Gracedalton

Okay after Honda put in the new alternator last Friday, it ran like a charm all this past week. Today - Thursday the car ran fine going to work, coming home in the dark it stalled again. She had it in 3rd gear, got it to neutral to stop it from stalling. A red light flashed, but she didn't catch it in time to see what it exactly was.

HISTORY: Car started to stall last Spring 2007. New main relay and fuel pump in July 2007. Put on a new distributor cap and rotor with a second hand igniter in June. Stalling fixed. Turned out the alternator/solenoid fuse under the dash was blown. 15 cent fix and the car was fine, no stalling.

Starting 3 weeks ago it was stalling everytime she was at a light or stop sign day or night. Two weeks ago, took it to Honda, Monday....
Honda found the rad fan unplugged. Plugged it in, said it was fine. The overheating and stalling was due to the unplugged fan. Did a tune up with new spark plugs. They did a scan and no codes. Brought it home, ran smoother and it started to immediately hesitate coming home...back it went to Honda on the Tuesday.

Tuesday, Mechanic noticed it doing it intermittantly on test run. 4 mechanics scratched their heads on this one. Finally they decided to put in a new O2 sensor since now the codes did show - this time as O2 sensor and one blip on the injectors. They checked the throttle body and it was fine. Sensor replaced. Came home again after they said it was fine. Also tested the fuel pump and got great pressure readings, pump was working...This is costing big time now.

Thursday -week and a half ago.... it died at an intersection at midnight and took 5 minutes to start. Friday it is back in the shop. This time battery light flashed on. Mechanic found that it was doing the stalling and hesitation under a full load with head lights and radio on. Replaced the alternator last Friday, and cleaned the injectors, replaced a hose and checked the vacuum lines. Couple of hoses were carboned up but cleaned.
Fine for the past week till tonight Thursday .....................


Will take any and all ideas on this now. Honda Service just got a nasty message left on their machine for tomorrow morning. This has cost a 19 year old girl over 1100 dollars so far, and they can't seem to fix it right. They just keep adding more and more parts and seem to be guessing as to what it is. She has no more money to put into this car.
You guys always seem to come up with great ideas. Help please.
Grace


Forgot for those that don't know. It's an 89 Civic Sedan DX 1.5 litre engine.


Modified by Gracedalton at 10:11 PM 3/6/2008

sanimalp

ignition switch.. you or honda can test the thing for free.. then they can tell you if the part is bad and then change it. I'll bet that is what it is.. you could even mess around with it by starting it and wiggling the key around in the on position. if the car stutters or dies, there is the proof. In addition, it explains the battery light because a lot of amps go through the ignition switch. the switch also controls several different circuits for each position, so one contact for one circuit can go bad, and cause weird stuff that is hard to trace.

My opinion is that the original problem might never have gotten fixed.. either that or its a remarkable coincidence that the same problem is being caused by different parts. First places to look on an EF for electrical problems are always distributor, main relay and ignition switch, in my opinion.

t25d16a6

my car had an intermittant stall problem....i found a slightly loose wiring connection inside the distributor. Never did it again after that. If I were you, I'd just replace the whole distributor and see what happens.

361 accord

yup replace cap and rotor.. it solved the random shiftin gears at stop lights, dieing randomly and tach bouncing freakin out at 80+MPH

the dizzy fixed a ton of **** on the EF lol

Gracedalton

Okay, my hubby is on his way home from Alberta for days off. Going to get him to change the fuel filter on it too. Honda says Tuesday is the only day to fit it in. They have an all in one part, rotor, cap, coils, igniter etc for 300 bucks. At this point I am leaning to doing it all at once, and not one part at a time.
The ignition is the other one, it was mentioned at the very beginning by Honda that too will be looked at.
Get hubby to check for the loose wires on the alternator. That was my idea the last time to Honda, loose wiring. That was when they found the alternator was hooped.
Thank you. This board is my main source for info.

Grace

361 accord

LOOL!! OK screw the dealership buy crap yourself for real

me and tyler replaced his distributor cap and rotor in our dorm parkin lot with a limited set of tools in 15 minutes never having done it before or looking at instructions! it cost us like 20bones at autozone down the street!!

and if its really necesasry there are guides here on how to change the cap and rotor

Gracedalton

Guess hubby's days off are working on his daughter's car.
going to go get that 300 all in one part with cap and rotor, coil etc. and a new fuel filter and he can change it this weekend. If that doesn't fix it, then " One 89 Honda Civic for sale " lol
Hubby changed the stuff back this Spring and did the igniter. It quit stalling. I'm leaning towards the second hand igniter too, as it was the only second hand thing all else was new.
Tired of giving mechanics 100 bucks an hour for nothing. Honda said they had 4 guys working on it when they called back this AM. 4 guys???? and it isn't done?
Admitted they can't figure it out.

We have put in over 2000 grand since this Summer fixing it. Dont' think there's anything left to fix on it. It even got a new rad, cv joints, windshield wiper arm ( as the wipers went off when you hit a bump) new door locks, windshield, new taillight. Not a lick of rust on this 89 anywhere.
Now you know why I call it the car from hell....grandma used to own it too...bought it brand new and never did anything with it for repairs. IT will be like
brand new if we get this figured out. We know it needs a timing belt and water pump.

Okay anymore ideas will be accepted too.

361 accord

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Okay anymore ideas will be accepted too. </TD></TR></TABLE>

give me and my friend the keys and a wad o' cash and a weekend or 2 hahaha

SETI20

Ignitors are a pain. They can just give up without warning. I had similar issues...100 miles from home.

I ended up changing borrowed parts in a mcdonalds parking lot.

But, I've also had a friend of mine with similar issues, where it turned out to be the ignition switch. So like stated before, not a bad idea to have it checked out, and not costly to replace either.

Gracedalton

Definitely we'll check it. She just phoned to say the car is dying badly and can hardly make it to work....argg.....

thanks gang will let you know how it goes.

361 accord

thats the distributor cap and rotor for ya!