93 civic EX 1.6 152K

As some of you may remember, I'm trying to diagnose a noise coming from the timing belt area. I replaced my timing belt last year, but i replaced the timing belt only. Now i've got a noise that's not whirring or squealing, but kind of a light knock that's not always in sync with the engine running (noise is most noticiable with engine hot and idling).

I took a stethascope and probed around the engine area. I was able to hear this mysterious noise with the probe on the exhaust manifold heat shield and on the driver side engine mount that goes through the timing cover. I tried the alternator, power steering pump, head, etc and did not hear the noise in any of those places, so i'm pretty sure the noise is coming from under the timing cover. Would the timing belt tensioner squeal or whirr if it were going bad? I hear that's also a symptom of a bad water pump, but it is not leaking and seems to be keeping the engine cool at the moment.

 

Well, you could pull the timing covers, run the engine and try not to get the stethoscope yanked off your head when the tip gets trapped under the belt, yikes. I'd sure like to know what you find, I too am far too cheap to replace a working water pump...
As for my noise, I think it's resemblance to an idling jetta diesel indicates piston slap. I suppose the cure is a freshly rebuilt engine that someone else paid for before they backed into a tree and wrote off the car.

 

I think we had been through this before. Start by taking all the accessory belts off and run the engine to see if the noise is still there. Yes, a bad tensioner will sound like any other worn out ball bearing since that's what it is. And the water pump doesn't necessarily have to leak to be bad.

 

Ok I pulled the belts, still had the noise with a warm idling engine. Pulled the timing belt off and there IS play (up and down) in the water pump, and a little hair of side to side play in the tensioner. There is NO leak from the water pump as of now. Is the water pump bad?

 

Yes, replace water pump. If there's any noise at all from the tensioner when you spin it by hand, replace it too.

 

well a tensioner and water pump from autozone fixed the problem. the tensioner was made in japan, and had the same style of writing and same letters "NSK" on it as the original one, so i'm thinking the duralast is the same as the one honda uses, just different name. as for the water pump, it'll be good too, won't it?

also, if I follow the instructions in the book for tensioning the timing belt, it will be too tight and "whirr' when running. I did finally get the tension just right so it doesn't whirr, but isn't the whirr bad, even if you follow the steps to correctly tension the belt?

the steps are
1) engine at TDC
2)loosen tensioner bold 180*
3)rotate engine counter clockwise 3 teeth on the cam shaft
4)torque the tensioner bolt back up

if I do that it will whirr when running. it even did that with the original tensioner.

 

Some "whirr" from a timing belt is normal. Much better than skipping teeth because it's too loose. As you fix the abnormal noises you become able to hear the normal ones.

 

well I have reved it 6-7rpm with it "looser" than normal with no issues. the whirr just doesn't seem right (scratches head)