Thanks for the link! I'll try that tonight and see if it helps.

-Michael

 

Not at all, I wont mess with any of that, since I've little knowledge of setting the positions of each belt and making sure the marks line up, from what I've read its actually a bit tricky to find where the mark is for the balance shaft. I'm going to have a mechanic look at it tomorrow, see if he will diagnose if thats the problem or not.

When I had purchased the car 3 years ago, the guy that owned it before me claimed that he had changed the timing belt and water pump at some point (he was a mechanic, or so he claimed), he didnt mention the balance shaft belt, though that is something to be changed while you've got it apart. Maybe its just been too long. I changed the valve cover gaskets a few months ago, and in doing so I was able to see the timing belt, and it looked like it was in good shape, no extreme wear or cracks, but I didnt get a glance of the balance shaft belt. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Thanks,
-Michael

 

Okay. Here's the story.

The guy I bought my Accord from was an idiot. He tried to install the water pump, change the timing belt. In his efforts, he sheared a bolt that holds the motor mount bracket to the block (drivers side). The bracket was being held to the block by two bolts instead of three, because he did not bother to extract it. Two bolts holding it in place just isn't enough. So they both sheared, and the block was hanging by the other three mounts, slanted and leaning ALOT towards the drivers side. Leaning so badly that the cam pulley was rubbing against the motor mount! So we spent an hour and a half drilling and drilling and drilling, the bolts honda uses are TOUGH, finally got an easy out in both of the sheared bolts, extracted two of the bolts, the third was sheared off partially, maybe 2/3 of the threads were obstructed by the bolt, we werent able to extract it because of risk of damaging the existing threads, but we did make use of the threads that we could, bolted it up with a shorter bolt and a couple washers.

Not only that, the bolts that sheared were sort of dancing around in the timing belt cover, or on the edge of teetering in and jamming up the timing belt, balance shaft belt, risk of ruining the entire motor. I cant believe how lucky I am that they didn't destroy the motor! When we were removing the timing cover once fell down and ate up the timing belt when we turned the crank to tdc, punched a hole through it. The guy used cheap belts, a junkyard water pump (which was on its way out, seep holes were leaking a bit of coolant), so I bought a new timing belt, balance belt, power steering belt, and ac belt, installed those.

The guy that owned the car before me also messed up the balance shaft, it was off by 150 degrees or so, so my car wasn't running up to its potential, I couldn't believe how smooth it was when we fired it up after all this work!! Such a wonderful motor!

The guy I bought it from also messed up the crank pulley, by lifting up the engine with a floor jack placed under the crank pulley, you could tell because part of the pulley had chips in it, and it also wobbles a bit. He did so to break the 183 lb ft torque of the crank pulley bolt, we used a massive impact wrench and didnt need to use such a crude and damaging method.

Well then. The vibration? It was dampened when I accelerated, by the motor twisting and tightening up a little bit is what I'm guessing, when I got off the throttle the tension on the mounts ceased, and it was floating around more... or at least from what I understand, vibrating like CRAZY from all that.

I couldn't be happier that its running again!! All of this was caused by a cheap, shoddy, worthless, lazy, so called "mechanic", whose reckless choices and hastiness to sell the car nearly killed my beloved Accord.

-Michael

 

Good to hear you figured it out and really lucky you got the broken bolts out.. really weird he even took those 3 bolts out, no need to do so to replace the timing belt, all you have to do is remove the outer hardware and remove the rubber mount..

 

Thanks man, yeah its just nothing but ridiculous! He obviously didn't know what he was doing, butchered everything he attempted, nearly ruined my car in the process! That just makes me so mad every time I see someone working on something they know absolutely nothing about, and they act like they're the best mechanic in the world, and they don't know crap!

 

Thanks for posting the fix.

My vibration problem remains. I replaced the rear motor mount again w/ a new unit, JIC, and got no change.

I've inspected both end mounts and can't see any problems. I'll look more closely. I did the WP, TB and BB work myself, so if screwed, I know who to blame.

good luck