carl53

My 330,000 mile 96 Accord sat for about 5 weeks back in Feb/March. When I tried to start it the battery was dead (battery is less than 2 yr old). It had been hard to start if it sat when it sat for extended periods in rain.

My backyard mechanic that works on it for me asked how long since I had it tuned up. It had been over a 100K so, he did all the plugs, wires, distributor cap, valve cover gasket, air filter and PCV. As a point of reference the check engine light has been on without going off for the better part of the last 100k and the mechanic said it was still just related to the O2 sensor. Since the tuneup, it has not been left out in a lot of wet weather (of course it has rained very little in the last 6 weeks but that is another problem a little beyond the scope of this forum. Since the tuneup, the car starts as soon as I hit the key when cold. When I've recently driven it, nothing seems to happen when I turn the key for several tries, has been as many as 6 or 7 but usually about 3. Then it fires up and runs great. I've read several threads like the one below and am concerned that it might be very difficult to rectify without changing the car out.
https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...ight=start+key

Before I take it back to the mechanic, I am hoping that someone will have had a similar experience to have me point him in the right direction. I'd rather not dispose of my old friend that otherwise have no problems with.

MAD_MIKE

You may want to verify a few things.
Make sure the battery connections are clean and tight.
Make sure the leads that attach to the engine and body are clean and tight.
Check to see if there is a large amp draw on the battery when the car is off, and the doors/trunk are closed and courtesy lights are off.
Are there any after market electronics, or do you keep anything plugged into the lighter socket for charging?
Part of a tuneup IS the O2 sensor. Consider it the N th spark plug.
If it is damaged or has become lazy this will affect the performance of the car.
Find out what exactly the code is for the O2 and which one is causing it.
Being a '96 it is OBDII, your car has a pre and post catalyst O2 sensor.
Find out what codes are stored. Do not have them cleared until the problem has been rectified.

I believe on the 96/97 you can still check the codes yourself. Look under the dash where the glove box is. There will be two blue electrical connectors. the two wire one you can use to check OBDI codes. Jump the two wire connector, turn the car to ON(do not start) and watch the CEL light blink.

_ _ _ would be 3
___ ___ ___ would be 30
___ ___ ___ _ _ _ would be 33

And so on and so forth for watch the codes cycle a few times. They will repeat and they should repeat in numerical order.

It could be a few issues. The Main Relay is a common enough fault with Hondas. Also the ignition switch may have worn contacts. If either of these two become overheated they may not be making correct contact when hot.
Check these two items first.

Normally I would tell you to check out the Tech Auto website(H4A link in my sig) which is a great resource, but it is down at the moment. D'oH!

carl53

I went out and rechecked the battery age after I read this and realized that the battery was approaching 6 years old, not as new as I thought. I took it to Autozone who pronounced it bad. For the next few days with the new battery all was well and then the trouble starting when hot began again.

Kind of ignored the problem for a few weeks hoping the weather would cool or the problem would go away.
I found the Tech Auto website back up last week. It is excellent. Thanks Mike. While I did not follow the tests as suggested, it made me think as to what I could ascertain. On a cooler morning I drove the car hard with the heater running trying to make the main relay fail due to heat. Could not reproduce the problem. I even parked the car running with a hair dryer blowing on the relay. Car interior was quite hot. Stopped the car with the hair dryer still on. After 15 minutes I tried to restart, and it fired up with one turn of the key.

Next I took the hair dryer and put it under the hood blowing on the distributor with the Ignition Control Module inside while the car was idling. Shut the car off and tried to restart after 15 minutes. No start for several tries. My observations during the failed restarts were that I heard the main relay click and the fuel pump run for a couple of seconds, but I never saw the overhead light dim (I had turned it on) like you would expect had there been a large current draw by the starter during a successful start.

I left the hood open for a while to cool the engine well and then went through the sequence again with the same results.

Changed the ICM yesterday and have had several hot starts without any problem as of yet.