87 CIVIC 1500 engine-does not start-timing belt

Hello,

Ok, so this car was driving fine, all of the sudden, at about 25mph, it just simply died. I got it back to my house, it has gas and spark. So my next thought was timing, not broken belt, but perhaps it skipped a tooth or two. AFter tons of labor, frustration etc.. got the timing covers off, the belt is good, but it did seem loose. So, I did some checking, it appeared that it was about 180deg out?!?!? I think it is anyway. After removing the belt, trying to re-install the new belt, book says to align the timing mark on the pulley with the timing mark on the timing cover. No problem right? WRONG!! There is no timing mark on th epully at all!! I have serched that thing over and over again, nothing! I have read that you can pull the head to make sure of TDC, or drop the oil pan (may not be accurate), but this confuses me because you can align the cam sprockett like it should be, and the rotor on the dist. is off. So I have two questions. 1. Why would the marks on the cam sprockett be aligned and the rotor be off and 2. It is obvious that I should replace this crank pulley with one that has timing marks on it, ie a junkyard or something My quesiton to this is, is tha tpulley counterbalanced, if so, if I put another used one on, will the crank be now be out of balance and cause problems down the road?

This whole thing is rather confusing to me, as I have done these before on other vehicles, never ran into this problem before. Any ideas would be awesome, as I am totally frustrated with this as of now.

Thanks in advance.

John

There will be no problems with installing a new/used pulley. These motors are internally balanced and the front pulley is just that, a pulley, not a balancer. Just make sure to get one off of the same motor. The EW/Early D-series pulley markings are in a different location than other D series motors and the crank snout has a different diameter.

It's odd that there are no markings on your pulley, I wonder how anyone was able to tune this car?

If you find the marks or find a pulley with marks there will be three marks close together and one mark a few inches away. The solitary mark is the TDC mark.

There is no way to re-index the distributor to the cam so it's position must be correct in relation to the cam. Is the cam in the correct position? Do you have the correct firing order?

Also, remember that most Honda motors rotate counter clockwise (unlike every other motor in the world) so when you are turning the motor with a ratchet, make sure you are going in the correct direction (lefty loosey) or you will loosen the timing belt.

There will be no problems with installing a new/used pulley. These motors are internally balanced and the front pulley is just that, a pulley, not a balancer. Just make sure to get one off of the same motor. The EW/Early D-series pulley markings are in a different location than other D series motors and the crank snout has a different diameter.

It's odd that there are no markings on your pulley, I wonder how anyone was able to tune this car?

If you find the marks or find a pulley with marks there will be three marks close together and one mark a few inches away. The solitary mark is the TDC mark.

There is no way to re-index the distributor to the cam so it's position must be correct in relation to the cam. Is the cam in the correct position? Do you have the correct firing order?

Also, remember that most Honda motors rotate counter clockwise (unlike every other motor in the world) so when you are turning the motor with a ratchet, make sure you are going in the correct direction (lefty loosey) or you will loosen the timing belt.

I thought that this may be the case. I did call a mechanica, this guy said that there were marks on the lower timing gear, but I looked, there is nothing there. The only thing that I can think of is that this is one of those engines that you can get from Japan, with like 40,000 miles on them, because of their pollution problem there, and maybe they don't require it or something. It is really strange.

So once I align the timing mark on the pulley with the mark on the timing cover, what is the next step? As far as the firing order, it was fine befre it quit, so it should be fine, but I will check that when I get this back together.

I would assume that once you get those marks lined up, you turn the cam poulley till the rotor points to #1, and the pulley on top is aligned right?

Guess I'm a little confused.

I would assume that once you get those marks lined up, you turn the cam poulley till the rotor points to #1, and the pulley on top is aligned right?

Guess I'm a little confused.

Once you get the bottom end at TDC you need to set the cam to TDC. To do this you simply need to align the two dash marks on the cam pulley to the surface of the head (where the valve cover gasket sits). It's sort of a wierd way to align the cam, but that's what the Honda manual says.

From what I understand, on older CVCC engines, the timing marks were located on the flywheel, or torque converter drive plate. I don't know about the '87, though.