Hi there, first time here at the forum but I hope to use it frequently from here on out.

I'm having some worries with my car 96 Honda Accord EX 2.2L I4.

On my way to work this morning I was waiting for a light and the car stalled out for seemingly no reason. After multiple attempts to turn it back over I successfully managed to get her roaring back to life... with smoke coming from under the hood. I can't tell if it was white or blue but it was wispy much like cigarette smoke. Now, I started to freak out a bit here, never experienced something like that before and my first thought was: "My engine is on fire..." Luckily that's not the case.

In my distress I changed the only thing that came to mind as to why the car stalled in the first place... and turned on the A/C. Now, I live in Southern FL and the A/C is on almost always, however with it getting to winter there's less need for it. I've been driving the past 2-3 days without using the A/C at all and then this.

When I turned on the A/C the smoke stopped almost immediately. Now, I could just be confusing cause/effect with coincidental timing but I wouldn't know for sure.

The only other issues I've had with the car is, when I got it from my father he warned me that, before I had a hold of it, the rings around the spark plugs would leak and oil would get burned up on them. I'm considering this might be the issue and that there may just be a new oil leak into the plugs which isn't a huge problem for me.

At this point I'm just not sure what it could be and I really do not have the cash to bring it to someone to get a diagnosis done and I'd rather get the opinion and wisdom of the members of this site.

Please let me know what may be the issue and if you have any more questions about the car please let me know and I'll answer right away.

TL;DR Car stalled, turned back on, white smoke from under hood, Turning on A/C made smoke go away, might be coincidental though. Thoughts?

 

Alrighty then, So I managed to get it home with everyone telling me it's the water pump, a friend of mine cam over and after some testing we discovered one of the heater hoses has a huge gaping hole in it, YIKES! This explains the smoke as the hole likely burst and put antifreeze all over my engine to burn up. Luckily the car seems to idle just fine before it starts to get warm so no worries of long term damage (yet).

So, I'm looking at prices and looking for my manual, but would anyone have a good idea of the best way to swap out the heater hose? My friends suggest pulling the intake manifold and (possibly) the distributor to get to it easily, the problem is we can't see where the other end of the hose goes to, (obviously the heater core but where the heck is that?)

I know my manual would let me know all of this but finding it in this house is a trial so if anyone has some quick tips it'd be much appreciated!

 

first thing you need to pull the hose. Time to learn the map of your engine.
The AC being on forced the fans to run helping cool the motor. You already know which hose it is, just follow it and get dirty.needle nose pliers are a must.
Your dad was talking about spark tube seals leaking. yes its common but also are able to replace the valve cover in the same job. and theres just about nothing on top of your motor to remove.

 

Sounds good, I found a video on the removal of the intake hose and how to get in toward the heater hose. I also notice as you stated that the other fan runs while the A/C does. I noticed that one of the fans doesn't spin no matter what. I'm assuming the motor on the fan burned out because the fuses are fine and the motor on the other fan had to be replaced recently as well. Now, I'd like to replace the motor to get it running, but I've seen some high power fan sets online for roughly the same price. Would it be best to just go with new fans or just replace the motor on the burnt out one?

 

Okay, so now I've got another issue. Looks like there's a small hole just above the water pump that slowly leaks out whatever I put into the radiator. I'm assuming this is supposed to be a sort of pressure release but I'm not 100% on this. What is it and what would I do to keep fluids from coming out of there? Note: It looks like there's a larger hole just below it, both are right next to the water pump.

 

Well, the water pump seals were bad anyway, so it looks like I had to take it in regardless. Thanks for all the help...