ive seen a couple of DIY's on here about replacing the timing belt but I didnt see one for a 2.2 with much detail. Can anyone point me in the right direction? also does anyone have an acurate parts list for doing a 2.2?

thanks

 

bump i agree

 

Did mine basically twice in the past few weeks. Just head to honda and pick up the timing and balance belts for a 97 Accord 2.2 EX as well as a water pump. Also should get new accessory belts while you are at it and get some HondaBond for the valve cover. If your plug wires are old, they might rip when you go to pull them off if they are corroded, so be ready for that as well.

**RECALL** If your car has NOT received the product update for the front balance shaft seal, PLEASE go to honda and buy the balance shaft seal retainer kit. It was a product update honored to 2003 for the F22's. The whole reason I had to embark on this is that my front balance shaft seal leaped out of the motor and pissed oil over all my belts. It's a $5 part

Tools needed (from what I can remember)
8mm socket
10mm deep and shallow sockets (at least a shallow 1/4 drive one)
17mm deep socket
19mm deep
12 and 14mm deep or use extensions
Impact wrench or something to jam into the flywheel so the motor doesn't turn when you try to unbolt the crank.
14 and 15mm wrenches with open and closed ends.
Jack / stands of course
1/2" drive socket wrench for turning the motor to where you need.
piece of wood to put under the oil pan to jack the motor for support
pliers etc

Anyways, I'll do my best to explain this from memory.
If you have any form of remote start, I would probably disconnect the battery.
Loosen your driver side front lugs and jack the car up on stands. Take off the wheel.
use the 8mm socket to remove the spark plug wire guide brackets (2 of them) and the cruise control cable brackets (2) from the top of the valve cover.
Unplug the spark plugs, I would leave them all in the guides and just flip them to the side of the engine bay out of the way.
Pop out the hose from the top middle of the valve cover and just tie it back out of the way with the throttle cable. Then for the hose on the left of the valve cover, use pliers to move the clamp up a bit and just wiggle it up and off.
Remove the 10mm bolts on the valve cover, they will probably be snug and then start to come out very easy. You don't have to fully remove them, just get them out of the threads.
There will be another 10mm bolt right behind the power steering pump that goes to a ground on the valve cover, remove that and any other grounds that go to the engine mount on that side.
GENTLY pry the valve cover up and off, if the metal starts to deform or anything, stop and find another spot. You just need to break the seal and then you should be able to lift it off. I took the oil filler cap out and used that as a point to lift from.
Place it to the side and push your gasket back into the grooves on the cover if it popped out. If the gasket looks shitty, replace it.

Next up, accessory belt removal.
I believe there are 2 set-bolts on the power steering pump to "unlock" it. There should be a very obvious 12mm on the top left that is basically behind that grey loomed harness running over the motor and another underneath the power steering unit.
You only have to loosen these. Then take the 10mm and loosen the top adjusting bolt and it will slowly loosen the belt tension. You might have to push the pump down to get it to move, sometimes they don't like to slide on their own. Just loosen it enough that you can slip the belt off.
The bigger belt for the alternator is a bit more of a pain. There will be two locking bolts again and the 10mm adjusting bolt is under the anternator pointing towards the engine block straight back on a downward angle. You will have to loosen this one almost all the way and it will still be tight to put on a new belt.
Now your belts should be off.

Next up, upper timing cover.
Look under the power steering pump, there should be a 10mm bolt on a bracket attached to the oil dipstick, remove it. Pop the dipstick out of the motor carefully, place it to the side. If I remember there are 2 or 3 10mm bolts in the upper belt cover. Should be one near the dipstick, maybe one in the middle above the engine mount, and one in the rear bottom corner by the shock tower (pain in the ass if you have anything bigger than girl hands). Move that harness to the side that runs over the cover, you may have to unbolt the bracket it has on the power steering pump. Your upper cover should now wiggle out of the car.

Now, get your 19mm and wrench and turn the motor counterclockwise to get it at Top dead center. The cam sprocket is labeled "UP" and ironically that does not point to the top for whatever reason. But in any case, it points to the rear of the car and the next leg to the left of that points up, or at least everything I read said it did.

Get your piece of wood and floor jack and put pressure under the motor to support it, just don't crush the oil pain. This is when the impact comes in handy. Grab the 17mm deep and possibly a small extension and remove the motor mount. You will have a nut and a bolt holding it to the motor and then another bolt holding the mount to the chassis. You will obviously have to remove the mount-to-chassis bolt by hand. Remove the mount.

Now comes the fun part... removing the lower timing cover.
You may as well remove the whole splash guard under the front of the car if you are doing the water pump, there are various 10mm bolts all around on it. There are sneaky ones that go up behind the frame. in the wheel wells. To get an idea where the one is on the other side of the car, the first one is up above the crank pulley bolt. Gotta get them from under the car.

In my case, I just removed the 3 bolts and pushed it to the side since my timing belt and water pump were replaced very recently. You can also drain the coolant at this time if you are doing your water pump.

Next, remove the crank pulley. This is going to be VERY interesting if you don't have a big ass impact wrench. I had to go out and buy a bigger one rated at 600 ft-lbs to remove mine as well as some MAPP gas. If you are doing this with a big breaker bar, you'll have to remove the little cover by the flywheel / torque converter under the car and stick something in there so it doesn't move. Good luck.

