Pls help. my 14 yr old now is stalling, shakes and dies after Galpin Honda worked on replacing valve cover gasket and distributor o-ring due to their claim that there were leaks. I brought in my car for a routine oil change and even tho' it's old, it's a very well maintained car.
Now the RPM needle is way below 1 and will die ..what do you think was done to my car..$345.00 my good car is sick
thanks for any help
PS- i brought back but was told that all are functioning as designed...BS!

 

Check the PCV valve and the valve cover breather hose. They both have to be removed to change that gasket. If they forgot to replace and or damaged those parts, it can easily cause your described symptoms.

Good luck!

 

It might need a simple valve adjustment ASAP or you burn the valves(which will be costly)

Or your head on the motor is damaged so a valve adjustment will not work remedy your issues.

 

+1 on the valves causing these kind of issues over time. Based on OPs description, it seems that it was running fine, then got returned by the dealership running like crap. Valves would not change that quickly, unless the stealership borked something up under the cover . In that case you might have a big fight on your hands!

Hopefully it is something easy like I previously mentioned.

 

thanks for the info...i am scared now to bring it back to that dealer as they may not do anything and claimed they did or worse, do something else to make matter worse..

 

i sent letter to service dept of galpin honda and now the svc dept mgr kept calling me trying to get me to bring my car back but i cannot afford their pricey labor in case they will claim that it's another problem causing my car to stall...thank you all for the replies

 

Screw the dealership, it looks like they messed up your car to begin with, so they are in no position to fix it. If you can't do the diagnostics or repairs yourself, I would try to find a trustworthy local shop. Look on Yelp, or better yet, ask family and friends. Someone is bound to know a good shop. You will most likely get better service, and definitely cheaper labor rates.

Believe it or not, there are still places that don't try to screw you over, but you have to track them down!

 

I think the problem will be with the distributor not being re installed correctly, when i did the distributor 0 ring my self i marked the dist. with a sharpie so it would go back in same way it came out, so the ignition timing would be the same.

I suggest that you check the ign. timing with a timing light, and i think that will solve your problem.

 

I agree they dorked up the re-install of the distributor! YD

 

It has nothing to do with the PCV valve. If you take the PCV off of the valve cover your idle will soar. If it's clogged, your car will still run fine with it and all of the pressure will find a different route out.

If your idle is low, and you don't want to bring it in again...I'd first try advancing your idle. You can do so by loosening the bolts that hold the distributor, and rotating the distributor towards the firewall. Do small increments at a time. This should up your revs in some cases. If that doesn't work, there's an idle adjustment screw located on your throttle body. You can try adjusting that to increase your idle.

Hopefully you've already checked to see if your spark plugs, spark plug wires, etc are still good. These can cause rough/erratic idle like what you're experiencing.