1998 CRV- Timing Belt Anyone?

[laloquera]

Had my CRV for four years, great car. Just passed smog for another year. Anyone change the timming belt or can direct me to a good write up.
Thanx
laloquera

[tshih]

Hi,
Just did mine (1999 model Year same as your's) at home. Nothing special except have to get the special tool to hold down the harmonic balancer pulley to retorque the bolt to 139 ft-lbs. (Pep Boys had it for $40). Looks like a 50 mm hexhead wrench that inserts into the center of pulley allowing you to hold it in place with a breaker bar while the 19 mm bolt is being torqued to spec. Get the writeup from Haynes. Buy a new belt, tensioner pulley , spring, and tensioner pulley bolt. I stripped mine (the bolt) 14 mm head while trying to loosen it to remove the belt. Main thing to avoid is after installing the new belt ALWAYS rotate the crankshaft bolt counterclockwise to seat the tensioner and cross-check the marks on the two camgears (both should be at 12 o'clock position and the arrows on the gears are pointing at each other.

[laloquera]

Thanx for the 411. Ive done accord timing belt, I hate droping the engine. Do you have to do the same on CR-V? How mutch room did you have to work with? Working space is my issue.
Laloquera

[tshih]

You do need to remove the engine mount to get the belt changed but I was able to realign the marks and make later adjustments (reposition the belt and adjust tensioner) with the mount in place. Just remember there are 5 lower bolts (10 mm) holding the bottom cover (one is also supporting a wire clip which hides the head of the bolt). Don't force the cover off without removing all the bolts.

[tshih]

Also start by removing the wheel (driver's front), helps to have impact wrench for engine mounts and removing pulley (harmonic balancer) bolt. Remove all sparkplugs and set #1 to TDC, remove valve cover, top timing belt cover, check to see marks are lined up correctly, remove the accessory belts (alternator, A/C compressor, then power steering belts). See my thread about my problems encountered.

[laloquera]

tshih
Thanx for your input, all is cosidered. I will take a crack at this weekend, I will keep you post.
Thanx again
Laloquera

[laloquera]

Done deal, had my causin whos a mechanic show me. Nextime I will go solo on this project.
Laloquera