Removing the lower cover sucks if you are lowered. Your radius rod is going to be right in the way. Hunt around the lower cover to remove all of the 10mm bolts. I really don't have any tips for this part, just be ready to curse a lot, I even cracked my cover removing it. The only thing that helped a little bit was that I unbolted the bottom of the strut fork from the lower control arm.

Before you pull the cover off, there is a rubber washer on the 14mm timing belt tensioner bolt sticking out of the cover, slide it off and put it to the side... don't lose it.

Hopefully you have your cover off now and haven't killed several puppies. All of your cogs should be lined up to the TDC marks, but for extra safety you can paint your own marks. I used some bright red model paint and made my own marks on all of the cogs with references to the engine block. For the cam I made a mark on the motor mount bracket. So if anything goes wrong and moves (I bet your front balance shaft moves) you can just line your marks back up easily.

At this point if you have the balance shaft retainer kit, now is the time you can put it on. It comes with instructions as to where it goes, very simple just bolt it on.

Now to remove the timing belt / balance belt. Looking at the tensioner bolt from the side of the car (I know it's impossible) follow the balancer belt "arm" that goes to the rear of the motor from the tensioners. There is a little spring there, unhook it and let it dangle. Grab your 14 and 15mm wrenches, put the closed end of the 14mm on the tensioner adjuster (from the top of the engine bay) and lock your 15mm's closed end over the 14mm's open end of the wrench. You'll make yourself a little "super" wrench with more leverage. Loosen up that bolt, only takes a couple turns. Now push down on your tensioners with one hand and retighten the adjuster to lock the tensioners in a loose position. Go back to the wheel well and slip off the crank cog with the balance belt, it should just wiggle off like the crank pulley. DO NOT LOSE THE LITTLE SQUARE KEY. It should stay with it, but it might fall. Then slide off the timing belt.

If you are doing your water pump, go ahead and do that now. I suggest a cat litter pan or something to catch any coolant. That bad boy is just bolted in, pretty straight forward, just in an awkward location. I don't believe the water pump has timing marks to screw up. Clean up any spilled coolant / oil from the cogs.

Putting on the belts
I would start by putting the timing belt on the crank cog on the bottom first, and ALWAYS peel the belt onto the straight side of the run first. This would be that you then go over the cam sprocket up top. I would hold the bottom and pull up a little so you get the right teeth on the cam gear, then you can put the belt around the tensioner and water pump. Slip your balance belt pulley/cog back onto the crankshaft to make sure your marks are still lined up. To put the balance belt on, you may have to put the belt under the crank pulley cog and then slip it onto the motor before putting it around the balance shafts and tensioner. Make sure that silver key is still installed.

Reinstall that little spring in the back as well.

Verify again that everything is lined up. You can now release the tensioner bolt and let it pick up some slack. Retighten the bolt.. then loosen it a half turn (180º). Put your crank pulley back on and tighten it enough that you can turn the motor over with the bolt. Turn it over a full revolution manually counterclockwise with the wrench. This will allow the tensioners to "adjust" the belt. Then when you are feeling a compression stroke, take a look at your cam up top. Once a spoke goes past TDC about 3 teeth, hold it and tighten the tensioner bolt fully. This may be tricky with just 2 hands.

Now check the timing belt tension. Go up top and try to twist the front of the belt (the long straight run). You should get about half a turn out of it. This may seem "loose" but it is fine. DOUBLE CHECK your marks you made to make sure everything is still in time. If you want, you can slap the valve cover back on and plug in your spark plugs. Just make sure the crank pulley isn't loose. Can start the car up to see if it still runs. Just don't run it long because you probably don't have any coolant, and your alternator is not hooked up. If you test it and it works, congrats, you just did your timing belt! If you hear bad noises, then your marks were off and you probably demolished your motor.

Now have fun reassembling! Don't forget to tighten down the crank pulley with enough torque (181 ft lbs). Accessory belts need to be decently tight. If they squeal, just tighten them some more. They are supposed to deflect about half an inch if you push on them.

If you are remotely handy with tools and this is your first time doing a timing belt (it was mine) it will probably take a few hours. I used the service manual as a guide and a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmasxgJdXJ8

If when you are done you have a whining noise like a supercharger, your timing belt is a little too tight. If it's very loud, re-tension it. You can do so with everything in the car, it's just hard. I chewed through tensioners my first time and had to replace them. Noob mistake. I still have a slight noise but I haven't had time to take care of it. It's almost eliminated. Talked to a honda master tech and he said it may go away but should be fine with how mine is unless it gets worse. Very quiet noise and it hasn't worsened like last time.

Edit: The timing belt tensioning sequence I listed here is how the master tech told me to do it, which makes more sense than how I was doing it by just loosening it, turning til compression and tightening it.


I'll try to answer any questions you guys might have. I am also not responsible if you hurt or kill yourself, your car, or your property following what I have said here.

 

Hi, I am doing the timing belt on my 98 acura cl and i noticed that the crank pulley has 4 marks on it. One single mark and 3 seperate marks about an inch, inch and a half away from the single mark on the pulley. I need to know which mark to use to finish installing the timing belt someone please HELP ME!

 

I have a 97 cl and i replaced the tune up parts and my car still will not turn over what can it be i even brought a distributor & still will not start

 

battery or starter, if you did the tune up yourself, are you sure that you go the plug wire order correct?

 

what is the best timing belt to put on a 2.2cl f22b1vtec engine? i had gates racing timing belt on my neon and it was the strongest best timing belt i ever put on a car. is that available for the f22b1? pci tensioner good? thank you plenty guys !!