k-weaver

Hey everyone,

Was rummaging through the file share on my home NAS and found an old write up I was doing for a 1st gen 2.5 TL. Write up is probably 70-80% complete. The hard parts are in there, just missing the re-assembly. I'll start posting up the info and some of the PICs (straight copy/paste). Hopefully some of you will find this information helpful.

k-weaver

Step 1 – Raise the car
Car is much easier to work on being higher off the ground. Plus you will need to get under there for a few things (we’ll get to that). The height is up to you, I think I went 4 clicks up on my stands to give you an idea. Oh yeah…don’t forget the e-brake!!!

Step 2 – Radiator
There just isn’t enough room to get in there with the rad in the car. Is it possible to do this job with the rad in? Maybe…but its easy enough to take out so why risk damaging it?
You will need to first drain the coolant. Get a bucket or something to catch the coolant. There is a drain plug at the bottom center of the rad. Remove the rad cap then start twisting the drain plug until you get a steady flow of coolant coming out. Twist too much and it will spray outward not downward.




Step 2 (continued)
Once the coolant has drained twist the plug back into place. The next set of items to go should be obvious. There is no particular order you need to follow but the following we need to come off:

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Step 4 – Remove Alt/PS/AC Belts
I didn’t catch any pics of this however its fairly easy. Each piece has its on tensionser screw. Just loosen the set screws up then start to loosen the tension. Once loose remove the belts. I also labled the belts with masking tape so I didn’t forget which was which.

Step 5 – Valve Cover and TDC
We now need to set piston 1 at TDC. To do this you will need to remove the hose on the top of the valve cover and also the wire harness that runs through it (one bolt). Once these are off, take the 5 nuts that hold the cover off and remove the valve cover. Once removed you can remove the bolts holding the upper timing belt cover on and remove the cover. The cam gear should now be exposed.

Setting TDC can seem complicated but its really not. There are so many indicators on this motor to verify you are TDC and verify your timing is correct there is no way to go wrong. You should have an indicator on the front of the CAM gear, on the back of the CAM gear, inside the head, and on the crankshaft.

To set this, put a socket on the crank pulley and rotate the motor counterclockwise. There are three marks on the CAM gear. The main one is “UP”. The misleading part is the motor in this car isn’t straight, it slants. So when setting the “UP” mark up, it has to be “UP” in line with the motor. This means visually it will point to the left. Honda helps you out by putting nicks on each side of the gear. Hard to see but you can feel them. These two marks need to line up with the top of the head. To verify this, I took the dipstick and laid it flat on the head like a long ruler. It extended past the cam gear and I was able to see if the mark lined up. Sorry no PIC of this…

The PIC showing the cam gear I believe is lined up. I took the PIC with the camera straight so you can see how the gear is cocked to the left. Like I mentioned above there is also a mark in the head. There is a PIC below of this. If you have any doubts you are lined up, this mark will line up with a mark on the back of the CAM (sorry no PIC). The back of the CAM (when lined up) should have a notch and a very small #1. When lined up this is telling you #1 is TDC. Also used to adjust the valves which we’ll get to later.







Step 6 – Remove crank Pully
This is not something that will come off easy and I can pretty much guarantee it will fight you. Honda makes a special tool to aid in getting this off. What they don’t tell you is only a certified Honda tech can order the tool (wtf right?) and it costs about $200 bucks.

Now I had done this job on a Honda Civic so luckily I already had the tool . I purchased the tool from ebay for about $60 shipped I believe. Below is the one I have:




Do a google/ebay/amazon search for “Honda crank tool” and you will get results for various versions of this tool that all essentially do the same thing. I got this one because it’s basically a breaker bar. The hex head fits inside your crank pulley. This prevents the motor from turning over as you attempt to loosen the crank bolt.

When I did this the bar wasn’t long enough to reach the ground. I had to use some blocks of wood for the end of the bar to rest on. You have to put this at an angle as it just barely clears the cross member.

To give you an idea of how tight this bolt is…We ended up bending the above bar getting it off. Before anyone asks about using an impact…First off my ½” impact was too big to fit, it hit the A/C condenser. Even if it did fit you would have to probably use a 1” or bigger impact to get it out…good luck trying to fit that in there.

So once you put this bad boy on the pulley you can slide a deep socket in the center to grab the bolt. Put a breaker bar on the end of the socket. You will need more leverage so have a pipe or something else to slip over your breaker bar. It will take A LOT of strength to break this loose. Once it breaks loose get the bolt out. To get the pulley off I used PB blaster. Sprayed all around the backside of the pulley, let it sit for a couple of mins and then the pulley slid right off. The hardest part of this job is now done!

Step 7 – Remove Lower Cover
Now that the pulley is off you can remove the lower timing belt cover. There are bolts all around the outside and they are all the same size. Pull them all out and take off the cover

Step 8 – Verify Timing one last time
Double check your timing marks on the cam gear as it probably moved from removing the crank pulley. Once lined up, there is a key on the crank. It’s a long rectangle and is the piece that makes the pulley only fit one way. There is a timing mark (triangle I believe) that should line up with this key. This is so you can verify the crank and cam are lined up. VERIFY THIS!! When we did this job these two were NOT lining up. This means the timing was off, not sure when why or how but it was. In our case we decided to line up the CAM, remove the belt then line up up the crank. **NOTE** you may have to feel around for this mark. Once the belt is removed you will clearly see it. If in doubt line up the cam, remove the belt and then check.

Step 9 – Remove Timing Belt
To get the belt off, you need to do is loosen the tensioner and remove the tension spring. You will also have to remove the crank sensor at the bottom which is just one bolt. Once these are off remove the belt.

Step 10 – Water Pump
There are 5 bolts (all the same) holding in the water pump. Put a bucket under the pump as coolant will spooge out once you start to loosen the bolts. Remove all the bolts and pull the pump off. Once the coolant has drained out you can install the new pump. Don’t forget to replace the gasket! There are guides that keep the gasket in place, be sure it is seated so that it doesn’t slide out during install. Below is a pic of this…




Step 11 - Re-assemble
This is as far as my write up went. I spent alot of time on this initially and never did find the time to finish it properly. The rest of the process is reverse of what has already been done. Once the timing belt is back on you will probably want to check/adjust the valves as needed.

I did this with the actual shop manual which listed out torque specs on all the nuts/bolts. This is very important in putting everything back together. Things like the water pump and timing belt pulleys/tensioner should be torqued to spec. I no longer have access to the book so if anyone want to add the torque specs i'm sure it would be appreciated.