I have a 92 Accord LX 4 door. I believe the F22 series engine.

I am sorry I am wordy but trying to communicate what is going on and where I am at before my question/s.

I have started a project that may be over my head, admittedly.

The car sat outside a while after the automatic transmission cable snapped after coming home from work. I replaced it. Started the car with some fresh gas and it was missing. I replaced plugs and wires. It was still missing. I confirmed fire, fuel, and injector. It turned out a brand new plug was not working on #4 ?. (closest to passenger side ?). Anyway, after replacing the plug the 2nd time the car started and ran great. A little rough the first couple seconds but no misses. After letting it run around 2 or 3 minutes I found an bad oil leak. It appeared to be coming out from the timing belt cover. I researched and read about this and have come to a conclusion that it is either a camshaft seal, crankshaft seal, or balance shaft seal. After reading some more I discovered that the best advice that I would need to replace the timing belts, water pump, previously mentioned seals, and a valve cover seal set as well.

So I have removed or moved power steering, alternator, cruise control, and belts to those. I also removed the top timing belt cover.

I have the camshaft at "up" then removed the crankshaft pulley. I did not have to move it far (counter clockwise) to get this pulley into TDC position. I them removed the lower timing belt cover.

I am a little confused at this point.

Although the camshaft pulley is at up / TDC, the front balance shaft is really close on the TDC mark on top (barely to the right). The rear balance shaft pin will go in.

Here is the problem:

The crankshaft TDC markings are to the left (11:00 / 15 degree) of where it should be.

When I look into the "timing hole" I am NOT seeing the mark on the wheel inside.

This car ran fine when I pulled into garage after discovering oil leak.

I am not sure if the crank pulley has skipped/slipped on belt or what but I am assuming so at this point.

Knowing this is an interference engine, I am scared to move anything and cause damage.

Should I put crankshaft pulley back on and move it to TDC then remove belts and adjust camshaft and balance shafts?

or

Should I remove belts and adjust the crankshaft to match?

Rotating the engine a full cycle would not help or would cause damage, right?

Any information would be helpful.

Thanks for reading such a wordy post,

Dano

 

The balance shafts may be off w/o problems except perhaps vibration.

However crankshaft and camshaft have to be aligned very closely for engine to run correctly. Suggest turning crankshaft to TDC and checking the camshaft alignment again. There are marks at the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions on the camshaft sprocket that should be aligned w/ rear side of timng belt cover.

The Up mark on the camshaft sprocket is to make sure you are on compression stroke, not for camshaft alignment.

good luck

 

Thanks for the reply, TexasHonda. It is much appreciated.

I will double check the camshaft 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock markings.

 

So, I checked the camshaft again and indeed the 3 and 9 o'clock are not right either. the "up" on the camshaft is a little deceiving since 'up" is actually going to be a little right of a true 12 o'clock.

So if I understand and common sense tells me to put crankshaft pulley back on and rotate counter clock wise all the way around almost a full engine rotation until I get TDC on crankshaft. Making sure that I do not pass TDC like it seems I have done this time.

Thanks again TexasHonda, I appreciate the response and you taking the time to read my mess.

Dano

 

If you've already taken off the belt, you can turn the crankshaft backwards to line up the mark. In fact, that's safer than going a full revolution.

 

Agree w/ JimB if you've removed TB. If not, then rotation makes sense. There is "slack" when you turn belted system backwards (CW) that will make alignment difficult.

What about oil leak? You will need to remove TB to repair leak. The rear balance shaft cover seal is a frequent leaker. Shaft seals are possible, but are less likely.

good luck

 

When you look at the camshaft sprocket, "UP" isn't always right or left, it just depends on how they machined the keyway in that sprocket. All that matters is it's pointed somewhere upwards & not downwards. The dimples out at the sprocket teeth are the REAL timing marks.

 

I have not removed timing belt as of yet. I would rather, take off the timing belt and move the crankshaft and camshaft backwards 10 to 15 degrees than do a full engine rotation. At this point, I think either will work because I am pretty sure that I did not have a belt / pulley slippage as originally thought. (I was in a state of panic when things did not seem to line up as I understood but it was the lack of clear understanding on my part)

The oil leak does indeed seem to be coming from the rear balance shaft seal. I have already purchased seals for the rear balance shaft as well as camshaft and crankshaft. I figured since I will be that deep that I might as well do everything that I have read that could be the source. On inspection it does not seem to be the front balance shaft that is leaking. Which is good because that was the one seal I did not buy.

I do want to restate that I appreciate both of you for the time and replies and that I am finding the feedback very helpful.

Thanks, JimBlake and TexasHonda.
Dano

 

the sprockets on the crank pulley have a mark on them. The mark is at 12 o'clock on those sprockets. That will get you to TDC on the crankshaft. The camshaft sprocket arrow should point up, but the two marks will line up with the cylinder head.

Here is thread that has some pictures of the timing belt job. The ericthecarguy site sells a 2 hour video on how to replace the timing belt on the f-series engine for $10 that can help a lot.

https://www.hondaaccordforum.com/for...belt-job-3977/