Thanks for the journey. The failures are very helpful for the rest of us so thanks for posting. Glad you got the engine sorted out. Car should be great in a few days.

 

Side skirts are back on. Those clips are a pain!
Done with this phase! Car is running smoothly now, with no error codes.

I will be removing the upper cowl cover to put in new spark plugs, so it’s not on quite right yet.

Now I just have to swap out my cheap plugs for the iridium ones, replace the cheap oil in case any junk got in, drain out the distilled water to put in coolant, replace the brake fluid and transmission fluid, and get the splash shield back on. Then on to a few electrical things inside and correcting some of the issues created by the paint shop!

 

Hmmm. Thanks for the thread.
You wrote in another thread that the engine has failed internally again?
Curious how many miles it had/has now.

 

It has 184,000 miles now, but I’m not sure how many it had when I did the work in this thread. I’ll check my records at some point.

It had been sounding chattery for a bit and I was planning to readjust the valves to see if that was the problem. It seemed to be running fine other than that. Then one day the AC stopped blowing cold air rather suddenly halfway through an hour drive. The crooked local Honda dealer had claimed it needed a new compressor and condenser several years ago, but a recharge lasted a year or more so I had not delved further into the issue. The next day, I opened up the hood and started the car. Now the noise had changed, badly, and the oil was 2 quarts low. I added oil and hastened to my independent Honda mechanic and managed to talk them into checking it out. I suspected a broken ring, but they were hopeful it was another issue. They determined that the water pump and belt tensioner needed to be replaced, so I had them do that with little optimism. Once they were replaced, they thought the remaining sound was the timing chain guide. Then we checked the oil again and saw a telltale metallic bit on the dipstick.

 

Low oil n subsequent overheating/high operating temps can cause the plastic bits on chain guides to get brittle leading to failure. Pieces braking off can create slack in the timing chain which is super lame. can result in valves impacting pistons n such. Sounds like your car's really giving you some problems. Did it ever sit extensively or was there a potentially negligent previous owner?

The notable symptom i experienced in the two cars that had this timing issue was a delay between depressing the gas and getting an rpm increase, creating a little whipping effect that made it easy to peel-out 😂 besides that, the valves may have sounded slightly maladjusted, but it was in engines that had hydraulic lifters. I no longer regard timing chains as maintenance-free

 

I'm the only owner ever, but it did sit for a couple of years several years ago. I have generally kept up with oil changes and other maintenance, but I didn't replace the catalytic converter when I should have, which is what resulted in the carbon build up in the head and other issues.

 

Hm. I wonder if sitting is a larger factor than I previously thought. About six years ago my father inherited a Honda Ridgeline from his mother that she'd seldom driven. Its VIN had its manufacture date some six months before the Ridgeline model started actually getting sold (06 or 07). Only had 15k miles and at least a year of sitting. Stuff went south with it! Every pulley on the serpentine belt squeaked as well as the fans, multiple door actuators failed within the first few days of his getting it. We'd thought it was a gem, but the reality was that it just looked really nice (for a Ridgeline) 😂This is reminding me that I need to go change fluids and ride my motorcycle. Been six months.

With all that said, on the one car that had the timing issue that I actually got to work on (also had a valve strike a piston and an ejected spark plug).. I replaced the head, timing chain stuff, fixed the oil leaks with new gaskets and then the engine sounded beautiful, when it ran.
It'd had overheating damage that melted the jacket on many a wire and made several connectors turn to dorito dust when squeezed.. In my first attempt to learn soldering and rebuild a wire harness I learned that one shouldn't use super high strand count stereo wire for an engine harness. I'm hard-pressed to explain or even claim that diagnosis as true, because it'd purr, then after reaching operating temp just shut down..
anyways..
You may keep running into little issues generally uncommon to the vehicle.
The water pump is a great example. From my experience, those things rust like crazy after sitting, and I suspect that the oxidized build-up throws the fan out of balance, leads to its bearing failure
​​​​​
Sorry for the rambles. Trying to troubleshoot that old car drove me crazy.

 

Eh, the car only has so many parts. Eventually I'll have replaced them all, haha.