tycoleman

trying to find out if my distubitor is goin out in my 95 civic is there a way to tell

Former User

Thread titles MUST be subject specific so that members browsing topics can easily understand the tech problem without reading the post -- title edited.

Former User

Is there bright white spark at the plugs?

HondaPartsHero

First you should probably list in your title for the thread what the specific problem is instead of a generic "HELP!", it'll usually get you more help.
Second you should always list the year/make/model and engine the car in question is.
Third you need to give as many details as possible about the issue. You question is way too generic and you don't even give any symptoms.

Former User

tycoleman

sorry guys first time using a forum its a 95 civic dx got a 1.6 nonvtec my distributor wasnt getting any spark so i took it a part to see if i could see a problem and it was really dirty so i cleaned it out then put it back together turned it over to see if that was the problem and it started well i took it for a test drive while i was driving it died and now it wont turn back over it sound like its out of gas but i have gas in it can it be the distubitor or a different problem

egsleepercivic

test the coil, that is exactly what mine did when the coil went, replaced and was fine

Sonia's Driver

It could just be that when you cleaned it, you didn't reconnect all of the wires securely and one came loose when you drove it. Or, it could be that the coil, the igniter, one of the sensors, the cap/rotor/wireset, or the harness has an issue.

Use RonJ's "Check Spark" guide to check the quality of the sparks at each plug.
If they're alway good, you might have a different issue. If they're not, you need to do some diagnostics. If it hasn't had a tune-up recently, I would start with that and then move on to the distributor internals. You'll need a multimeter for that.

Damian_jdm

I have a civic ex 98 d16 vtec. Im having the same problem. I noticed it first started when i scratched the bottom of my car against a speed bump. It wasnt a bad hit it was just a slow smooth scratching. Right after that the rpms and speed when crazy. After a few minutes they both stopped working and stayed at 0 ... and a minute later my car died while running. It seems to not be recharging the battery because i got a jump start but lasted only 2 blocks then it died again. I thoght it was the alternator so i got a new one but it still died while running and battery seems to have no charge. A few friends told me that its the distributor because thats what makes the rpms go crazy. Could this really be a distributor problem, or is it more likely to be a short or a bad ground? Sorry about so much writting and thanks!

Jcool345

I had the same issue in my 92 civic. I had the mechanic replace the coil. However a few months later the coil burned out and they replaced the coil again (for free ). The coil didn't look burned out though. The problem was that it would always start and then die right after or after a few seconds. It always sounded like it wasn't getting fuel, but after about the third coil they replaced the whole distributor and it worked fine. I would reccommend replacing the coil first and see if that works.