I get in my car this morning. some lights come on, all the lights in the cluster come on but i get nothing under the hood. i get some clicking behind the dash but nothing under the hood. I get a jump drive it to work which is about 5 miles down the road and turn if off then back on, nothing.

I get off work i get jumped, drive it home let it run for 15-20 minutes in the drive way turn it off and back on, nothing. I drive it to a shop, which was closed, drive to an auto parts store and realize even if i buy a battery its raining so hard at this point i cant change it so i drive home and turn it off. but this time i dont try to start it. i leave and come back around 12 tonight and i try it, comes right on.

Tomorrow morning could be a different story.
So what are some facts?

Can you drive a car with a bad battery or a bad alternator or which one can be bad but the other good and still run?
Can a batterys fuilds cause this? I do live in florida and this will be my second summer with the car and ive never changed or checked this battery and i bought the car used with 105k miles.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Well can you check if your battery is good? I'm thinking alternator, but doesn't make sense because you're able to run the car for a pretty long time. But if you jumped the car, it works. Hmmmm. I'm going for starter problems. Maybe the solenoid. (I had some clicking too) MAY be both.

I'm going 40% alternator and 20% starter. And maybe 40% on battery.

I'm not sure if you have Autozone there, but they do some starter and alternator checking.

Check out this site. http://www.econofix.com/alt.html

 

If you got a jump and it started, it's not your starter. Get a jump and start the car, then remove the neg. on the battery, if the cars stays running it's not the alternator, because at that point the cars getting its power from the alternator and not the battery. Good luck.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by R1Moon &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you got a jump and it started, it's not your starter. Get a jump and start the car, then remove the neg. on the battery, if the cars stays running it's not the alternator, because at that point the cars getting its power from the alternator and not the battery. Good luck.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Exactly. I think that its the alternator though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by R1Moon &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you got a jump and it started, it's not your starter. Get a jump and start the car, then remove the neg. on the battery, if the cars stays running it's not the alternator, because at that point the cars getting its power from the alternator and not the battery. Good luck.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Big NO NO. Do not disconnect the negative while engine is running. Feedback voltage to alternator field will be lost and will drive the alternator to max charging current. A good way to fry the alternator.

Get a digital meter and check the voltage at the battery terminals while engine is running. Voltage 13.5 - 14 Volts, alternator is working.

With engine OFF, disconnect battery terminals.
Measure voltage at the battery terminal. Voltage less than 12.0 , battery is dead.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AccordEX1991 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Big NO NO. Do not disconnect the negative while engine is running. Feedback voltage to alternator field will be lost and will drive the alternator to max charging current. A good way to fry the alternator.

Get a digital meter and check the voltage at the battery terminals while engine is running. Voltage 13.5 - 14 Volts, alternator is working.

With engine OFF, disconnect battery terminals.
Measure voltage at the battery terminal. Voltage less than 12.0 , battery is dead.


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HAHAH thanks man im glad i didnt get up early to test this or i would have so pulled off that negative. Im proibably gonna take it to a little mom pop shop down the street and have them test it and hopefully replace the battery.

 

Well the battery starts the car in, the alternator charges the battery and keeps the car running.


and Starters Can have intermittnent Starting, aka it can start one minute and not the other...

 

I took it to a alternator/battery mom pop shop and they tested both the alternator and the battery. The battery is charged, the alternator is charging the battery.

They said its probably the starter, $119 for the part and 87.50 for the labor.
How hard is it to change the starter? What kind of parts do i need. I really dont have $100 to spend on labor if i can do it myself.

I dont have many tools and my car is lowered so i cant get under it unless i jack it up. I dont even know where its located =/

1997 ex

 

the start is pretty easy to change. disconnect the negative terminal of the batter first. remove the wires from the starter and remove the 2 starter bolts. the starter is located on the front of the transmission, and it gets bolted to the bellhousing. Its right next to the engine code casting.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JDM_DC4_Fanatic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the start is pretty easy to change. disconnect the negative terminal of the batter first. remove the wires from the starter and remove the 2 starter bolts. the starter is located on the front of the transmission, and it gets bolted to the bellhousing. Its right next to the engine code casting.




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Do i need to take anything else out to get down there or get the starter out? Should i go to honda for this or can i just use an aftermarket starter still brand new?

 

anyone?

 

this shouldnt be that hard to change man, just get in there and see what needs to come out, probably has to come out

 

have you ever opened the hood of your car? Just look down, the starter will come out if you just too 2 seconds to go look at it. does it look like there is anything in the way in the pics? all thats there is the upper rad hose, and that can be pushed aside.......maybe you shouldent do this yourself

 

Yeah i do it quite often never paid attention to the starter. I did that as soon as i walked outside to my car and mine looks much different. I have 2 small pipes going across, and the radatior hose

 

thats just the air conditioning. Dont unbolt those lines, just navigate the starter between them. Its not a huge deal.

 

The first thing I would suspect is bad cables or grounds. Wire can corrode for several inches into the insulation. It will carry voltage, but only at low current. I would clean and sand all starter and battery connections and make sure that the wires don't have the black or green creep running up into the insulation. If you replaced the starter, you would have to remove and replace the connections at the starter. Then, if replacing the starter fixed it, you wouldn't really know whether just remaking the connections could have been the only problem.

Honda starters are tanks. Finishing up a clutch replacement on a 92 EX one evening I wired the starter solenoid backwards and called it a night. The next day I smelled something HOT. You could have melted solder on the starter case. Maybe not, but you couldn't touch it. I disconnected the battery, let it cool, wired it correctly and it started right up. That was in 2001 with 143,000 miles. It has 256,000 today with that same starter.

 

Well ive hop in it 10+ times today NO hesitance at all, all day to start it up. I had the battery and the alternator tested today and they were both fine. Im guessing corrosion or something beyond. Im not going to replace it until i see another problem. But when i experience something else like this im gonna try that starter but im still gonna clean the terminals just for safety measures.