bcaslow

'99 Accord LX 3.0

Daughter drives this. She went out to work the other day and said the exhaust got real loud all of a sudden, but she continued to drive on to work. The exhaust pipe had broken clean in two right past the cat. converter (aftermarket that a previous owner put on). She made it most the way home, then it started not wanting to go anywhere. She made it half way up our drive & it just wouldn't go, so she backed it down & parked it. I'd been on vacation, so first thing I did was get it to a place I could work on it, but it would barely move. I then noticed the D4 light flashing. OK, something wrong with tranny. However, the engine is also running very rough, not wanting to idle, with heavy black deposits coming out the broken exhaust. OH, when the exhaust broke, the downstream O2 sensor got smashed, so I replaced it, disconnected battery, pulled solenoid and cleaned the screens, changed the fluid -- it looked pretty decent -- and checked the distributor cap/rotor. Both looked OK. Haven't pulled plugs yet as it needs to cool down. But it was still doing all the same stuff above after this work.

I'm at a loss. Could this be a faulty ECM/TCM? Is there any way for me to determine/test this? I have not found any connector to jump to read codes (like my older Hondas). Should I buy one of the cheap code readers from a parts store? (We live 30 miles from any town/garage, so no way to get a free code read from AutoZone.) If I have to tow it somewhere, I would like to know if I need a general shop, trans shop, or (yuk) dealer.

ANY and all thoughts would be appreciated!

bcaslow

FOLLOW UP:

Pulled half the spark plugs: heavy with black soot but it's just recent. No caking, fouling, burnt, etc.

Could the PCM (ECM/TCM combo as I understand it) have been damaged when the O2 sensor got smashed -- shorting something out?