buckettucker

Before I start, my mechanical knowledge is what I would consider a medium. However, I've mostly worked on 350's and stuff up until now.

I bought a 96 accord with a F22 VTEC about 2 months ago. Car has 206,xxx miles on it. About three days ago, I am driving to another town about 20 miles from here and I get a check engine light.

Oil is full, coolant is slightly low. I add coolant. I live in Idaho and it has been cold as hell here for the last month or so. I haven't driven the car again until today when I drove to AutoZone to have them scan it for free and pick up some coolant. When the car gets hot, I can faintly smell coolant inside and outside the car. Temp gauge is staying in the proper place. Gas mileage on the last tank went down from 370ish to 260ish. Gonna head back to AZ now that I know the scanner port is behind the ash tray and get it scanned but I'm wanting to check if I'm on the right track.

Is this a CTS issue? And is the CTS the sensor pointing toward the front of the car off the upper hose housing? (I assume thats where the thermostat is but I am not certain til I dive in). Should I be looking into something else? Any help is appreciated as I'll be checking back in here after a bit.

Balwin

If you are smelling coolant you probably have a leak.. any leaks under the car? Is your heater working?

Did you find out what the code was? If you look in the Haynes it tells you how to jump a connector. It will then blink a code with the CEL giving you an idea of what is going on.

By the way, the sensor on the water neck is a coolant sensor. However it is not the one that operates the temperature gauge. Im pretty sure it is there to provide information for the ECU.

The sensor that operates the temperature guage is directly under the distributor. It will be the one closest to the front of the motor. The plug for it is going to be a small, narrow, black piece of plastic that slides on and off.. no connector tab to push down. Make sure this is secure I guess..


How is the overflow reservoir? If it is full to the top, we might have a problem.

buckettucker

Code turned out to be a TCC module failure and since the tranny fluid is full but needs replaced I figured it was a whole other bag of worms I intend to dig into after this coolant issue.

So, last night I get called into work. I take my tahoe to be safe. I drove the car this morning to see if I could get the smell again. Nothing, and the temp gauge stayed solid for the whole trip after being warmed up about 10 minutes at my house (15ish miles). Temperature this morning was a balmy 21 degrees. On my way home just now, about 12 miles into the trip back, temp started rising and steam underhood. I pull over and there is a bit of coolant under the hood. The return hose that goes to the bottom of the radiator is cold and there is no pressure. So I let it cool for about 45 minutes and then drove it the other 3 miles and it didn't heat past normal in that time. Can I be safe to assume that it's just a sticky thermostat or am I being optimistic? Also, is the thermostat in the front in that housing for the sensor I spoke of earlier or in the back behind the distributor? (hopefully up front) Thanks for you help gents.

19Accord97

The lower hose runs up to the thermostat housing. There should be a green plug in it as well.

buckettucker

I see that. Is that the CTS then also? I see the sensor is inexpensive so should I just replace it while I've got it torn apart?

Elvis1977

I would install a new OEM HONDA thermostat, refill system, and bleed.

buckettucker

Installed a new OEM thermostat, ended up that I blew the intake to valve hose slightly for the heater core as well so I replaced that too. Brought it to temp and everything seemed okay. Drove it about 2 miles and steam everywhere. I think it may be the rad cap now as I can't find coolant anywhere under the hood. Also, it revved at about 1600 RPM at idle instead of 700-800 like usual. Not really sure where to go. I thought the steam might be the coolant I spilled when refilling but it lasted too long for that in my opinion. Gonna head out to Autozone in about 10 minutes to have them pressure check the cap really quick then who knows. Hope that's it though although I dont know how the hell that would mess with the idle

94EG8

Did you bleed the coolant after installing the thermostat? If theres air in the cooling system it will idle high (coolant runs through the idle air control valve, when it his an air pocket it'll rev up)

Elvis1977

It's very important to bleed the system after filling back up with radiator fluid! Also, since you have 206k miles on your car you might need a new idle air control valve soon. I replaced mine at about 110k. Buy only OEM HONDA parts. Good luck!

holmesnmanny

There are a couple spots in the back of the engine to hold coolant in them if the coolant fell in after the hose blew. It could have been a puddle in there steaming. The radiator cap is only 10 bucks. Just buy a new one and don't mess around with it. Normally if the cap doesn't get hot when your car is at operating temp it needs to be replaced. If you take the cap off and the black plastic piece on the inside wiggles, it needs to be replaced.