Ill preface with the story saying I acquired a 98 Acura CL (3.0) from a family member for next to nothing when the auto trans went out. No surprise with these cars but it did have higher miles on it. Car was religiously maintained by Honda/Acura and I have paperwork since day one. Engine starts perfect, runs perfect, great compression, and doesnt burn a speck of oil.

Located a wrecked CL with 44k and picked up the transmission for reasonable figuring id throw the car together and make it a daily driver but since decided to be nice and fix it and sell (for what I have into it) it to my younger brother as his first car. Knowing that timing belt/water pump was due I bought all of those parts to do as well. Yanked the motor earlier this week so that I could do everything at once, trans and timing belt on my engine stand. And the nightmares begin...

Just so its clear I am new to this forum but not a newbie to cars/truck. Been working on them since the age of 16 and spent a few years at a DSM performance car shop building race motors. Upon removing the trans one of the big 17mm (head) 12mm shaft bolts sheered off inside the block of the engine block (and it makes it all the better its aluminum, sarcasm...). No impact gun was used and no breaker bar, just a 1/2 drive rachet. Spent most of yesterday with every ounce of patience carefully drilling it out and finally convinced it to come out with minimal damage to the threads. Retapped it and it will be perfectly fine.

Today I had to run around to a few Honda's to track down a few gaskets for the earlier portion of the am. Figured it would be stupid not to do the rear main seal and that rubber O ring that goes in there. Likewise redo the oil pan gasket while it was on the engine stand... Finish that all up and move to timing. Get it all lined up right, pull the old belt and start to pull the tensioner/pulleys (got all new OEM ones so it would be good for another 100K). Everythings off fine until I get to the idler puller... ratchet, ratchet...SNAP and the bolt breaks off into the block!? Again no air tools, no breaker bar just a ratchet.

I have done countless timing belts on honda's, nissan's, toyota's, and hundreds on mitsu's... never once had a bolt break of this nature in somewhere like this. Now I have to pull the oil pump off the car... the pan back off and evaluate. I can say with a level of certainty its broken off flush or below the engine block surface which will make this all the more fun.

Here are my questions that maybe I can get a little advice on.
1) Does that bolt hole go all the way into the block, into a water or oil passage (as some cars ie. mitsu 4G63 does into an oil passage)? Or does the opening have an end so I dont have to worry about metal flakes getting into the engine (as long as I dont go deep)?
2) How do you remove the serpintine belt tensioner (I removed the 2 10mm bolts) or can it stay on the oil pump?
3) Has anyone here had this many issues with bolts breaking? I guess I should have passed on replacing the idler pullies but thats not common practice for me...timing parts are crucial in interference motors and I wanted it to be set for a long time to come.

It just sucks as these motors are all over the internet relatively cheap. I know this one runs perfect so I dont want to scrap it but ive invested enough in quality drill bits, bolt extractors, and taps/dies I could have a good chunk of a new motor paid for.

Thanks for any input and listing to me rant. All I can say is when its time to do a timing belt on my other brothers 03 CL-S 6MT im going to be nervous if this is any predictor... anti-seize everyone, dont forget it!

 

I posted that in the wrong section, should have been first gen CL's. Can a moderator please move it over. Thanks, sorry for that.

 

1. idk, but thread sealer would seal it right up though (and the ones at the top of the trans, do run close to oil passages, because i know there is a tsb about them seeping oil out of those bolt holes, especially when a tranny is done recently (but yes iirc they are all close ended holes, ie no worries)
2.try removing the center 8mm (iirc) bolt, don't ask, it does not exactly stand out (and you think it is keep the tensioner together when it is just to hold it on)
3.bolts breaking, not really especially that size of one
and as far as replacing bearings , kinda pointless to put a new belt on if the bearings are just going to let go eventually (and you expect them to last another 105k lol, so ANY type of roughness or anything, easily mandates replacement, and a couple $50 bearings is cheap insurance, instead of a valve job