91 Prelude timing belt break

My 91 Prelude with 187,000 miles broke it's timing
belt last weekend......flyin down the hiway
and......kaput.......engine died, I shifted to
neutral and coasted 2 miles down hill off the road
to a parking lot......now the fun begins, I'm
doing the work myself. Got the old belt out, it
looked good except at the spot where it broke
LOL...now the valve issue......I don't have much
hope that valves aren't damaged. I'll probably
wind up buying a rebuilt head. Just posted this
for info purposes. I have never done timing belts
on a car but have done a few motorcycles top to
bottom and a ford truck 6 cylinder top to bottom.
I have read a lot of the posts in here and have
found them very helpful......thanks for the
replys. Happy zooming......

 

Why? Check the valve clearances. If one or more is bent, it will be very
obvious.

That's nice.


Hopefully you've learned your lesson. Maintenance is highly correlated with
reliability.

 

Those preludes are the only Honda cars where I've never seen anyone get
"lucky" with a timing belt failure. The odds are probably against him

 

I had the drive end of the cam break on my Civic, believed the valves
would be roached and pulled the head. Oddly, no bent valves.

Now, when faced with this situation, I remove the rocker shaft
assemblies (to close all the valves) and check for damage with a
cylinder leakage tester. (Puts air pressure in through the plug
port, measures air-flow rate, I listen at carb, exhaust, oil filler
to find where the air is going if the leak rate is excessive.)

Anyone know why that '85 breaks cams? It's on its 3rd. Every 100K
miles. Each time within 5 miles of home (such luck! <G>)

Tom Willmon
near Mountainair, (mid) New Mexico, USA

Net-Tamer V 1.12.0 - Registered

 

I had to replace a broken belt on an 84 and 87 Accord, both went smooth and
vavles were fine. Might want to repalce the waterpump and balancer belt
while you have it apart.

Good Luck

 

86-89 accords aren't exactly interference engines. I've seen many that
didn't bend valves. (and a few that did for some reason). I've never seen a
prelude with DOHC that didn't bend valves with a timing belt break.

 

in the last few years i've done 4 broken prelude belts and so far not
one of them bent the valves.
it's hit or miss on theses things.
Chip

 

chip wrote:

pun intended?

 

This isn't a problem that I would consider common by any means. I can guess
at a couple of causes though such as an over tensioned timing belt or
incorrect clearance on the cam journals. It might be worthwhile to pull the
cam towers and measure the clearance with plastigauge (note that you'll have
to remove all traces of oil in order to get an accurate reading and also be
sure to remove all traces of plastigauge once you're done). Yet another
possibility is that there's reduced oil flow to the head. These engines
used a small jet called an "oil jet orifice" inserted between the head and
the block. This oil jet may have become blocked with crud thus reducing the
flow of oil to the cam bearing journals.

Eric