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I put four washers between the cam-holding block and the upper bracket on each bolt so that it was better spaced. Might have worked fine as shipped, but didn't want to take a chance. Otherwise, it's worked perfectly.
Honestly, I have no idea how one would use this on the back half of the right head. There's just no room next to the stupid A/C evaporator box. I wound up taking out as many rockers as I could and then just pulling the cams up, working under the theory that since the cam was going up only there would not be anything int he way of the valves going back into the head.
I strolled through Menards and The Hammer Store and bought pretty much one of every pickup tool they had (that I didn't already have back at the shop). Menards had this really slick extendable/flexible one that fit under the baffle perfectly and popped the bolt right back out from the oil pan in a matter of seconds. For round two, I put a rag in the pan to catch any skydivers and went back to it. Using a curved-tip hemostat to hold the bolt, I was able to get it to start threading pretty easily and didn't have to worry about it falling down. After the threads caught, I put my flexible-head 8mm ratcheting wrench on it and pushed up on the bolt head with the hemostat and just zipped the bolt in. Once the difficult one was completed, I popped the front bolt in. All told, it took me about 15 minutes to go from bolt in the pan to oil pump is installed. Absolutely no need whatsoever to drop the oil pan to replace the oil pump. I did go ahead and run my camera down the oil pickup tube before installing the pump to ensure there were no holes or kinks in the tube and that the screen was clear.
I didn't finish torquing down the oil pan bolts since my inch-pounds torque wrench got left at home the last time I used it, but I went ahead on to get the new cams installed. If I were going to re-use the old cams, this would be super easy, barely an inconvenience: The cam holders remained attached so when the cams were put back in, they'd be exactly where they were when I took them out. In this case, though, I had to move the cam holders to the new cams. Since I planned to re-use the original cam sprockets, I went ahead and laid the old cams back in the engine. Using a straightedge - in this case, a Formica sample chip - I made a mark on the sprocket where it lined up with the valve cover mating surface:
As a double-check, I also used a ruler to mark the back of the sprocket where it lined up with the cam holder:
With those marks in place, I swapped the cam holder and sprocket to the new cam and put it in place. Once I was sure that I had everything lined up to within a fraction of a degree, it came back out and I cleaned the bore, caps, cam, and rockers. The valve spring tool is pretty nifty and all that, but it is at least mostly impossible to get to the five rear-most valves on the right side. Rather than try to fight with that to re-install the rockers, I went ahead and installed the rockers first then set the cam on them and snugged the cap bolts to finger-tight. I had little tags on the rockers so they'd go back to the same lobes that they spent their life with so far and each one got cleaned and then soaked in oil before going back in. Assembly lube was smeared on the rollers, the bores, the caps, and the journals as well. Once all the caps were on, I snugged the cap bolts down in the order specified in the FSM, but only until the cap dowels were fully inserted in the head. Again with the inch-pound torque wrench not being at the shop.
The manual is a little odd about the balance shaft, though, so here's what I came up with for the left side. Caps 1, 2, and 6 have another bore in them for the balance shaft. For the cam cap to be fully installed, it needs one bolt that goes into the head directly and then two bolts that go through another cap, then the cam cap, and then in to the head. It's like cap-ception:
In order to install the balance shaft, the cam holder has to be out of the way. But if I take the cam holder out now, the cam will twist under the pressure from the valve springs and I run the chance of bending a valve. At the same time, though, I need to make sure I have good constant pressure on the cam to get it installed properly without causing it to damage the bores or caps. The FSM doesn't seem to address this at all. So I just went ahead and put the balance shaft cap-caps on empty for now. Once the engine is timed and the cam holders are no longer needed, I will pull the cap-caps off, clean them, give them assembly lube, and install the balance shaft.
Also in the above picture, note the use of the washers. I was concerned that the holder wasn't going to actually hold the cams solid because the cam was lower than the holding blocks were positioned. Maybe it would have been just fine, but four washers around each bolt seems to do the trick and it's got the cam locked solid, so that's what I'd recommend. Still better than spending $130 each....
By the time I ran out of steam last night I had the left cam installed and ready for final torque and the right cam "timed" correctly in the cam holder and ready to install. Next I need to go ahead and clean the head and the cam, and get the rockers installed. I'm taking this part very slowly and deliberately - probably more than is really necessary. The nonsense with timing the cams is probably overkill - just setting the timing marks to the right spots really should be all that is necessary. That is why they put them there, after all! On the other hand, I got a Honda timing belt a tooth or two off once and had to tear the whole stupid thing open again to fix it, so I've tried hard to not repeat that mistake ever since!
As a suggestion when you're finished with this repair use a socket on the crank shaft to gently turn the engine through a few full revolutions to check for no valve-piston interference. The socket required (with key installed) will be a 32 or 33 mm deep well. This will save a lot of work due a "whoops" moment.
