Honda Car Forum

My 99 honda accord needs a new Harmonic balancer according to the auto tech... what does this all entail? He said it would be costly because they have to pull the engine out. Is this true?

The engine does not need to be removed. Typically there's an access grommet or "knockout" in the inner fender panel. You can access this by removing the driverside wheel. A tech will remove the knockout and slide a l9mm impact socket and an extension through the hole. Once the socket is positioned securely on the balancer bolt, the technician lets his heavy duty impact gun slowly rap away until the bolt gets loosened up. Honda has locktite on the threads so heating up the bolt will burn it off and make it easiers to remove.Several tools are available for holding a Honda crankshaft steady while loosening or tightening its balancer bolt. You can rent these at atuozone for free.I would recommend going to another mechanic for a price quote. The entire job should cost you between $100-150

I have never had to remove an engine to remove a harmonic balance. I don't believe the mechanic is correct. To service the timing belt you have to take out the harmonic balancer pulley assy also but the labor guide does not say to remove the engine of course! The only difficult thing about the honda harmonic balancer is the tightness of the crank bolt holding it on! You have to hold the pulley stationary with a special tool which fits into the center of the pulley (52mm hex) and loosen the crank pulley bolt in the center with a 19mm socket, a long extension, and a breaker bar with a looong cheater pipe! I bought one of these tools from Honda and its worth it if you do a few of these jobs. The dealership tool cost me $170.00 and came in two pieces the handle and the fitting end. Unless you have the tools I don't think this is a job you want to do. I looked up the labor on replacing this pulley in my labor guide and it said: 0.4 hrs to replace the pulley, add 0.1 if it has air conditioning, and if you have a v-6 engine instead of a 4cyl than your labor would rocket up to 0.7hrs! At $80.00/hr that means your labor should run about fifty six bucks! (Kinda fast if you HAVE to pull the engine! By the way, to pull the engine out of an Accord you pull the transmission with it and drop them both out the BOTTOM of the vehicle. hmmmmm..

I just had to have my harmonic balancer replaced on my 99 Honda Accord. According to my mechanic the last person to work on my car did not tighten the balancer so the balancer was moving which created wear on the crank shaft!! Also my mechanic said that it's rare to see a balancer wear out on a Honda!
Is it true what you say that the balancer has to be taken out to service the timing belt?
If that's true, then the mechanic at my local Honda dealer is to blame for my harmonic balancer having to be replaced!! Not knowing what was wrong I could of been driving and my crank shaft would of been destroyed....boy I'm calling the dealer and complaining, I don't even care if it's been 2 years!