So last week i was leaving college and all the sudden my car dies as i'm leaving a stop light. Come to find out the previous owner lied about changing the timing belt recently and what do ya know... it broke. So I towed the car home and after researching as much as possible my best bet is to throw another belt on there and see what happens. I still dont know whether my valves could have bent because some sites say SOHC (i have a d15b7) motors are built to prevent mashing up the valves in case this happens (to avoid lawsuits etc). But others say that it can mess up the valves but i might have got lucky since it broke at a low speed, low rpms, and i didnt sit and crank the thing longer than a couple seconds. I just wanted to know whether putting another belt on and changing the water pump while i'm at it would be my best bet?

 

Put on a new belt and then compression test the cylinders.

 

The D15B7 is of interference design, which means the valves can get damaged if the belt breaks. But maybe you were lucky. Like Ron said, the easiest way to tell is to put a new belt on and see if it works.

Don't change the water pump yet, unless it has seized and that's why the belt broke. Simply install new belt, put the crank pulley back on (without the plastic covers), set the belt tensioner, and crank it up. You don't need to put the alternator, A/C, etc. belts back to test the engine. If it is still running on 4 cylinders, you can go back and replace the water pump, tensioner, etc.

 

Bought new belt and water pump (it was cheap and is easily returnable) today. Installing it all later this week when i can get some knowledgable help. We'll see how things go

 

did you install the new timing belt?

If so did you have any problems?

 

its getting done by my dad as we speak at a friends shop so i'll let you know how things go.

 

sorry for the late response but replaced the timing belt, tensioner and the water pump with no problems what so ever and got lucky enough to not bend any valves or anything when the belt broke. Car runs great. Spent a total of about $100 or so total not counting the tools that were provided for me and the people helping.