.

As long as you have the spring installed, the procedure for re-tensioning the belt with all covers on is as follows:

1. Pull #1 spark plug out of #1 hole. Install a compression gauge. This is so you can find TDC#1 during compression/power stroke when both valves are closed, and NOT during exhaust/intake stroke.
2. Turn the crankshaft over until the balancer mark lines up with the TDC mark, keeping an eye on your compression gauge. If a bit of pressure began to build leading up to you reaching the TDC mark, the intake/exhaust valves are closed, and you are on TDC#1 compression/power stroke, and move on to step 4.
3. If you didn't get a pressure bump on the gauge when rotating to TDC mark, turn the crank another 360 degrees until you do.
4. While at the mark under TDC#1 power/compression, loosen the tensioner bolt through the access hole a full turn, turn and a half.
5. Turn the crankshaft pulley a bit more, roughly 30-45 degrees, enough to turn the cams 2-3 teeth. This puts tension on the side of the belt between the exhaust cam and the crank sprocket.
6. Once you've done the approx. 30 degree turn, simply tighten the tensioner bolt to spec, and restart the car.

If you turned the crank too far at step 5, tighten the tensioner bolt and restart this process from the beginning.

The goal of this is to tighten the trailing edge and loosen the leading edge of the belt between the crank and intake cam sprockets, allowing the tensioner spring to do its job and pull the belt on that side tight.


You should be good after this.

 

[EFB055]

Damn it... I was reaaaaaally hoping someone wouldn't say that

Sorry man, haha.

 

[Sam_]

Yeah, I think I overtightened it. It was loose because the owner before my buddy did the job himself and didn't tighten it properly (enough for the spring to have fallen out entirely, and he didn't rotate the crank to pick up the slack) so I was a bit paranoid. I'll keep you updated with what I find.

 

[Sam_]

Dealt with it a couple days ago and it seems to have been that I overtightened the belt. I think I'm hallucinating when I hear it now because it's intermittent and it's SUPER faint (like barely audible, where it was actually kinda loud before).

 

[krusieski]

looks awesome man


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Sam_]

I didn't expect to come to this decision so quickly, but I did lol

I did some quick math and figured this would be a decent flip car because this is the golden time to sell cars here. I listed it for double what I was into it and was able to get full asking price the same day, so the car is gone.

It was a bit of a lemon (horrible maintenance up until I owned it) so I figured I might as well quit while I'm ahead. I'll probably get another Honda soon enough, but I'm going to wait for this virus bullshit to pass first

 

[Sam_]

Um, yeah... I did a thing. Please don't be mad lol

Went to Vancouver for it a few weeks ago. 1996 Jetta Trek 5-Speed with 80k miles on it. Best friend moved out there for school from here so it's still Alberta registered. He's financing a 370Z so he sold this to me for cheap

 

[slo_eg8]