As a suggestion when you're finished with this repair use a socket on the crank shaft to gently turn the engine through a few full revolutions to check for no valve-piston interference. The socket required (with key installed) will be a 32 or 33 mm deep well. This will save a lot of work due a "whoops" moment.
Yes, that's a very good plan! And very easy to do before putting the fan and radiator back on.
I put another couple hours in to it last night. Slowly but surely, it's coming back together. The old chains must have stretched a bit because getting the new ones on correctly is a bit of a pain. I need to re-check the specs and diagrams, but I think that the left cam needs to rotate counter-clockwise about a tooth.
Another idea that occurred to me is as you're rotating the crank by hand IF you meet any significant resistance insert your "snake camera" into the plug holes individually checking for valve-piston contact.
Still coming along. Between work and family, I get a couple hours a day to go out to the shop and work on the beast, so the going can get a little slower when other things speed up and require more attention!
Most of my work time the last couple days was consumed with cleaning out the valve covers and timing cover. Cans of brake cleaner and rolls of paper towels later, I've got the sludge scraped out. The timing cover is back on and torqued down, the new gaskets and grommets are on the valve covers, and the PCV baffle and breather tube are epoxied back on. Getting the chain on is actually pretty straightforward, but I find that trying to see the different-colored links on the Melling chain was a little difficult so I used a paint marker to give them a clearer mark. Then it was just a matter of loosening the cam holder just a hair so I could rotate the cams into position. Valve damage could occur if the cam were to rotate with a lot of force, so just turn the cam holder bolts about five turns loose from fully tight and you can move the cam using the 18mm cam sprocket bolt. It takes just a little bit of trial and error but the chain will go in to place. Once it's on, just give the cam another turn to put all the slack on the tensioner side. I think the biggest problem that I was having was that there was a pretty significant amount of stretch in the original chain - maybe as much as a tooth's worth - so when I had the cams lined up to where they originally were, they were basically in the wrong spot to begin with.
Once the chains and tensioners were installed and everything was torqued down I gave it some spins with the 32mm socket and everything moves as smoothly as an engine with good compression will move with no noises other than air movement. The biggest jobs that remain are getting the valve covers on and the harmonic balancer re-installed. I would love to know the technical reason that they needed an M12-1.50 bolt as opposed to the more common 1.75 or 1.25.... The local hardware store didn't have a bolt or any all-thread in that size and pitch so I'll try another place today before going and borrowing the stupid tool from my FLAPS.
I'm glad knowing you used the socket to rotate the crank a few turns before calling the chain installation complete.
There's almost no "logic" to why a particular bolt OD and TPI is used by auto manufacturers---its a mystery for sure!
Sounds like you're making progress slowly BUT that's a good thing I believe---gives you time to maybe re-think and double check your work as it goes along. That's saved me a bunch of work from time-to-time.
Yeah, these are all lessons that can only be learned the hard way! I always make sure the engine can be turned by hand before I put everything back together, and before I try to start it "for reals", I hook up my remote start switch and let the starter give it a few turns just to make sure there's no weird noises. If it passes that test, then I do it for a little while longer while I watch the oil pressure. THEN if I get oil pressure and no funny noises, it's time to actually start it up. Same thing if it's an engine that's been sitting for a while. A buddy of mine killed our CRX by just giving it a new battery and hitting the starter button after it sat for about two years - it jumped time and bent a few valves and it was just too rusty to make it worth saving at that point.
At any rate, I was able to get the right bolt from the big box home improvement place last night. I used a 100mm bolt which is definitely too long, but I put two washer up against the balancer, an impact socket (22mm, I think, not that it matters!), a couple more washers, and then ran the bolt through all that. That way I knew I had a bolt that would definitely be long enough and shortening the effective length was just a matter of adding spacers. Don't forget your little dollop of sealant on the key - and to clean the old sealant off! - and then just tighten it until it bottoms out before using the torque procedure in the FSM. I got as far as getting all the accessories re-installed, both valve covers back on, and the top-of-the-engine cables, wires, and hoses re-attached. That right valve cover is a real PITA to get torqued down because of the A/C box even after lifting the engine, but eventually I got it. Minor confession: the bottom rear-most bolt on both valve covers just got the ratcheting 8mm and not the torque wrench. My crow's foot set only goes down to 10mm and there just wasn't any room to get to them with the torque wrench. Another hard-learned lesson for me has been that when I get tired mistakes happen big and fast, so that was a good stopping point to call it a night and get some shut-eye. I'll bust out of work after lunch today and should be able to wrap it up. I'm going to get all the "top-side" stuff done and then crawl underneath to do all the on-my-back stuff. Then fill with fluids and apply the restarting procedure.
Lowered the pan enough to get the pickup tube out. Is this clogged enough to cause this sort of problem? It doesn't look that bad but maybe it's enough to close it up when there's a lot of flow?
I'm no expert but I sure would think that could cause it. It could have been clogged but open enough for idling but not higher rpm which would have not flown as much oil?
03-14-2021, 07:36 AM
