DarkDaysX6

We have a 2000 Civic EX and today we were driving and hit a pretty thick patch of water and the car died immediately. In typical car dying fasion, the battery and oil light came on. Checked the throttle body and air intake tube and they were dry. The car will not start or run, and the starter just clicks. After the car died, all the lights started dimming and eventually just went out. Not even the hazard lights would work. Now that we've gotten it towed back home the lights work, but only about halfway bright. If I try to turn the key over, all the lights go completely out and nothing happens with the motor. When I release the key back to the resting position the lights come back on. We tried jumping the car off to no avail. Could I have ruined the starter? If so, how would this make the car die? Could I have ruined the alternator or battery? I've also read that I could have ruined the distributor, but everything under the hood looks mostly dry. Can anyone help?

Any answers would be greatly appreciated.

ozh_hawaiian

first things first is I would check all the fuses; especially under the hood... If you have a multimeter, check how much voltage your battery is putting out.... gotta start eliminating possible faults.. some people like to call it troubleshooting

DarkDaysX6

I have no multimeter. Checked fuses, everything looks up to par. Something new that happened is that we kept trying to crank it and it started making a funny noise on the passenger side IN the dashboard? Wtf? Tried the battery out of my Accord and got nothing that way either. My best guess would still be starter, alternator, or battery. I think I either forgot to mention or didn't elaborate enough - When we turn the key over, all we can hear is the starter click (sometimes it doesn't even click) or the funny noise in the dash. The motor doesn't even try to start at all. We looked in/around the spark plugs and everything in there is bone dry. I don't have a deep socket so I couldn't actually REMOVE the plugs but everything looks A-Okay like it did before. This is the first problem we've ever had with the car.

Axatax

Your main is relay is probably cycling due to whatever ground was knocked loose from driving through the puddle.

I would check all the grounds in the engine bay, esp. the main battery ground and the thermostat ground.

ndowens

Also I would check for a cracked distributor cap. That is one of the frequent systems on cars in general I have heard. If it was me, I would replace the cap and see. My dad has told me to look under the hood at night and see if there is any sparks, if so where at.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

Let's take a wild guess but how about where there may be electricity? Plug wires? Battery cables?

d1nonlyjv43

Yes SIr, you are having a ground issue . Check the grounds at battery, thermostate housing and transmission casing and make sure they are good and tight no not coroded. Next unplug the main relay and plug it back in and u should have some electricity. the main relay is on the passenger side under dash mounted on the side by a 10mm bolt its either grey or black........

d1nonlyjv43

what your seeing is your car is getting power but no electricty to the ecu which inturn would tell fuel pump to kick on because im pretty sure your not hearing fuel pump kick on also when you turn ke to start position correct?...

DarkDaysX6

We put our ear on the back seat and we can hear the fuel pump kick on after the starter gets done doing its clicking thing.

It just got really dark really fast so I will have to check the ground cables tomorrow after work. Hopefully it's nothing more than a ground cable. Also, if I can get my hands on a 17mm socket I am going to try turning the crank pulley manually to double check for bent/broken components or hydrolock. I'm praying that it's not anything major, we JUST bought this car in March.

DarkDaysX6

Thanks for all the help so far guys. I will try everything conceivable tomorrow afternoon and come back to this thread for an update or possibly... SUCCESS! But I won't get my hopes up :/

d1nonlyjv43

pull the plugs and wires out and spin it over to shoot all the water out if it is any

kwijibodavid

try checking that ur battery is good clean the terminals and check the voltage

hittin a puddle most likely threw wateron the battery eather causing the battery to short possibly causing corrosion to form or the terminals loosened

not likely to have water in the motor or anything

another thing that could of happened is the water could of shorted the terminals on the starter causing the battery voltage to be drained

kwijibodavid

i would pull the carpet back near the ecu and make sure there are no holes in the floor. being a 2000 i dought it but i dont know the bodys condition water may of gotten on the ecu and caused somthing to short ecu is in the pass kick panel if u didnt know will need a 10mm to pull the ecu\

newbie007

a dead alternator would cause the car not to start, i had that happen to me last year on my 00 civic, car died, couldn't even boost it, switched out the alternator and it was alive again. the alternator is tuff to get at, probably best to bring it to a shop.

DarkDaysX6

Just an update here... The two center spark plug holes were full to the top with water and I could NOT turn the crank pulley all the way. It would turn smooth for a moment and then get rough and then just stop dead in it's tracks. Don't know how the hell water got in there because the intake didn't have so much as a few drops in it. Maybe the water rushed past and then dried instantly? I'm stumped. Either way, got a new starter and then we drained the oil and it was straight water coming out for a few minutes. Then out came what looked like brown muddy water from the Mississippi River. We sacrificed a few quarts of ****-brand oil to flush the system and trashed the old spark plugs which were fouled all to hell and produced no spark. With dry innards, new plugs, and new oil it really wanted to start but couldn't quite do it. I removed the plugs again and let the car sit open overnight. Got in it this morning and tried the starter and the motor was jerking around all over the place in there. We could hear putters coming from the exhaust too. Kept trying the starter and giving it a break until eventually the jerking of the motor got more frequent and I saw the RPMs begin to rise. It died again, and I got discouraged again. Kept trying and I got it to start! Success, but it sounded like ***. I held the RPMs around 2 1/2 and 3k with white smoke flowing out of the back. Temp looked normal so I just rode the throttle for half an hour more. All kinds of nasty bubbling noises happened along the way, but now it sounds almost like it did before we hit the puddle - only a slight tick/knock. I think we dodged a bullet here. It doesn't seem like we bent a rod too bad, which seems impossible judging by how much water was in there. These are tough little cars, anyone who puts down a Honda is a foolish fool.

PROTIP: Trash your CAI unless you live in Arizona and it never rains. I rode around for months with the CAI and nothing happened, even on rainy days. But on Thursday it was a different story. It's all about the short ram, kids. The 2-3 horsepower difference with the CAI is definitely NOT worth it.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

DarkDaysX6

Looking over my old posts and noticed this still here. I ended up fixing the hydrolock problem for a few months or so. I cycled the engine with plugs out and sucked the water from atop the pistons with a straw. It didn't taste very well but wasn't unbearable. I left all of the plugs out for a couple of days to let the cylinders dry and drained the oil, which looked like brown river water instead of oil. I then sacrificed a few quarts of **** oil to try and get the remaining moisture out and drained the system again. Finally I put some good oil and new plugs in and with a lot of trying and a whole day's worth of time it finally half-*** started and then died... I let it dry some more and then tried again and it fully started but sounded terrible and shot clouds of white smoke for about 10 minutes. It ran and got us where we needed to go for a while and then one day on the interstate BOOM! She slung a rod and I'm willing to bet it was the one that tried to compress the most water when it hydrolocked. There was metal fragments all inside of the block but no holes in the actual block. Crank and inner walls of the block were destroyed, as were the oil passages. I took the flattened out piston and head-slapped valves as trophies and bought a new Y8. The head seemed okay except for the bent valves which I quickly replaced. I bought all new gaskets, belts and everything for the new y8, which is from the 96-98 models. Discovered how different the automatics were from the manuals, as well as how different the 96-98's were from the 99-00's. VERY different indeed. Everything from the thermostat housing not having FIA to the darn thing having a different ECU. I got in way over my head with this swap. The guy who influenced me didn't tell me about all the discrepancies and model differences. This has been a nightmare but I'm closing on the finish line. Per the usual, I'm having IACV issues now. I'll get back with more when I have more to tell you guys.