Gather 'round kids. CX-Adam has another story to tell about why he shouldn't be let near a car.

1997 Civic CX
D16Y7
No mods.
230k miles
No MIL/CEL

I think I either have a bad CKF/TDC/CYP sensor or my mechanical timing is off. Since there's no MIL, I think it might be the timing.

Over the course of the last two weeks, I've been trying to fix an issue I was having with hesitation during acceleration. This happened to me before and it was always corroded distributor components. I checked the plugs this time, too. This is where my problems started.

I was able to get three plugs out. The 4th was seized. So, I regapped three of the plugs and cleaned the contacts in the distributor. This nearly fixed the hesitation problem but there was still the occasional hesitation. I drove it like this for a week. At the start of the second week, I parked the car and let the seized plug soak in various types of penetrating oil over the course of a week while continuously checking if it freed up. I finally broke it loose with an impact driver (the kind you smack with a hammer) and, over the course of an hour or longer, I still managed to pull the threads out of the head as I slowly worked it back and forth on its way out.

Bought a spark plug helicoil repair kit and helicoiled a new one in (while the head was still on the car). Heavy grease captured seemingly all shavings but I still vacuumed and blew out the cylinder. The helicoil would NOT separate from the new plug I used to install it so I didn't stake it in place. Rather, I "torqued" it to TAF spec because the engine has 230k miles on it. I won't be removing them again. After letting the high temp RTV set for 24 hours, the car started, ran very rough, and died in a matter of a few seconds. Now, it will not start.

The car isn't even trying to fire. It's cranking fine. The battery is new (~2 months) and I've a charger on it. But, there's no feeling or sound like it's almost catching. All I can hear and feel is the starter.

Spark

1. I've spark. Spark jumps the gap on my plug tester when I've got it on the wires.
2. Plugs are new NGK ZFR5F-11
3. Wires measure less than 6kOhms (NGKs)
4. The distributor cap and rotor points are clean (OEM)
5. Using a test light grounded to the body, I can pull the tip over an inch from the Ignition Coil and the spark jumps between the coil and my test light.
6. The test light flickers when it's on the negative terminal of the ignition coil while being grounded to the body (good ICM)
7. I didn't do the steps to test the ICM because they're continuity and voltage tests. Seems like if one of those were to fail, the coil wouldn't have functioned and the light wouldn't have flickered in the previous step.

Spark Timing

1. The manual says the TDC/CKF/CYP plugs should have between 350 and 700 Ohms of resistance between various sets. I've ~330 for all. This was suspiciously close so I checked my multimeter against some resistors I've in the house and it measured within their build tolerance. So, I'm pretty sure the multimeter is fine.
2. The Helm manual says to check for a short in the distributor by checking for continuity to ground and, there's no continuity in the distributor plug (opposite C120) where there shouldn't be.
3. I haven't done the testing on the ECU side of the wiring.
4. I don't have a spare ECU to test.
5. I MIGHT be able to get a spare distributor to test but, not likely. No one I know works on cars.

Fuel

1. Main relay clicks
2. Fuel pump primes
3. Twice we poured a bit (1 - 2 tbsp) of fuel into the TB and the car still didn't start.
4. Haven't checked the ground signal to the injectors
5. Haven't checked the continuous 12V to the injectors
6. Fuel filter was replaced last year.

Air
Didn't touch any hoses or parts that would have affected gaskets. Prior to the work, the rough running was only during acceleration when the throttle position changed (opened). Weak spark was getting blow out by rush of air/fuel. Besides, I drove the car for a week after cleaning up the distributor and regapping the three plugs I could remove. Pretty sure air is fine and I've no vacuum leaks.

Mechanical Timing
The only other thing I can think of is my timing belt may have jumped when the car shook after starting? I've no idea why it ran so rough to begin with, though. It was fine the day before. I've no service record for the timing belt. I've put 130k miles on the car. Tomorrow is supposed to be 10F warmer so I haven't checked this, yet.

Compression
Haven't checked. When I was working on getting the 4th plug out, I started the car several times with only three cylinders. So, even if I didn't remove all the metal shavings, it should still run.

Thoughts?

 

Remove the head valve cover and upper timing belt cover.

There are timing marks on the rear side of the cam gear. Turn the crank pulley counterclockwise (only) until rear cam timing marks align perfectly with the top of the head. Next, look down at the crank pulley to determine whether the pointer on the lower timing belt cover also aligns perfectly with the white TDC1 mark on the crank pulley.

If this^ is fine, compression test the cylinders, which requires removal of the spark plugs again.

 

Thanks, Ron.

You're thinking it's timing, too, huh?

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Should I be worried about the low resistance between the distributor plug points?

 

Timing or compression

Not sure what test you are referring to here^, but you don't seem to have a spark problem.

 

what color is the spark? with the readings being so close to the bottom end of spec, coupled with the fact that you've had presumably water intrusion? (corroded points) in the distributor, i lean towards it being the issue.

