Hi all,

I have a '92 Accord that I ended up driving through a fairly deep puddle with last night (8-12" deep I guess). As soon as I went through it the car started stumbling and running rough. After a half mile I pulled over to check it out and the engine died. I pulled the plugs and I'm not getting spark on any of them now. All the electronics in the car work (windows, AC fan, etc.), the starter will turn the engine over, and the fuel pump will prime when turning the key 'On'. The top of the motor is dry - plug wires, distribor, coil. Is there another area of the ignition system that could have gotten wet and is causing the coil/distributor/plugs not to fire? I am going to pick up the car on a trailer and get it back here so I can run through the checks on the coil and such, but I'm open to any ideas. Thanks!

 

I had a chance to check out the car tonight, and so far everything has checked out ok.

Plug wire resistances all ok
Coil to distrib wire resistance ok
Plugs have less than 1k miles - NGK Rs
Coil checks out ok with resistances
Engine compression is a ok
Battery charged up to 14 V

It has "dried" for two days, but still no spark. I can dig in to check the igniter and distrib, but I really don't think that is the problem. Is the four post pin that plugs into the coil what triggers it to "fire"? What other sensors besides the TDC/Crank sensor in the distrib does the car use? I believe the main relay is ok since the fuel pump primes and I can smell fuel on the plugs.

Ideas?

 

More checks: All fuses in the fuse box under the hood are ok. I pulled the codes from the ECM and it showed Code 15 which is listed as "Ignition Output Signal". The best I can tell from searching is this code means a disconnect with the signal power delivery to the Coil and/or igniter. I checked the coil and post A shows 10.9 volts when the ignition is turned 'On'. I will pull the distrib cap and check the supply voltage to the igniter, but if that shows ok I'll be scratching my head. Can anyone with a helms give any more info? Thanks again!

 

The Car Started!

Without doing anything the car fired up, but began to misfire more and more as the car started to warm up. Also, there was a whining/screeching noise coming from the distributor. I pulled the distrib cap off to check the igniter inputs and found that the cap o-ring had broken (original o-ring) and the inside of the cap was damp. I guess the water had gotten up in there and shorted out the igniter terminals perhaps. The rotor and contact points were also heavily corroded. All the input voltages to the igniter (NEC by the way) check out ok. Everything was cleaned with contact cleaner and reassembled and so far, so good! No more misfiring, so I'm off to go pick up a new o-ring and hopefully the car will be good to go.

Whoever is responsible for this site: http://techauto.bravehost.com/ deserves MAJOR kudos and thanks!!!

 

kudos to you for answering your own questions!

 

Thanks for the report even though I didn't know what to suggest in reading your problem. Were you driving through the water really fast? How did the moisture get up there?

 

Lol, thanks.

I was running 30 or so when I nailed the small lake in the road. I guess the water must have splashed up onto the motor and found its way into the distrib through the broken o-ring. It was broken into multiple pieces, so it probably wasn't too hard for it to get in there. Anyway, if nothing else maybe this will help someone else!