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This is the 1988 Honda Prelude I
bought for $400. |
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A look at the engine compartment in its original
condition. |
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To prepare for this task, I bought some fluorescent
shop lights, and hung them from the ceiling of the garage. |
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I also built this shelf to organize the tools.
Notice how I implemented grooves to make the shelves adjustable. |
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Next, I removed the hood for easier access to
the engine. Notice how I cleaned the engine so that dirt and grime
will not get into the internal parts of the motor as I work on it. |
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I put the front of the car on jack stands, and
removed the left wheel in order to get to the crankshaft pulley. |
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With the engine supported by a jack and a block
of wood, I removed the left motor mount and other accessories to be able
to get to the timing belt cover. With the valve cover off, we inserted
a screwdriver into the number one cylinder. By turning the crankshaft
pulley counter clockwise, the screw driver would move up and down on the
piston. Using this a guide, we positioned the number one piston at
top-dead-center on the compression stroke. We knew it was on the
compression stroke when the distributor rotor was pointing towards the
spark plug wire for the first cylinder. If the rotor was 180 degrees
off, we would be at top-dead-center on the exhaust stroke, which
means we would have to turn the crankshaft an additional 360 degrees. |
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I took this picture after removing all belts,
the radiator, radiator fans, exhaust manifold, camshafts, and camshaft
sprockets. |
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Here is a picture with the cylinder head removed. |
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A picture of the cylinder head. |
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The damaged valves can be seen with the head
turned upside down. |
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A picture after I scraped off any gasket material,
and cleaned the surface with diesel fuel. |
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Here I removed the intake manifold and throttle
body to be able to better access to the block when I clean them. |
