bpetruzzo

Ok, so maybe I've gone completely off the deep end, but my car wont stay on unless I hold the ignition on!

If I turn the car on like normal, it will start up and then as soon as I release the ignition the car imediatly shuts off. Well, today I discovered that if I hold the ignition on (not quite to the point where I can hear it grinding) but just before that point it will stay on forever. Like, I can drive it and everything. However, the moment I let go of the ignition it shuts off. If the car is moving any substantial speed and I let go of the ignition then turn it again (not till it grinds) the car will spring right back to life like nothign ever happend.

This is totally crazy! It's got to be some kind of electrical problem, maybe a fuse or something. I can't find my haynes manual to check it though.

For the love of God someone tell me you know what the problem is! And more importaintly how I can fix it!

Archidictus

So your car sparks and gets fuel as long as the starter is engaged? Sounds like a relay or fuse somewhere ate **** and now your car doesn't know when it's on unless the starter is being engaged.

bpetruzzo

I don't suppose you might know which fuse/relay might be controlling that, do you?

B18C5-EH2

It's not a fuse or relay, it's your ignition swiotch pigtail.

It's the elctrical portion of your ignition switch.

The soldered points have gone bad, so buy a new ignition switch pigtail/electrical portion and install it and your car will be fine again.

bpetruzzo

is that part something I should be able to pick up at a parts store? Or will I have to order it from Honda?

bpetruzzo

Alright, so I got the car running again.

When I opened up the ignition all of the soldering points were still good. Didn't look like there was any wear on them at all. So I figured maybe there was something inside the ignition switch that needed to be replaced.

When I took it apart first of all I relized how disturbingly easy it is to steal a honda (honda's all I can really vouch for) and secondly I relized inside the ignition switch there was nothing to solder. It was just the connection points where one peice of metal rubs against another to start the car. There was lots of black crap on them. The only conclusion I could come to is that maybe whatever the black stuff is, it's causing a bad connection. So I cleaned off the connection points as best I could, and everything seemed to work fine. No complaints here.

Did I make any grave mistakes? Is my car going to leave me stranded somewhere because I overlooked something painfully obvious?