grndslm

So, my buddy's driving his 2000 Accord (4-cyl) around for around 25 minutes or so. Finally as we get to our destination, coolant starts steaming from under his hood. We check it out and it's shooting all around from what I presume is the thermostat area. There looked to be coolant all over the top of the intake manifold and really all over within like a 20 inch radius of the thermostat area. I didn't see this, but apparently when I was inside he turned the key back on and the coolant temp was in the RED!

At first I thought it might just be his thermostat gasket. But as he topped off his coolant with virtually a whole gallon of antifreeze and we drove home, about 5 minutes in or so his car gave a light sputter. I'm thinking, holy crap... it overheated so bad it warped the head and now the head gasket is shot. The sputtering got worse a minute or two later. As we're pulling into his yard, the sputtering got pretty bad, like a really bad miss.

He said that he found a pinhole leak in some hose, and he's going to replace that ASAP. I told him to check the spark plugs and see if he sees anything unusual, but he said his plug wires have "disintigrated" when pulling them apart. I'm going to bring my compressor to him tomorrow to blow the spark plug ports out...

But can anybody think of anything that would cause this OTHER than water in the cylinder(s)???

Sure, coolant on the wires could possibly do this, but I don't think they broke until he touched them. Anyway, just fishing for ideas until I see him tomorrow evening....

SIDENOTE: He did replace his radiator a couple months ago. And I don't that he burped the coolant, because he said he didn't think he put in coolant as much as the 1 gal water he did yesterday. Still wondering how a pinhole leak could just appear in his hose. I guess just old dryrot?

holmesnmanny

it could really just be the wires...you could have been operating on 3 or 2 cylinders

Just compression test to see if the head gasket is bad now.

grndslm

Compression tested his 2.3L VTEC engine (F23A4), and came up with these numbers....

[#1 is farthest away from the transmission, #2 is next to that, and #4 is closest to transmission]

#1 cylinder == 190 psi
#2 cylinder == 192 psi
#3 cylinder == 191 psi
#4 cylinder == 197 psi

Also, we took pictures of the old plugs after taking them out....

[#1 is farthest away from the transmission, #2 is next to that, and #4 is closest to transmission]

#3 kinda has me worried that it's so white, but it's not "deathly white", no?? Surely, this is a problem that can be overcome with compression numbers like this, right?? These have GOT to be healthy numbers.

grndslm

We've identified the cracked (not quite "pinholed") hose to be the inlet heater core hose before the plastic temperature regulator doo-hickey.

Any help with finding a part number for this year Accord (2000) with aforementioned engine would help a ton.

Thanks!

P.S. - A buddy from my work suggested that the "missing" while we were driving could have come from not getting rid of the air bubbles in the line after he replaced the radiator. Or adding more bubbles once the hose finally cracked.

Hopefully replacing it will solve all his problems.

lazlong

This is for a 2000 4-dr EX with auto tranny: http://www.hondapartscheap.com/parts...el/water-valve If yours is different just follow the link to the right model.

holmesnmanny

you're compression numbers are fine..just get a new set of wires and some new plugs...remember to gap them...you also need a new valve cover gasket set since your plugs are getting oil fouled

ps. stop using cheap *** autolite plugs lol get denso or ngk