Ok, thanks to everyone's help over the last few days and a lot of youtube and google, I think I'm good with the brake replacement job.

Anyhow, after all my reading I started thinking about the timing belt. I bought the car with 108k miles on it a year and a half ago. It now has 138k. I don't know if the timing belt was ever changed on this car. There is no marking on the cover to indicate that it had been changed and I tried contacting the original dealer with the VIN# and they couldn't find any info on this car in their system at all.

So I'm sure when I actually get started I'll be back on here looking for the same wisdom that got me through the brake job...

One thing I'm trying to find out now is that from what I've read, I should be changing all of the following:

A true timing belt job includes the following to do things right:
--Changing the timing belt of course.
--Changing all external drive belts.
--Changing the waterpump.
--Changing the valve cover gasket.
--Changing the crank shaft seal
--Changing the cam shaft seal.
--Changing the coolant.

I'd like some input as to whether or not all this is overkill and asking for more problems or should I just stick to changing the timing belt, tensioner and waterpump.

Thanks in advance for you support.

 

The valve cover gasket is usually reusable. You can come back and replace it later if there are oil leaks. Also don't mess with the seals unless you find they are leaking, especially if you don't have experience with oil seals.

 

From the sound of your reply, I won't know if the oil seals are leaking until I get it apart right?

Also, I've been looking at a lot of post about how difficult it is to remove the crank pully. One manual method sounded like it made more sense than the others. It sounded like they used an extra long 1/2" socket extension along with the tool from Honda that locks the cranks position. At the end of the extension it was resting on a floor jack stand and a breaker bar with a heavy duty piece of cheater pipe was slid over the end of the breaker bar. Please let me know if this sounds like it makes any sense. I've thought of putting a heavy duty tie wrap around the extension to the floor jack stand.

Or, the local tool rental place has a 300 ft lb electric impact wrench I can get for 30 dollars for the weekend. Would that be enough torque?

 

If your front seal leak, you will know it by now, so I don't think it leaking.

I see mix respond from using the pulley socket removal tool, some said work other not, or you can try using the crank method but might be dangerous, but should try your rental tool first. If you timing belt was changed before it should not be as tight.

When I change TB on mine, I use my 3/4 impact and cuz my 1/2 Ingersol impact didn't even put a ding on it.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about how that crank pulley removal tool is supposed to be used? Looking at it, I can't figure out exactly how it works. Can it be used with an impact wrench? Just curious.

Also, does the following sound right for the Pully Bolt torque spec from the manual I pulled from this forum that someone posted a while back?

PULLEY BOLT
14x 1.25 mm
20 N·m (2.0 kgf·m, 14Ibf·ft) + 90°

I thought I had read somewhere that it was a lot more than this.

 

The spec you quoted means to tighten to 20 Nm then turn it an additional 90 degrees regardless of torque. I have also seen 140 lbf as the spec.

With an impact wrench you don't need the holder tool. The tool is to keep the crankshaft and crank pulley from rotating while turning the bolt with a wrench.

 

That torque spec seems awfully low to me. The 20 Nm does convert to 14.75 foot pounds. If anyone on here has any references to websites that might clarify this for me, please share. Thanks.

 

20 N·m (2.0 kgf·m, 14Ibf·ft) + 90°

Tighten to 14 lbf then turn an additional 90 degrees (1/4 turn). That will end up rather tight.

 

In that same manual that I downloaded from here where it refers to the torque for the SOHC crank pulley bolt being 20 N'm
(2.0 kgf'm, 14 lbf-ft) + 90 deg (page 6-16) it also has a different spec of 177 Nrn (18.0 kqf-rn, 130 Ibf·ft) on page 6-54 for the DOHC. Guess I'm a little surprised at the variation on this.

Also, forgot to ask. Honda didn't recommend changing the tensioner. Should I do this anyhow and is it fairly easy to get out and replace?

 

I just had to replace my timing belt on a 94 Civic. The Crankshaft pully bolt was a pain. I tried 2 Impact Guns - an electric one rated at 220 lbs and an air one with a massive compressor (took up the entire back of my minivan) and that didn't do the trick.

What I had to do, was to buy some Grade 12 bolts and a chain about 18 inches long (rated at 1300 lbs) and bolted the chain to the pulley and to the tow bar on the front of the car. I had to do this because my crankshaft pulley did not have the Hex Key that some people insert the Crank Shaft Pulley Holder Tool into. It was completely rounded. I attached the chain/bolts and after breaking 5 sockets, 1 breaker bar, and 2 adapters, the bolt finally came off.

I used a Snap-On breaker bar and a black Socket that was deep enough to get to the bolt without an adapter (the adapters were the weak points).

This bolt was 17mm. It was a pain. I never want to do this again. Good luck with that.