I have a 1992 Integra. I just recently bought a rebuilt long block for the old girl and swapped everything in. The engine is running fine, and I have put about 20 miles on it, then I started hearing an odd knocking noise.
I peeked under the hood with the engine runing and noticed my crank pulley was wobbling a bit, knowing this to be a potential bad thing, I stopped the car and put it back in the garage, and haven’t run it since. I also noticed that the crank pulley had been rubbing against the timing belt cover, almost wearing a hole in the cover.
Now, when I checked the crank pulley bolt torque, I am still seeing 180 ft-lbs on it. So, I took all the accesory belts off, leaving just the crank pulley on. I could rotate the pulley by hand about a degree in both clockwise and counter-clockwise on the crank shaft, and it wobbled a very small amount. It felt like the crank pulley bolt was not putting any force on the pulley itself. I had thought I left a timing belt guide washer off, so I took the timing belt covers off to inspect. Here is what I found.
I have the timing belt guide washer on both sides of the crank gear for the timing belt. The timing belt is not grinding against the covers and is running straight on all the pulleys and tensioner. I have the right amount of tension also. However, I noticed that when I put the crank pulley back on, the crank snout sticks out above the inner surface of the crank pulley a very small amount. Its enough that when I tourque the pulley bolt down, the bolts washer will seat against the crank snout but not seat against the pulleys surface, which allows it to wobble a bit.
For testing, I took a spare timing belt guide washer and placed it over the outside one, esssentially “doubling up” the timing belt guide washers on the outer side of the gear. This essentially made a shim that would let the crank pulley stay further out on the crank snout. Now, when I put the pulley on, the pulley surface is just slightly above crank snout, allowing the pulley bolt to seat against the crank pulley’s surface instead of the snout. I was able to torque the crank pulley bolt down to 180 ft-lbs and the pulley no longer wobbles. It also sticks further away from the timing belt cover since I "shimmed’ it with that spare guide washer. I left the power steering, AC, and alternator belts off and started the engine to see if it wobbles. The pulley ran true and didn’t wobble a single bit, nor did it grind against the timing cover.
I then stuck the belts back on to see if this new spacing would cause them to run at an angle, and I was surprised to see that the belts looked like they lined up better on all the accessories.
Have any of you ever seen this? I have double checked that both the inside and outside timing belt guides are on the crank gear and are facing the proper direction. Do you think it will be OK to run the crank pulley with this additional timing belt washer on the outer part, between the timing gear and crank pulley as a shim?
This is a new rebuilt long block B18B1, and I have never seen anything like this. I hope my description makes sense.
Thanks!