My Odyssey is old. It's a 2008 with 149K on it. It had 110k when I bought it, thinking that I'd drive it for a couple years and then get something better. Well, things have changed. I can't even find anyone selling the new car that I want, and a three-year old one with 50k miles costs about as much as the MSRP for a new one. Soooooooo, the old Odyssey is going to be here a while. I;ve grown fond of it - it makes a pretty fair truck. If I pull the seats out, I can stack a crapload of 4x8 sheet goods in the back. We've got to get cracking on the maintence if this pony's going to stay in our stable. YouTube is a big help. Lots of folks post helpful videos showing exactly how to do this medium-difficult job. I checked Amazon for the parts, and found them selling this kit as a Warehouse Deal for $50 off, putting this original-equipment kit in the same financial neighborhood as the ones stamped from pot metal in some basement in South Shanghai. WooHoo! It said that the packaging would be damaged (it was) but everything inside was pristine. The most difficult part of this job is removing the crankshaft bolt. It is installed at the factory with a special nuclear-powered torquing device, powered by the energy of a thousand suns. You will break things trying to get it off. You may get hurt. You will certainly use words that you would never use in front of your kids, or even your wife, as you pull the shattered chunk of snapped 1/2" impact extension from your bleeding forearm as the bolt just sits on the pulley, mocking your puny efforts. Many people say that this task should be attempted first, as if you can't remove this bolt, it's best to just send the parts back and get the credit card ready for a $2K bill from your friendly mechanic, who will heat that bolt with a torch to get it loose, not caring that the rubber insert in the crank pulley will be forever damaged by the heat. It's not HIS car, after all. There is a solution. A lump of metal, dropped to the Earth from the gods - a solution so simple that you can't believe that it would work. It is the Lisle 77080. A half-inch drive 19mm impact socket. What, you say? It can't be that simple? You already HAVE a 1/2 drive 19mm? No. You don't have THIS socket. It's easily 3x as thick as your puny Harbor Freight socket and weighs 3x as much. The idea is that all that extra mass transmits more of the bang-bang from your impact tool into the bolt, and less into the atmosphere. My experience.... I sprayed PB Blaster (there's nothing better) at the crank bolt's surface, waited while I ate breakfast with the missus, and then went out there and put my 120v plug-in Porter Cable 1/2" impact on the bolt in unspin mode. Sixty seconds of nerve-wracking, arm shaking, anvil banging attempts proved fruitless, and since I was starting to smell weird electrical smells from the tool, I decided to give the bolt a break, spraying it again liberally with liquid slipperyness and going back inside for a second cup of coffee (recommended for occasional mechanics). Half an hour later, back for Round 2. Put the tool on the bolt, hit the trigger on the hand-held bolt hammer and the bolt didn't last five seconds. At this point, I was committed to the job. Everything came off easily, just like in the video. I used an M12-powered Milwaukee battery ratchet to save time, and it saved a bunch of it. Thinking about all that ratchet-spinning and knuckle-busting that I was missing made me smile. As it turned out, the old timing belt was oil soaked due to an old serious oil leak from the cylinder-disabling solenoid at the left-front of the engine, something I replaced the week I bought the Odyssey. Other than that, it looked pretty good for almost 150K miles. The old water pump looked good as well. The pump in this kit was a perfect match for the original one that I removed. There are some substandard parts out there, but this certainly isn't one of them. It went on like it was supposed to and so did everything else. All the parts in this kit seemed to be quality items - especially the tensioner. It was indistinguishable from the one that I removed - it was just cleaner. The idlers, likewise. Nice stuff that matched the original parts in performance and appearance. Be aware that the camshaft sprockets are fighting against some valve springs and will be waiting for the first chance they can get to move a bit while you aren't looking. Check your marks. Check your marks. Check your marks. I had everything where it was supposed to be and was about to pull the pin from the tensioner when I dedided to check just one more time..... Yup, I was one tooth off on the rear cam. Easy enough to fix at that point. More difficult if I had pulled the pin..... Rotate the engine a couple of times after (clockwise, unless you want to take the belt off and time the engine again). Check your timing marks a few times until you are certain that it's right. If you removed the spark plugs, the engine's easy to rotate. The maintenance interval for the plugs is the same as the timing belt, so make your life easy and do that at the same time. Once you're satisfied that the belt is installed properly, it's just a matter of bolting on all the bits that you removed to get to the belt, adding coolant and cleaning up. Drop your clothes on the laundry-room floor, go take a shower and make yerself a drink. You've earned it. If you did everything right, your engine will run exactly the same as it did before you started, which will be difficult to explain to your wife.
