Acura TL 200K DIY maintenance saga - Part 1 - We'll get started right after getting this $@%#$! bolt off

Well the old Acura just ticked over 200,000 miles.  Overall things are looking good, with a few small issues to take care of that I haven't gotten around to yet.  200K though means all of the expensive maintenance I shelled out beaucoup bucks for a hundred thousand miles ago is all due again, most notably the dreaded timing belt.



Required maintenance includes:

• New timing belt, and "while you're in there":
• Timing belt tensioner
• Tensioner pulley
• Idler pulley
• Water pump
• Accessory belts (power steering pump belt and alternator/AC belt)
• Replace coolant
• Replace spark plugs
• Adjust valves (not done yet, we'll tackle this later)

While we were at it, we decided to add:

• New passenger side engine mount
• New rear engine mount
• New front/rear transmission mounts
• Clean intake EGR ports

The dealer quote for the above was around $3500.  An independent shop would charge less but still, it would not be inexpensive.  As I watched the odometer tick steadily closer to 200K, I decided that we were ready to tackle a timing belt.

Thinking about it reminded me of my younger days.  The first time I found out that timing belts were meant to be changed was when I owned my second car, a 1990 Geo Storm.  The engine was making a funny noise, so I took it to a mechanic who quickly diagnosed a shredded timing belt flapping around inside the engine, which I then paid to fix.

Fast forward a few years and I had upgraded to a Storm GSi.  When it came time to change the timing belt I read through my spiffy Haynes manual to see if I could DIY.  By this time I was doing simple things like oil and coolant changes.  My tool set consisted of a small socket set and a hammer.  I started reading through the steps... "Support the engine with a floor jack.  Remove the right engine mount bracket..." I stopped reading there. I have to remove an engine mount to replace the belt? Who designed this? I didn't even have a floor jack.  At the time this seemed like trying to do rocket surgery, so the choice was easy.  I took it to a mechanic and had them do it.

Well, that was then and this is now.  After doing numerous brake jobs, rebuilding brake calipers, putting in new struts, new engine mount, and various other small jobs, we've built a pretty good tool set and gotten enough confidence to tackle larger jobs.  The important stuff when it comes to tools is solutions for getting into hard to reach spaces.  U-joints, extensions, and small wrenches are a minimum.  Then there are stubborn nuts and bolts. An impact wrench and breaker bars help.  Without these extras it can be literally impossible to get some nuts and bolts off, and you can end up halfway through a project and stuck.  It's pretty demoralizing to have to put everything back together again without finishing the project.

So I ordered a timing belt kit (that includes the timing belt and new water pump, tensioner, tensioner pulley, and idler pulley) and sent Brian a message to let him know it was on like Donkey Kong!

NOTE: If you are attempting timing belt replacement on your own, get a copy of the factory service manual or other guide for your car.  I don't explain everything here and cars differ.

-- Day 1 --

We already knew this would most likely be a multi-day project.  Luckily Brian offered the Grand Am as a loaner car (how awesome is it that Havener Garage has loaners??).  We planned from the start to work at a comfortable pace and not try to rush anything.  Rushing can cause mistakes, accidents, and poor judgment, and I have plenty of that going on already.

Since we were doing spark plugs anyway, and taking them out would make it easier to crank the engine over by hand while doing the timing belt,  we decided to remove them first and put the new ones in after finishing the timing belt.

Ever since I bought this car, I've wondered how to get to the rear spark plugs.  The shop I used at 100K charged a hefty fee for replacing them, and assured me they were difficult to get to.  That brings me to the first rule of working on hard to get to stuff on an engine: Remove everything in your way, and don't whine about it!  I've learned that taking five or ten minutes to remove an item in the way usually is quicker than trying to work around it.

We first removed the splash shield under the bumper (required for the timing belt job), took out the strut tower brace (and all of the wiring harness clips attached to it.  Whoever designed the wiring harness *loves* to clip it to *everything*), and the IMRC (intake manifold runner control) actuator.  Then we removed all six spark plugs, numbering each one with a Sharpie.  That way after they were all removed we could identify any that looked different and diagnose any possible issues with those particular cylinders.  All the plugs looked normal and identical, so we moved on to the timing belt.

