timing belt job... worth it?

wagodizzle

well, recently my cars timing went out of whack, dunno how, prolly jumped a tooth or something but anyways... i decided i might as well get a new timing belt job, as i have 110K miles on it and no idea if the belt was changed ever before i bought it at 97K miles (most likely not..)

i called the Honda dealer today to get a price quoted, and they said $475 :shock: that includes new timing belt, alt. belt, water pump and then they set the ignition timing and valve clearance as well... (i do have, however, a 15% discount though, but still thats $400...)

my question is, is it worth paying for it, or should i do it myself. i am a little nervous doing it myself, even though i have the Haynes manual and everything.. also in the end i would end up paying like $150 for new parts like the belts and water pump. also it would prolly take my a few days to do this, and a TON of headaches. idk anywho....

anyone have some advice?

curt

do it yourself or find someone cheaper than the dealer.

eldonciv777

Have a mini-meet at your house and get a few guys to help do it or go to the junkyard a few weeks before and tear into one of their motors and practice. It sounds difficult at first but if you triple check the timing once the belt is tight you should have no problems and will find it's less difficult than it sounds.

wagodizzle

a mini-meet? sounds good 8) hey Trev, Josh, William, you guys need to come down south... and have a timing belt changing party woot!

wagodizzle

alrighty, gotta love hondapartsdeals.com... $33 for a timing belt and at autozone, water pumps new are like $30... hmm, im thinking imma do this on my own.

oh lawdz :?

bam-bam

It's not that hard, but you'll need a way to remove the crank bolt, and a couple of the hondas I've done I had problems with the engine mount stud nuts being galled.( I broke 3 17mm sockets on one nut ) The crank bolt was no problem with a 3/4 inch impact wrench, or you'll need a way to hold the crank and a looooong handled breaker bar. Overall a pretty easy timing belt (try a Subaru :shock: )

jpciii

The last two I had done cost between $250 and $300... not at a dealership, though.

michaelhinkle1

whenever my friend replaced my water pump and timing belt, 120$, did a pretty good job.

the timing belt was only 20$ at autozone so i dunno why yours is so overcharged.

davens

First off...it is commonly known that local dealerships are usually more expensive. This should come as no surprise. However, there is a comfort they are going to do the job right, or correct the issue if they don't. And that process is backed by Honda corporate.
That being said, local mechanics are significantly cheaper. But they might suck and you have little recourse. If you can find a quality legit local mechanic, they are worth their weight in gold.

Now...the question if it's worth $400.
You have to ask yourself: What is your personal time worth?
When I was younger, with more time than money, I'd be inclined to try it myself.
Now that I'm older and [sarcasm]flush with cash[/sarcasm]...the prospect of spending a whole Saturday changing a timing belt is not appealing. Or even realistic. I'm way too busy.

wagodizzle

michaelhinkle1 wrote:

the timing belt was only 20$ at autozone so i dunno why yours is so overcharged.

i would never buy anything other then a Genuine Honda belt when it came to something this important, $32 is half the shelf price. i checked Advance auto's website and the belts were all $30-50.....

davens wrote:

First off...it is commonly known that local dealerships are usually more expensive. This should come as no surprise. However, there is a comfort they are going to do the job right, or correct the issue if they don't. And that process is backed by Honda corporate.
That being said, local mechanics are significantly cheaper. But they might suck and you have little recourse. If you can find a quality legit local mechanic, they are worth their weight in gold.

Now...the question if it's worth $400.
You have to ask yourself: What is your personal time worth?
When I was younger, with more time than money, I'd be inclined to try it myself.
Now that I'm older and [sarcasm]flush with cash[/sarcasm]...the prospect of spending a whole Saturday changing a timing belt is not appealing. Or even realistic. I'm way too busy.

exactly man, i feel the same way. problem is i have no money, for this, haha... but i'll be needing my car. i've been really studying up on my manual, and im pretty sure i'll be fine. except, what if it goes wrong, i'd rather spend a few extra bucks and have it done right the first time.

but, even dealers dont always do things right... at least not my local one
:x hahah ah well... i'll see if im feeling up to it when i come back in September.

thing is, for $475 i can get a whole "new" motor from Japan with only 30K miles on it and VTEC alright, imma do this myself... and save for that engine swap 8)

Jaker

I have only 3 suggestions for you:

1 - Buy the Honda water pump. Chances are you'll be changing out the Autozone water pump in 6 months when the front seal starts to leak, and it's like doing the whole timing belt job over again (timing belt has to come off to change the water pump).

2 - Swing by a local garage before you start the job, and slip them $20 to crack the crank pulley bolt free with their big impact gun/compressor, then zip it back on snug (not too tight) for your drive home. This will make the job 1,000,000 times easier.

3 - Make sure you have a 1/4 drive deep 10mm socket to get the timing belt cover bolt out of the center of the cover by the timing belt tensioner. Chances are a 3/8" drive will be too large in diameter to fit the hole in the cover. The bolt head is recessed into the cover.

jb2wheels

I agree - DIY or with friends helping/supervising/drinking your beer and laughing at you...

Not hard a all.

wagodizzle

thanks for the advice guys

SiWagon

This might be a mute issue if your belt jumped.Take the timing cvr off & look @ the belt to see if it looks pretty new.I've never done a timing belt & it took me about 3 hours to do it.Went easier than I thought.Davensmakes some good points.

The other thing to consider is whether you are going to do the valve adj. later or farm it out to a garage.This would be a good time to learn how to do the valve adj.

Jaker wrote:

Swing by a local garage before you start the job, and slip them $20 to crack the crank pulley bolt free with their big impact gun/compressor, then zip it back on snug (not too tight) for your drive home. This will make the job 1,000,000 times easier.

