Background:

A buddy of mine who owns a 97 DX Coupe with stock engine decided he wanted to spruce up his engine bay a bit, so I offered to lend a hand. Basically, this meant that I'd do it for him. He is not mechanically savy, mind you.

Basically what I did was paint his valve cover and both heat shields with high temp engine paint. When all parts were put back on, he decided he wanted the distributor cleaned up to match. I advised him that we should not get into another project we didn't have time for (it was getting dark).

While I was upstairs in my kitchen heating up the headlights in the oven to pull the orange plastic peices out, he decided to sand the distributor down. When he wasn't satisfied with the look, he took the distrib. cap off and proceeded to unbolt the distributor. I freaked when I saw what he did, so I bolted the distributor back on and screwed the cap back on. Now, he calls me today telling me his car stalls. His friend who knows just as much about cars as he does told him it was because the valve cover and gasket were taken off and put on wrong. him.

Question Is:

What could he have messed up other than the timing?

I have never used a timing light before and I am a little intimidated by the whole process. My buddy says all he did was take off the cap, unbolt the distributor and tried pulling on it to get it off. When it wasn't coming off easily, he pushed it back.

I hate when helping people who know nothing end up making their car's problems your problems after you were under the hood.


[Modified by Lynx, 12:45 PM 7/31/2002]

 

he probably did mess up his timing. the probably retarded the timing when he unbolted the bolts and rotated it forward

 

I think your buddy put the distributor on 180 degrees backwards. Its only meant to go one way, so the tooth is slightly moved to one side. Make sure the distributor goes on and off smoothly and not forced into the cam.

 

Is there any way I am going to be able to fix this without using a timing light?

Reason is, I don't have one and I am penniless right now.

Can I just try to line the distributor to where it was better. When I bolted it back up, I noticed that I didn't put it on exactly where it was previously (from the the markings on the bolts).

 

first slap the riceboy around few times

then take a look at the distributor again, make sure that no damage occured to the rotor or the cap. if all is good then check if the connections between the wires and cap are fine, if so then, check the connections between the harness and distributor...then check the timing, leave it around the middle, so it doesn't retard the timing or advance it too much.

 

Sounds like he advanced or retarded the timing. If the dist. was in 180 backwards, i don't think the car would run at all (it happened to me once during a rebuild it'll turn over but won't fire up) If he's eager enough to get his car running the way its supposed to, he'll find the money for a timing gun.

...and then smack him a few more times .

Using a timing light isn't that hard - an inductive timing light is better but conductives will be ok...

http://www.sears.com/sr/product/summ...id=00921023000

http://www.sears.com/sr/product/summ...id=00902137000


[Modified by jugadro, 9:15 PM 7/31/2002]


[Modified by jugadro, 9:19 PM 7/31/2002]

 

 

the distributor in the later hondas CANNOT go in 180 off...the way the teeth are offset it just won't go...he(you) would've broken the ears off of the distributor tightening it down.

 

The distributor was not put on wrong. It never came off the car.

My friend is coming over tonight for me to look at it after he gets out of work.

I'm going to try and line the distributor up better. I did not put it on exactly were it should have went.

Man, after this: No more helping other people with their f#@*ing precious cars. I'll stick to working on my own, because I won't freak out when something goes wrong.

Thanks for the help fellas.

 

he retarded it too much.

 

I think you should let him figure it out himself- obviouslly he did not need your help to take it off.

100% he put it back on fully retarded (both dist. and operator)

later

matt

 

LOL. That's good stuff. I am in a little better spirits now. He came over tonight and pretty much took blame for the situation, which was sort of put on me initially.

Only because I like to learn things first hand, I am borrowing my brothers timing light and I will be attempting to fix this problem tomorrow.

Thanks again.

 

What is the correct timing on a 97 DX engine?

I don't know the stock engine code off hand so a search did little.

 

If he hasn't painted the car or put an aftermarket hood on it, (or swapped the engine out) some car manufacturers (i'm not sure about honda - yet) have the stock timing degrees printed on a sticker along with correct spark plug gap sizes. The stickers are usually somewhere in the engine compartment, but i've worked on some cars that heve it on the same sticker with the paint cades in the door jamb.

 

Thx. I found the timing in a different post, but I looked under the hood prieviously. No sticker cause he has banged up this car more than a $5 *****. I think the hood has been replaced once or twice.

 

UPDATE:

I know nobody really cares, but if it were somebody elses problem, I would like to know what the solution was just so I'd know what to look for if it happened to my car.

I borrowed my brother's timing light yesterday and spent two full hours trying to time the damn car!!!! Mind you, I have never used a timing light before, but I had the thing figured out in 5 minutes. For some reason the red timing mark wasw bouncing all over the place. The only time I could get it to stay still was when the timing was fully advanced. Even thought the mark was staying still, it was not even close to being where it should be. After all of this ****, I gave up and advised my friend to take it to a mechanic. I thought I was way in over my head here.

Well, today he picks his car up only to find out that the wires were causing the problem the whole time. When my friend bought wires for his car, he bought the ceapest set he could find. It turns out that the cheapo American made wires are not long enough for Hondas even though they were made for the car. The wires were not making full contact with the plugs, which was causing the timing mark to bounce all over the place when I was attempting to time the car. Turns out that I timed the car perfectly even with the wires and plugs all fouled up. It ended up costing my friend $175 for parts and labor. Ouch!

The MORAL of the STORY is:

Don't buy American made wires. Stick with the Japanese companies like Denso or NGK.