A nice rodent left us lots of nuts hidden all over the engine bay in case we got hungry.

Splash guard needs to come off to access timing belt components.

We removed the strut tower brace for extra room behind the engine.

With strut tower brace and IMRC actuator out of the way, the rear plugs
are surprisingly accessible.

First plug out. We left all the coils in place to plug up the spark plug
holes so nothing would fall in there.

Since the coolant needed to be changed and removing the water pump as part of the timing belt service causes coolant to spill out, we drained the coolant now.  I assumed this would prevent much from spilling out later when the water pump was removed, but that didn't end up being the case.

After draining the radiator, the engine block must be drained
from a fitting similar to a brake bleeding valve.

The first step in changing the timing belt is aligning everything up.  The crankshaft pulley is spun until the timing mark on it lines up with the arrow on the engine cover.  The two camshafts should then also be lined up correctly with their marks.  If they aren't, the crankshaft needs to be spun one revolution to bring the camshafts into position (the camshafts rotate once for every two revolutions at the crankshaft).  There are some sight holes for some crazy person to peek through and check cam timing, but I found it much easier to just remove the upper side engine covers and line up the pulley timing marks with the marks on the engine behind them.

After everything is lined up, the infamous crankshaft pulley bolt must be removed.  This bolt is torqued to 181 lb-ft, and according to a Honda TSB can require "several times" that torque to remove, because of several factors.  The forums are full of people asking how in the world to remove this bolt.  One poster commented "The crankshaft bolt is apparently connected directly to the center of the earth", and we were about to find out how true that was.

Special pulley tool. This thing is a heavy hunk of steel.

I did know that we needed a special tool for removing the bolt.  The pulley needs to be prevented from rotating with a pulley tool which attaches to a wrench or breaker bar, then the bolt is spun off with a socket through the center of the tool and breaker bar.

First we tried putting together enough extensions to bring the breaker bar outside of the wheel well and support them with a jackstand.  Then with a cheater bar over the breaker bar we tried to break the bolt free, with no luck.  It turns out all of these extensions can bend, a lot.  I stood on the end of the lever and the breaker bar rotated around 45 degrees, with all 200 lbs of me bouncing on the end.  I was afraid that something was going to snap and end badly, so we tried another method.

Pulley holder tool in place and wedged to prevent the pulley from
turning, and 19mm socket + extensions and breaker bar.

Trying from the top.  There just wasn't enough clearance for this to work.

We removed all of the extensions and placed the breaker bar pointing down under the car at around a 45 degree angle, and then tried using a floor jack to push up on it.  I really think this may have worked, but it seemed to start lifting the car up and I was afraid when it eventually broke loose the car would fall off of the jack stands.

Over the next couple of hours we tried spraying PB Blaster on it, using the impact wrench (about 20 seconds in reverse, a few seconds forward, repeat), cranking on the breaker bar again... It just wouldn't budge.  I wish I would have gotten more pictures of us trying to get it loose but I was so preoccupied with figuring out what to do I forgot about pictures for a while.

I sat and searched the Internet for a bit, and mostly found other people in the same predicament.  Some people broke their tools.  Some used a torch on the bolt and said it came off after that.  Some people took their car to an auto shop and had them remove the bolt, the tighten it back on just tight enough to get home so they could take it off again and finish the job.

Well, what were we going to do? I hate getting stuck!! That's probably the most frustrating part of working on cars for me, stuck fasteners.  You hit it with everything you've got and it just sits there, mocking you.

I thought that might be it for the night, and almost planned on going home and trying another day but we tried one more time.  Brian got under the wheel well and pushed on the breaker bar with his foot, and I sat at the front of the car, bracing myself against the bumper with my face, and reached under with both hands and we pushed/pulled with the force of a thousand suns and then heard the unmistakable "creak" of a bolt breaking loose!  After jumping up and doing a celebratory dance Mighty Car Mods style, we spun the bolt off, rechecked the timing marks, and pulled the pulley off.  The worst was now behind us (sort of).

