Hi, I followed this answer:
95 Honda Accord: starter motor..nut..the bolt..wiring harness - JustAnswer

I have the same problem as the above. And I took the picture :

http://vincentchiu.com/temp/temp1.jpg

The gap between metal housing(transaxle) and the 14 mm bolt is too narrow to mount socket.

So any expert who has replaced 94-97 Accord starter before. How did you remove the bolt behind? There seems to be no way to remove by using standard 3/8" - 14 mm either 6 points or 12 points socket?

Please help...

VC

 

Try the Sears Craftsman 14mm flex socket. They have two somewhat similar looking sockets, the flex is shorter on the socket end, so it may fit in there better. It doesn't need as much room as the longer one. Use an extension on the end of it.

I noticed some of my Craftsman sockets were even thinner than some of my Snap-On thin wall sockets (not most, only a few).

6-point is better than 12-point to prevent rounding the bolt head.

 

I don't think a swivel attachment will work here.

Use a piece of 2x4 and put it between the oil pan and your jack. Use the jack to slightly lift up the engine. That should give you enough room to put a socket on that bolt.

You might want to check your engine/transmission mounts to see if one of them is torn.

 

^^^

That may very well be the case here.

 

Thanks - a nice tip. Ill try this this weekend. This could be due to the accident I had earlier(bumped to someone's tail and hood curved up).

Thank everyone.

VC

 

The lift up of engine doesn't help. So good news is engine/trans did secure OK. Bad news is I'm stuck to remove the second bolt due to the narrow space.

VC

 

Seems to me this is kind of design flaw, Honda can just move this bolt up away from transaxal housing to let socket easily mount on this bolt.

Wonder how dealer to replace starter?

VC

 

I wonder if a crow's foot would remove this bolt? Can you get a boxed end wrench on this?

 

PAHonda, no. there is no space for any kind of open wrench. I'm thinking about sanding/erasing some part of transmission housing with dremel sanding drum with the top 3/4" hollow sanding band.


VC

 

Finally, after sanding off some aluminum casing(my friend Rick's excellent idea to have 3/4" hollow sanding drum to cover the bolt head, this will sand off the outer casing but not bolt itself) from transmission housing, got enough space to mount 14 mm socket and unscrew the last bolt. Took this whole starter/solenoid to Autozone, used their test tool to test and it did fail. So got re-manufactured starter/solenoid for $83. Put it in and it started right away.

Still think it's Honda design flaw to not have enough tolerance between this second bold and transmission housing. Honda can just turned some angle up for this bolt and it'll eliminate all the troubles.

Mine is 2.2L Auto-trans, maybe starter for manual-trans is different.

Thank everyone...

VC