 

The second step of the trouble shooting the Crankshaft Position/Top Dead Center/Cylinder Position Sensor procedure in the Helm Manual. PDF page 441. Doc page 11-172 of the 96-00 manual.

The problem is, the first step that leads to it is "is there MIL code x/y/z present"? and I don't have a MIL. So, I'm not sure if this is even applicable.




Yellow'ish is what I'm told. I was in the car cranking for this step. The spark from the coil was able to reach over an inch, though. Usually that means the spark is strong. My cap fouls out fast and it's been this way for a while. Even with OEM parts and gaskets. I can't figure out why.


Anyways, I got the VC off and found TDC. Looks like it's ok. If it's off, it's only a tooth off. Pops is coming over. We're going to look at it.

 

yellow is not awesome. distributors fail with no MIL, happens all the time.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll double check the spark.

 

To verify the absence of a distributor sensor circuit CEL code, crank the engine for 30 seconds and then hook up a code reader to look for a hard or pending code. If no code is found, my recommendation would be that you move to checking the mechanical timing and cylinder compressions.

 

Correct

If the cam and crank marks align perfectly at TDC1, then move to the compression test.

 

Ended up being the Igniter Coil. It must have been just enough out of spec.

Engine might be fubar, though. Even though I vacuumed and used a magnet, a piece of the tap was still in the cylinder. Got it out but the car still ran rough. Compression might be gone... I'll post pics I took with my horoscope later...

 

I guess I only saved one pic and it's kinda blurry...

 

Cheater bar, impact driver, and hammer used to break the plug loose.

After and hour of SLOWLY working the plug out in order to not damge the threads. Look. At. Those. Threads.

the tap needs a 19mm socket. A 16mm socket is all that fits down the plug tube. Enter the grinder.

What. The. Hell. How did this happen while tapping aluminum? Theory, I used heavy grease to lubricate the cut. That grease caught the shavings. The shaving built up in the reliefs and boom.

Sucked out the junk. Also used a magnet. Also used compressed air. Also checked with a bororscope. Didn't matter.

 

in field experience can sometimes trump the fsm. on a crank no start 92-00 honda, i almost always start with the distributor. good to hear it was a simple fix.

 

One possibility is that you killed the coil by forcing spark to jump an inch to ground and that the initial starting problem was low compression in one or more cylinders.

It's best to check spark using a fresh properly gapped spark plug. Spark should be bright white using the latter method.

 

Aaaaaaaand the head is dead. She's only running on three cylinders. 90psi in Cylinder 1. Cylinder 1 Misfire code. That little bit of the broken tap must have bent a valve or marred the seating surface...

fack.catgif.gif

On the plus side, it looks like a head with a cam from a bone yard is less than $100 and the weather this coming weekend is warmer. I should be able to limp it to a garage. IF the exhaust studs don't give me too much trouble it should be an easy enough job.

 

it is. hardest part is removing that idiotic intake manifold brace and middle manifold nut.

 

Any pro tips?

 

middle nut- remove with 12mm wrench from the top, suggest a 12 point to grab at multiple angles. bracket- remove, don't bother to reinstall. i've had mine off for years, no issues.

 

I would think this would make it harder to clean everything out. Less likely to get grease coated shaving to blow/vacuum out of cylinder.

I personally believe an oil (cutting oil or 30 weight 3 in 1 oil etc) would have been better and been more successful at cleanout. Even then skeptical of the ability for the tools at hand to get the metal out.

Also, isn't the head aluminum so non magnetic metal shavings from thread cutting?

 

The instructions called for a heavy grease. If I were to do it again, I'd use a cutting oil/motor oil. I didn't/don't care if some shavings are left behind. I'd imagine they'd get blown out the cylinder on the exhaust stroke. It's not like leaving shavings in the oil system where they'd get between bearings.

If the car didn't already have more than 230k miles on it, I would have pulled the head and done it right. If the tap hadn't broke, I'd be fine.

Yeah, but the magnet was for the piece of the broken tap. I didn't realize it was broken until after I cleaned it out over my trash can. When nothing came out I assumed I had vacuumed it up or it had been captured by the grease and was somewhere at the bottom of the can hanging out with banana peels. Also, I could only see about 70% of the piston with the boroscope. There wasn't a way to get it in there and rotate it to see the rest because of the confined plug tube and its angle.

Once I heard the tapping, I made a little sweeper tool and spun it around with my drill. After several attempts, the broken piece was finally near the intake side of the piston and I could see/grab it with the magnet.

What a fiasco...

 

Would be wise to do a leak down test before removing head so that you know where cylinder 1 is losing compression.

What were the compression numbers for the other three cylinders? This information along with the cylinder 1 PSI gives you a sense of the general health of your engine.

 

Got the bone yard head on and she's purring like a kitten.

Will post pictures later.

 

 

Took about 4 hours. That included a second trip to the parts store to get the correct IM gasket. Scraping the old IM gasket off the bone yard head was probably the most time consuming task. I also made sure to pull the plugs that came in the head before installing.