Well, that was a dumb thing to do...'98 honda civic help requested
 

I screwed up. The facts first though...I have a 1998 Civic EX 4 door sedan, with the 1.6L SOHC engine, automatic transmission. The seal between the distributor and the camshaft was leaking oil, so I decided to replace the O-ring. After scribing the position of the distributor, I pulled it, being very careful not to turn it. Evidently I must have not been careful enough though.

After reassembly, I attempted to start the engine, using very short intervals of the starter. It fired once, and quickly died. Feeling that dread, I cranked the engine over one more time in a very short burst, and it turned over freely.

I pulled the distributor back out, and peered into the camshaft area with a flashlight and saw the slot that the distributor went in, was no more. I then removed the valve cover and confirmed that the camshaft, where it meets with the distributor was destroyed, and worse, there are now pieces of it contaminating the area.

So, I am planning on, after kicking my butt repeatedly, draining the oil, and attempting to get out the metal particals. Does anyone know if a magnet will attract the pieces? My main concern is the metal particals working their way into the deeper recesses of the engine and destroying the bearings.

Second question, what else did I screw up besides the camshaft? I'm guessing that I must have re-installed the distributor out of phase, so the pistions fired out of order. The timing belt is intact, so am I correct that the valve sequence should have been proper, or is there a chance I took out some valves and possibly piston heads?

Thanks for any insight or advice any of you may offer, and have a great day......now back to kicking my own butt....

Wow what a tough lesson to learn, the oil filter should catch a major part of the metal, you can get a magnet and try to get as much metal out as possible, On an a/c recip, we run the engine for about 5-10 min and flush the oil and filter 2 times, run the third time for a few hours and recheck. and take a comp check, the valves might have gotten bent.

best thing to do is pull the head off... i know it is a lengthy process but pull it off and take the head to the machine shop and get them to clean it up and acid dip it.. that will make sure that the metal is all out.. the tiny particles can be so fine that they will move freely through the motor and thus destroy the motor.. it may not happen instantaneously.. second this is i dont see why the cam got destroyed.. i take my distributor off all the time and pop it right back on.. the cam has 2 different sized grooves in it and the distributor has 2 matching prongs.. it will only fit in there one way so it might have just been something else wrong.. but dont try to let the metal pass through the motor trust me it will only destroy it worse

I agree magnets work well to catch the shavings.

Thanks for the tips guys, I appreciate it. I'm working on taking the cylinder head off now. Upon closer inspection, the damage was even more than I thought, having destroyed the cam holder at the end of the engine.

I decided to install a rebuilt cylinder head. Does anyone have any thoughts about rebuilt versus new? Obviously there is a significant price difference between the two.

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