i was on the way to work one day and my car ('98 honda civic ex) overheated.. pulled off and let it cool down for about 20-30 mins. afterwards, i tried to start the car back up and it doesnt want to turn over. have tried testing to see if it gets spark and it does, the fuel lines arent clogged, it gets air... yet doesnt want to turn over and start. does anyone know what i could check on the car to see what might be the problem???? also i replaced the radiator and cap in the last 6 months. if u please shoot me a response

thanks TDO

 

How bad did it overheat? That might seem like a silly question but if the car overheated for too long you could have a sieged piston; I really hope that isn't your problem.

 

but the car tries to start and seems like it almost does now and then. anyway to check if thats the problem.. also a friend looked in the oil openign of the engine and says that the rods in there are moving.. he thought it might be the timing.. ????

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TheDamnedOne &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">but the car tries to start and seems like it almost does now and then. anyway to check if thats the problem.. also a friend looked in the oil openign of the engine and says that the rods in there are moving.. he thought it might be the timing.. ????</TD></TR></TABLE>

over heating typically leads to things such as Warped heads, melted internals, popped headgaskets. with all due respect, if the car won't start after over heating and it worked just fine before, chances are something pretty serious is [freak]ed.

 

If your car worked fine before it overheated then I think you are looking at a big problem. To answer your question, if your car cranks but wont turn over check the typical issues related to that scenario: spark plugs and wires, distributor, ignition coil, and fuel to name a few.

 

have checked most of the thigns i could think of and some or most friends thought of... some say it is due to my timing belt. others dont know. before it died on me sometimes i had to turn the key over 2 or 3 times. sometimes i didnt, to get it started. looking up and reading the hanes manuel, it referred back to the timeing belt.. its got 160K miles dang near and original timing belt

 

thanks for the input all, will have to try the ideas i havent tried yet.

-stupid broke down cars- LOL

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TheDamnedOne &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">have checked most of the thigns i could think of and some or most friends thought of... some say it is due to my timing belt. others dont know. before it died on me sometimes i had to turn the key over 2 or 3 times. sometimes i didnt, to get it started. looking up and reading the hanes manuel, it referred back to the timeing belt.. its got 160K miles dang near and original timing belt </TD></TR></TABLE>

If the timing belt failed, the head is most likely destroyed, and I've NEVER heard of over-heating destroying a timing belt of all things...

 

If the timing belt snapped the car wont even crank. But yeah, you were running on borrowed time with 160k miles on the original timing belt.

 

double check to see if its sparking b/c sometimes the distributor can fail at high tempetures i found out on my car when i tried to crank it after it overheated that igniter went out on it and i had to buy a new distributor and it fired right after that but i can tell you right now hondas dont just break badly when they over heat its usually something small unless you ran it real hot for a long time then yes you could of messed something up but think about it if you broke a rod or something your going to kno it you would of heard it for one and you could tell when you started to crank your car plus it would be jerking heavy but i would check all your electrical its possible you fired something when you were that hot but it is defently not your timing

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mechanix619 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If the timing belt snapped the car wont even crank. But yeah, you were running on borrowed time with 160k miles on the original timing belt. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Oh no, it'd still turn over (starter would be spinning the flywheel), but it wouldn't even fire, and would probably have a wonderful sound.