The Accord wagon was leaking oil like it had a hole in something. Made stains on the pavement after sitting for only seconds. The engine also whined. One of the spark plug tubes filled up with oil. The previous owners had a local mechanic change the timing belts and water pump. Here is my exploration of the engine whine and the oil leaks.

Here is the rocker arm assembly removed from the engine. The o-rings at the bottom of the spark plug tubes were very brittle. This is why they leak. All of the bolts must remain in the rocker assembly to keep the whole thing from falling apart. So I never turned it upside down. The o-rings came out easily. The new ones are held in place by some narrowed areas around the o-ring groove. I oiled them up before I installed them.

Here is the camshaft end seal. This is where the massive oil leak was coming from. The oil was all over the back of the cam timing pulley and the engine case itself. It’s normally very dry and clean under the timing belt covers. Since I had to remove the rocker assembly to get to the o-rings, it made swapping out this oil seal a 3 second job.

Thee was a chunk of rubber missing from the lip of the oil seal.

Here is a view of with the cam and rocker assemblies removed.

Since one of the spark plugs was completely submerged in oil, I had to get all of that oil out before trying to remove the spark plug. I tried my trusty model aircraft electric fuel pump, but it was too slow. So I took my hand vacuum pump and attached it to a piece of 1/8″ diameter antenna tubing and cleaned out the spark plug hole. It took several fills of the tubing to remove all of the oil. But it did an excellent job.

See how wet the end of the engine is. This oil leak was really bad. That seal around the balance shaft I also replaced, although it did not leak. The seal came out with the twist of a flat blade screw driver. I found a video online where a guy named Eric the car guys, does this same timing belt swap. He charges $10 for the downloaded video. It was worth it! I learned a lot and had far more confidence going into a job I had never done before. Here is the link to his video.

Here is the crankshaft pulley removing tool that I got from Amazon. It holds the pulley still while you apply a massive amount of torque to the crankshaft bolt to loosen it. Eric the car guy shows a cool way to do the same thing without this tool in his video.

Here the crank pulley has been removed. See how oil soaked everything is??

I scrounged the junkyard for a replacement timing belt cover since mine had massive slices in it from the fan belt and crank pulley rubbing on it. It took that trip to the junkyard to discover that all of the Accords have at least some timing cover damage! I was surprised! So I ordered a new one from Honda. I always go to Majestic Honda online to get far better prices on Honda parts. I take their online price and show the dealer. They usually come much closer to matching it. This new cover was about $46.

Here is why all of the junkyard accords had damaged timing belt covers. They warp as they age!! This new one was very flat. The old one bulged out significantly. Mine was also missing the washer seal on the timing belt tensioner, which made it warp even more. Eric the car guy says to leave this washer off so people know you have been into that part of the engine. Don’t do that!! Make sure you put the washer seal back on so that it slows down the warping of the timing cover!!

While the brand new timing cover was sitting on the floor, I accidentally stepped on it. It broke off one of the mounting ears. Man was I pissed at myself! I used my tried and true method of repair ing plastic parts using carbon fiber strands and superglue (CA).

It’s hard to see the difference between the timing cover plastic and the carbon fiber since they are both black. But the repair came out strong.

The timing belt cover edge seals were old and oily. So I had to use masking tape to hold them in place while installing the new timing cover. There is a kit that comes from local auto parts stores for $100 that has the timing cover and edge seals. But I could not afford it. So I reused the old ones.