Mother in laws 85 accord dies and will not idle when up to temp. Muffler is shot and exhaust pipe that leads to cat has a hole in it. Any advice for this newbee is apreciated.

 

check coolant temp sensor

 

ok so is it "hunting" (revs up and down) hondas are known to hunt try new plugs and wires (not hard to do yourself) that helped my crx with its idle problem and it also sound like she needs a new exhaust system

 

There's no coolant temp sensor unless it's an SEi model. 99% of the 85 Accords are Carb'd. Though it could be a thermovalve, the most likely culprit is a stuck choke. It's probably stuck shut, which is why it runs fine when cold. Take the air cleaner off and check and see if it is or not. Could be either siezed up in the carb which means you'll need to tear it apart and fix it, or the spring in the choke heater is broken, or the choke heater isn't getting any power. There's a 3 pin connector that goes to the carb, unhook it and make sure you're getting 12 volts on the "middle" pin (the only one that's different from the other two) when the key is turned on.

If it's stuck closed, you might also dry just dousing the choke with carb cleaner and manually moving it with your hand to try and free it... That's about all I can come up with.

 

Sorry for the post to a pretty old thread, but I've got a project Civic 1500 that has a similar sounding problem (the exhaust system seems pretty good though). I've done a bunch of troubleshooting on it already but was wondering where to start as far as likely sources of the problem.

Anyone could possibly help me narrow down my likely culprits?