All suggestions needed. Please help. Car all of a sudden died on the freeway. Car cranks but won't turn over. I could hear the fuel pump priming, plus it's only 1 year old, so it can't be the fuel pump or the main relay. Yes there is gas so it can't be empty tank. New spark plugs and wires. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

check the ignition module .
take off the number one plug wire , put a screw driver in the spark plug boot , hold it close to a bolt , have someone turn the ignition , if you dont see spark , id replace the module.

mine did the same thing a few months ago.

goodluck!

 

I second that...igniter inside distributor is a known weak spot for the 88-91 civic and CRX.Could be coil but usually not.Also,the screw that holds the rotor to the distributor are prone to backing out which will cause a no start condition.

 

I actually thought is was the cap and rotor so I decided to change that. While taking it off I noticed that the rotor was bad and also part of it was melted so I couldn't access the screw. So I decided to change the whole distributor, distributor cap, and rotor.

Any other ideas?

 

Well, you only need 3 things for a car to run. Fuel, spark, air. Make sure you have spark first. Then move on to fuel, I have worked on a couple of customers cars that you "heard" the pump prime but in reality it wasn't. It was turning on but not pumping anything. Go to your local parts store and buy yourself a cheap fuel pressure gauge, see what the psi is when you are priming it, and see what it is when you are trying to start it.

 

As stated, check for spark and fuel. If those are good, check the timing belt.

 

I'm glad someone mentioned the timing.That was gonna be my input (mechanical timing) and make sure you put your ignition timing right.

 

If the timing belt is messed up, will it still crank?

 

Yes. Do you know what model engine you have?

 

1.5 liter

 

Easiest way to check the timing belt without removing the cover is to remove the oil fill cap and watch for movement in the valvetrain while a helper is turning the engine over.

No movement = broken timing belt

Movement = timing belt is intact but still may have jumped time so check timing at TDC

 

Any other suggestions???....bump

 

Thanks for all the replies. I finally figured it out. It was a combination of a bad distributor and timing belt. Changed the distributor and timing belt, timed it and started right up.

 

Good deal!

 

nice work