Pulley removed! Now the lower cover can be removed.

The rest of the night was spent taking off the engine mount and replacing the tensioner, pulleys, and timing belt.  To make things easier, we drained the power steering reservoir and unhooked one of the lines to get the pump out of the way, and removed the cruise control module.  This made getting to all the bolts on the side of the engine much easier.  I know some people do the timing belt service without removing half this stuff, but I was having trouble getting to bolts and this just made everything so much easier.

Power steering pump disconnected (sitting on top of engine), cruise control module
removed (sitting by radiator), side engine mount removed, timing belt covers removed.
Note white marks made on timing belt corresponding with timing marks on camshaft pulleys.

So, with everything all removed, this is what the timing belt configuration looks like:

The timing belt's purpose is to synchronize the position of the crankshaft with the position of the cams so that valves open and close precisely in sync with the movement of the pistons.  There are timing marks on the crankshaft pulley and both camshaft pulleys to ensure that everything is lined up properly.  Being off just one tooth will result in the engine running significantly worse.  Being way off can result in engine damage.

I *highly* recommend making some marks on the old timing belt on each pulley where the timing marks are.  These can then be carefully transferred to the new belt, which is then installed with the marks in the exact same spots.  You almost can't go wrong.

The tensioner needs to be blocked from tightening further by using one of the battery tie down bolts, the idler pulley is loosened and the belt comes off:

Old belt removed.

With the belt removed the water pump can now come off.  It turns out there is still quite a bit of coolant in there and we ended up with it all over the floor.  We *did*, however, anticipate some coolant coming out and blocked off the hole for the oil dipstick to prevent dumping coolant into the hole (removing the dipstick is necessary to get the engine covers off).

The "pump" was a lot simpler than I thought it would be.  It has a pulley on one side and an impeller on the other side.  It is replaced with the timing belt because it's cheap, but very hard to get to in case it breaks. So this is cheap insurance against the pump bearings going out 20K miles from now.

New coolant pump being installed.

So next we transferred over the marks to the new timing belt.  I had previously read that this was a good idea, but wasn't sure of exactly how we were going to go about it.  Turns out that it's practically impossible to lay the two belts on top of each other and transfer the marks (and be *sure* they are exact).

What we ended up doing was simply counting the number of teeth between the marks.  I counted on the old belt, and Brian counted on the new belt and made marks.  Then, we recounted each interval and verified we had the marks correct.

We started from the crankshaft pulley and lined up the first mark.  The belt is routed around the idler pulley then the front camshaft pulley.  I checked the mark we made on the belt against the timing mark on the pulley - we were off by one tooth.  I pulled the belt tighter and was able to shift it over by one tooth and we were right on.

Then we routed the belt around the water pump and the rear camshaft pulley, and again we were off by one tooth.  I pulled the belt tighter and again we were able to shift it over so the marks lined up.  Then down around the tensioner pulley.  We tightened the idler pulley, and all that was left was to activate the tensioner.

The hydraulic tensioner has a piston that presses on a lever that keeps the tensioner pulley pressed tight against the timing belt.  The new tensioner comes with a pin that is pulled when everything is in place, which allows the tensioner to then apply tension.  At that point, if any adjustments need to be made to the belt the tensioner would have to be removed and retracted in a press, the pin replaced, and the installation process repeated.

So we double checked everything, and when we were sure no mistakes were made we pulled the pin.

New belt in place and grenade pin pulled!

We decided to reattach the engine mount when we were done so we wouldn't have to rely on the floor jack holding steady.  This was a perfect time to replace the mount with one of the new ones I had on hand.  After we got it out, the old one was obviously trashed, all of the rubber was ripped apart.

I headed home in the Grand Am, and got home around 1 AM.  Total time today about 12 hours.