Try cracking the crank bolt first.Mine came off easily.Even the crank came off easily too.

White&Nerdy

I decided to do the job myself, but got stuck at the crank pulley bolt. Literally. Ended up paying $300 overall to have a shop do it in the end. Also replaced the water pump (actually a leaking pump was WHY I did the job when I did) and all my accessory belts while I was at it. They looked old and a little cracked, so I figured it was cheap insurance since they all had to come off anyway.

curt

http://www.d-series.org/forums/showthre ... light=belt here is a great thread with lots of pics.

Kahuna

IMO:
Go ahead and get a good D16.. It would be the same price as getting the dealer to do it, and prolly a few hundred times easier.

wagodizzle

Kahuna wrote:

IMO:
Go ahead and get a good D16.. It would be the same price as getting the dealer to do it, and prolly a few hundred times easier.

i'd never be able to find a good D16 thats even half as good as my ol' D15. its only got 110K on it. and its definitely not easier

akiraboy

wagodizzle wrote:

Kahuna wrote:

IMO:
Go ahead and get a good D16.. It would be the same price as getting the dealer to do it, and prolly a few hundred times easier.

i'd never be able to find a good D16 thats even half as good as my ol' D15. its only got 110K on it. and its definitely not easier

While you have the chance, do the mpfi swap.

The standard timing belt service from Honda is normally, belt, tensioner, waterpump, crank seal, new crank bolt and belleville/spring washer.

Oh and a Honda technical service manual is priceless, I had a Haynes and later opted for the tsm.

Good luck ma man

wagodizzle

thanks akira i did the MPFI swap a while back...

soon as i gt home, the wagon will be under the knife, haha... new timing belt, new clutch.. it will be nice

cmyrex

i agree with doing it yourself and using geniune honda parts. now the price on someone else doing it honda charges that price cause its just a flat rate t belt special. all four cylinders have price and all v6 have a different price. like mentioned above the crank pulley is one the hardest things to get off if you have the tool its pretty easy but a big ass impact that has lots of air going to it on a short socket does the job. if your doing a DOHC the cam holding tool works good but just double check your timing marks and set your timing belt tension when you set the tensioner and youll be all gravy.

oh and you dont have to juice up the waterpump seal with hondabond for it to seal. the rubber seal thats on it does just fine. if theres some build up on the sealing surface take some emery cloth or some fine grit sand paper and go over the surface lightly.

good luck man hope the rubberband changing goes over smoothly

wagodizzle

thanks for the info!

qsoundrich

You'll probably need an air gun to get the crank pulley bolt off. Otherwise, this may not be too bad of a job.

SweetOh

So your going to save yourself some $$ and learn something new if not its good practice doing yourself.

Well it's not that bad. It took me (doing it alone for the 2nd time in my life), about 2hr and 40 mins. It wasn't my shop though. So i spent a 1/3 of the time looking for tools. Suxed :x

Anyhoo when i did myne, its was a tooth off. The crankshaft pully bolt was loose!!! I use a wrachet to get it off! (With a little muscle). I drove about 11,000mile on a bad timeing belt!!
Thats why it alwas threw those ecu code, and had no accel, verry sluggish,backfireing, ect. Its amazing what timeing can do.
Im happy now it has a little pop now and with a new clutch it moves.

BIOHAZARD

ive only had 1 really stuck crank bolt on a z6. my dewalt 1/2" drive electric impact gun gets them off real easy.

wagodizzle

update: car runs like shit.

i set the cam at UP and lined up the two marks, also set the TDC at the arrow...

put it back together, starts up fine. drive it around the block and it starts running shitty..skipping really badly and what have you, also throws a code 4 (crank angle) and basically i cant drive it.

so i take it all apart again (this time in only like an hour, haha) and redo it. spent like 2 hours just making absolutely sure that TDC was correct and the cam was UP. put it back together (also with a new Alternator this time... different horror story). crank her up, and drive around the block. it does so beautifully. so im super happy that i finally have my car "back" after 3 months.

first day of school, im headed into Savannah.. 30 minute drive. 20 minutes into it it fricking starts skipping again. luckily i made it to school (BARELY in the end). well, 2.5 hours after sitting in the parking lot she starts up fine and i make it home without problems.. though its definitely not running perfectly anymore.

at this point i am super pissed. if my timing is off, why doesnt it run shitty in the first place? why does it only after a while... and mostly WHAT THE HELL is missing?! why the hell is it still off?!



what am i missing or doing wrong.... :x

Jaker

Did you set the belt tension correctly? I pull the tensionner back away from the belt, and snug down the bolt slightly to keep the tension off the belt to easily line things up. Once it's all in the right place, I loosen off the bolt on the tensionner (now the tensionner is pushing on the belt). Next I take the 17mm socket with extension and I turn the crank pulley bolt (effectively turning the engine) about 1/4 of a turn in a counter clockwise direction. This puts some extra tension on the belt. Tighten down the bolt in the center of the tensionner, and voila, your belt is properly tensionned.

The Helms (factory service manual) says to do it this way, but they say to only rotate the crank for 3 teeth on the timing belt.

wagodizzle

yeah i had it tensioned pretty good... making sure that it doesnt skip or anything. anyways, im gonna have to take it apart again for the third time and i'll do it this way.

thanks

SweetOh

Have you tweeked your dizzy?
Adv and retard to see wich way make it seam to run better then get back to the belt and see if it need's to move a tooth one way or the other.

And or if could be something with the MPFI/ecu?

wagodizzle

i've moved my dizzy back on forth every possible way :P advancing it 100% helps a little, which tells me that its definitly off a tooth or two or three or four...

Haydz

Sounds like it may have jumped a tooth after you started it.