i just noticed today that i had a burning type smell after my car warmed up, so after taking a very spirited drive (just installed intake) i noticed it was unusually strong.

parked the car, popped hood and what do you know, smoke!

i checked the radiator hoses, top-hot, bottom-cold. tells me thermostat is kaput

i also checked oil (smoke was coming from the oil cap) what do ya know thats low (well i think)

my dipstick has never read correctly, when i first got the car, it said empty, i put 1 quart in just to drive it home, changed oil and when i changed it 4.5 quarts came out, so i dunno how well that reading is.

anyways back to the problem at hand.

obviously i wanna do an oil change, since its smoking and it says low.

As for the thermostat, is this something that is easy to change myself, the most ive ever done to a car is the spark plug tube seals and valve adjustments.

if not, tax return on its way (could be a month or more before i get it), if i took it to a mechanic, do you think i could last a month or two with the thermostat (stuck closed i guess)

Thanks in advance guys

 

some other information...

Even tho the lower hose is not hot and i believe the thermostat is to blame, the temp gauge on my cluster never goes above half-way (which is normal)

so any other ideas appreciated

 

Coolant has a very distinctive sweet smell. Besides the valve cover fill hole, where was the smoke coming from?

 

just around the valve cover in general, when i opened up the oil cap it came mostly out of there.

as i said, its reading low on oil, but i cant tell if my dipstick reads correctly or not because of what happened when i first got the car (explained above)

im gonna buy a quart of 5w30 to add until i get paid on friday...cause i cant afford a complete change until then (just paid bills, 20 bucks in bank)


i could jsut be really low on oil and killing my engine

BTW, i cant smell anything sweet, just burning

 

Look under the hood, follow the upper radiator hose to the housing that is bolted to the head, that alluminum tube the radiator hose is connected to is your thermostat housing, remove the 2 bolts and change your thermostat. take precautions cause coolant will come out(duh). Now I've never done a thermostat on a Honda, so I may be wrong, but that seems like a safe bet, oh there will be an electrical connector plugged into what looks like a some kind of sensor. The sensor is screwed into the side of the housing.

 

just looked through my pdf manual and found the thermostat part, seems simple enough to do.

i should probably do it, but now that i realized my temp gauge isnt really going that high, that i may have another issue...or maybe not.

thanks for the help tho zigzack

 

If you don't smell anything sweet and your temp guage is normal, then you don't have a thermostat problem. I suspect that you have a leaking valve cover from all that valve adjusting you did. maybe the gasket slipped out of the groove somewhere along the cover. I think you are smelling oil burning on the manifold. Wipe it down good around the valve cover when it is cool and then look for leaks after a drive.

 

i actually looked at that as well, i didnt see any leaks, but you know i could be wrong.

and i didnt use RTV sealant on there like recommended

thanks for the advice, ill go check it now

 

well its not the thermostat, i went out and bought 2 quarts of oil and drove it home

next thing i know its smoking like mad, pulled up on the curb and oil is leaking bad onto the exhaust.

oil is all around and all over the oil filter, so i may have double gasketed when i did my last oil change (didnt check the filter last time)

what else in that general area can cause an oil leak that bad?

im also missing an oilpan bolt or two and have a tiny leak there, but the main one is somewhere around the filter

 

Change your oil and filter, and make sure you only have one gasket on there

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by zigzack &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Change your oil and filter, and make sure you only have one gasket on there</TD></TR></TABLE>

please read more carefully

i just paid all my bills, im a college kid with a7.50 job

i have 20 bucks in the bank, i cant just go out and buy all the oil and filter and hope that is the problem, if its not then im skrewed and cant get to work, then i cant afford to fix this heap.

i need to know first, are there ANY OTHER POSSIBLE locations on the back of the block where oil could leak from this bad

1993 accord lx sedan f22a1

 

is it a manuel or automatic? If its a manuel then your transmission uses engine oil, so you may want to look there. This guy I work with says to check your distributor o-rings. Also really check your valve cover gasket.

 

Do you mean the back of the engine, like where your transmission mounts to, or back of the engine towards the firewall, like under your throttle body?

 

its a manual, when i get paid im also doing a tranny fluid change

187k miles on stock tranny, probably never changed, has some trouble going into first gear, no grinds, just difficult to push it in, similar with second and 3rd, just not as bad

my dad did me a favor and bought my supplies so i went ahead and changed out oil and filter, so we will see how that goes.

if that doesnt work....more money out of pocket i guess

 

Exactly where(as if looking under the hood from the front of the car) is the oil leak?