86k mile crank pulley failure and a bit of luck
Earlier this spring I purchased a 76k mile Laguna blue ap2 from a retired gentlemen who was the original owner. Only 3k miles put on in the last 11 years and garage kept. It was always dealer maintained with records back to new in VA and never driven hard. Truly a gem of a find.
Needless to say I've been thoroughly enjoying the car the last few months, putting 10k miles on it since March.
Two mornings ago I turned it on, heard a ticking that sounded out of place, but went away after a few seconds. 100 yards up the street in second gear I heard the spaghetti monster sounds of a belt shredding and immediately clutched and killed the ignition.
The accessory belt was half shredded and a quick check of all the pullies by hand brought to my attention the fact that the outter ring of the crank pulley/damper was free floating on the main pulley body.
I trimmed the shredded bits of the belt, removed the outer pulley body, reseated the belt, and limped it back to the house.
Upon calling Honda, there was only one crank pulley in a Honda service center nationwide, 2700 miles away in Los Angeles.
$305 + belt later with overnight shipping I sit now with a running s2k again. Sucks to replace the belt again seeing as I did that along with the tensioner and idler back in April but such is life.
The scary part of this was that I was going to take the car out of town for work 350 miles away into central new York, but had to delay the trip a week.
Moral of the story: I've done all the recommended maintenance and more and the car was treated perfectly until it changed hands to me. The crank pulley never crossed my mind as a failure point and it could have caught me with my pants down hundreds of miles from home. Perhaps it's something you all should replace before straying too far from home.
I half wonder if the additional strain from using the A/C regularly was the nail in the coffin, or the fact that it is actually seeing vtec with any regularity for the first time in its life contributed.
Whatever the case it's a 20 year old car, I can't be mad. This car is everything I hoped it would be back in high school 25 years ago. Love it.