Hmm, well, I have been reading alot of the DIY stuff, and after reading all the faqs, its looks like I should be replacing alot more then I though at first, almost at $300. Am I missing anything?


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You've never changed oil, never did any work on your car?

I think a timing belt is not such a good thing as your FIRST project. Too big of ajob with too serious consequences. If you really want to, I'd suggest finding a friend who works on carsand doing yours together.

At the very least, get a repair manual & read thru the timing belt procedure so you get a good idea of what you're in for.
Haynes or Chilton book is cheapfrom most carparts stores. The VERY BEST repair book is from www.helminc.com but $$$. Sometimes you can find them at a public library.

 

I have been tinkering with cars since I was 16 with my dad (who learned a lot about engines in the Army.) I try to do most things myself but I did not have the cajones to do the t-belt. You have to really know what you are doing. If you don't do it right you could find yourself in a world of hurt. $500 is about what I paid for mine at a Honda Certified shop that had a master tech and a few other techs with 20+ years of experience working there. That was for my 4cyl. I had a long time family friend mechanic(not a Honda Tech) do my t-belt, h2o pump, drive belts, & seals on my V6. I bought all the parts (Genuine Honda parts from a dealership)and brought them to him. He quoted $300, but tried to only charge me $200. I paid him the $300 he quoted me anyways. He did a great job, when my dad went to pick up the car he said "I've done a lot of t-belts on 4cyl cars but this was my first time to do it on a 6. I learned something today!"
My advice is: either find a friend who is good working on cars that agrees they can do it, or pay the $500 (if it includes t-belt, h2o pump, drive belts, & seals.)
#'s 1, 3,4,& 5 would all be things you should do yourself if you want to start doing your own car work. Buy a Haynes manual at Auto Zone ($15)for the general maintenance issues such as these. While you are at AutoZone, go ahead and pick up a cheap beam-type torque wrench (I got mine for $10 - beam types are accurate) so you can torque your spark plugs to spec. Also buy a spark plug socket (5/8 I believe) $5.
You will need metric and standard open end and socket wrenches. Do as sir_nasty said and check out pawn shops. AutoZone sells these wrenches too I believe. As you work on your car you will find many of the bolts use the 10mm wrench, so always keep that one handy

 

Thanks alot guys. I also had a talk with the guy at advanced auto parts (advace/ autozone? seems like a best buy/circuit city situation to me) and he basically gave me lots of horror stories of belt changes gone wrong that he has seen personally at the store.

I have a Haynes manual now and I'll work through getting all the small things in it done and build up experience so that I can attempt the next belt change I come up against.

Thanks again, you guys have been awesome.

Jim: I am originally fromTanzania. Its the exact opposite situation where labour is dirt cheap but parts are very expensive since they have to be import to order. I guess its only recently I got interested in working on my car myself.

I heard the helm books were geared towards mechanics and harder to follow for beginners then the chilton/Haynes books.

 

The Helm book is much more thorough & complete. But it includes real detailed instructions for the stuff that most home mechanics would never touch. For example completely overhauling an automatic transmission.

No home mechanic is gonna buy a $20,000 refrigerant recovery system to work on his own airconditioner once in his lifetime. But the Helm book has instructions about doing that.

But it's stillpretty easy to follow.

The real problem is occasionally the Haynes or Chilton books are a little vague or incomplete, even for things that are reasonable for home mechanics to be doing.

 

I'll skip on the helm for now. I'd invest in it if I was attemping something major on the engine, but I think the worst i'll be doing tomy accordis adding a cheapo SRI from ebay.

 

The best thing is whateveryou plan on doing, read thru the instructions first, & make sure you understand them. BEFORE you start. You'll quickly get to understand what kinds of jobs you want to do yourself.

I've seen lots of posts about timing belts where they need help tounderstand what they're looking at so they can synchronize the different sprockets properly. The time to ask those questions is before youtake your engine apart.

 

best thing to do is buy a manual of your car on any autopart you can find, read about the stuuf you gon change read and read it over come to the forum ask questions as many as you need to figure it out i know theres a lot of people that has changed their timing belt and do it yourself and get that extra money and put some mods into it