i just bought honda civic 2003 coupe last month , it was at 195000km so i decided to change the timing belt water pump tensioner , after the change was done, white smoke and burning rubber smell is coming from that area, is this normal or have they not done it properly ,
any kind of advice would help

 

You need to go back in and see what's wrong. Hopefully something w/ balance shaft belt and not timing belt.

Did you turn the engine over manually before restarting? This should have revealed a drag problem. Belt may be dragging on something causing smoke. Tensioner can be misinstalled. See my post in DIY forum. Did you overtighten the belt?

good luck

 

You said "... have THEY not done it properly"

Did a shop do the work? Go back to them. Right away before they can blame it on something you did.

 

Yes i did get back to my mechanic , he said while removing the old water pump there might have been an oil leak , and the residue might have been the cause , he said that's normal, although i did notice that they struggled to get the belt on as there seem to be an issue with the tensioner , when i asked him why was there a problem , he said the that during the previous timing belt change they had installed the tensioner in different way ,now the smoke and smell seems to have left, but the sound seems odd compared to what it was before , no ringing or knocking noise , but its sounds different especially when i accelerate is this because its new belt ??? it doesn't have a clean or smooth sound

 

Yes i did get back to my mechanic , he said while removing the old water pump there might have been an oil leak , and the residue might have been the cause , he said that's normal, although i did notice that they struggled to get the belt on as there seem to be an issue with the tensioner , when i asked him why was there a problem , he said the that during the previous timing belt change they had installed the tensioner in different way ,now the smoke and smell seems to have left, but the sound seems odd compared to what it was before , no ringing or knocking noise , but its sounds different especially when i accelerate is this because its new belt ??? it doesn't have a clean or smooth sound

 

Well, if they spilled some oil and/or antifreeze during the work, and it got on the exhaust pipe, that would explain the smell. That's not a problem unless the smell is ACTUALLY coming from the timing belt rubbing on something.

It's hard for me to imagine any "different way" to install the tensioner. It's gotta be one proper way or else it's wrong.

But if it doesn't run right, the first thing I'd do is double-check the camshaft timing marks to see whether it skipped a tooth during final tightening of the belt & tensioner.

 

Sounds like it's ok.. just a bit of smoke after a repair.. pretty common on a car that has high mileage.. Grease and crap all over the engine at that mileage.. gets on exhaust parts.. and can smoke like the dickens for a while

 

It is possible to mis-install the tensioner and have the system function. It causes a whirling noise. See DIY section for thread I started several years ago.

good luck