I have been doing a diagnosis on a 93 accord 10th anniversary Edition. It had been parked for about 10-13 years due to an intermittent stall when warm at idle or moving slow. It would always start right up and drive well at speed. I drove it a few times and it ran well until it cut off. So in the diagnosis I put in a new battery and re-soldered the main relay, cleaned IACV, checked for fuel, jiggled the key while running... You know the normal stuff. No change really, maybe ran a bit better until it would warm up and die at idle. Someone had been down this road almost all of it was replaced and looked new including distributor, wires, NGK Rs. So I checked spark it was good I checked injector power at the IACV plug it was over 12volts. Here's where I F-ed up I went to check the injector pulse. I didnt have a test light handy so I hooked the multimeter to the + battery terminal and unhooked the #3 injector plug and put the other lead on the signal wire. I told my wife to start it up. It just clicked loudly on the starter and all the dash lights died no power like the battery cables were no good. They are and the battery is 12.5volts. I hooked the injector back up but no dice. If you unhook the battery and hook it back up the dash lights will come back on and you will have power until you try to crank it and then it all shuts back off. I am afraid that the meter didn't put any resistance on the signal wire like a test bulb would and I smoked the ECU or maybe shorted the resistor box. That is fine by me I will replace it but I don't want to if that isn't the issue. It didn't hurt the meter and I cant find any blown fuses? So what do you guys think? Where should I start? That was today and I haven't done any further testing as I was quite dejected so I just went to the river and took a walk... Any help or info would be most appreciated. I know many will say battery is bad battery connection, those are good car has been starting great.. Ignition switch, I dont think its that either. This happened all at once. I feel that I did it. The car has always cold cranked and ran great?

 

Actually, your original driving and then cutting off sounds like an ECU as well. Also sounds like it oculd be the coil in the distributor.

I presume you've gone back and checked all the fuses again after the incident?

 

Thank you for the reply 99stockcivic. So it was a bit of a false alarm. I went out there today and removed the ECU opened it up to check for bad or burned joins swolen caps etc. (I build guitar and music electronics on youtube) I couldn't see or smell anything wrong. Checked all the fuses again they looked ok... before trying to crank the car while the dash lights were on I went through and tested for power on all the fuses and everything checked out but still clack and no more power when trying to crank. I put the steering wheel to the left and turned the engine over with a socket and I heard the starter bendix clack and go back in. It still did the same so I popped it back in again and beat the tar out of the starter with a wrench and it fired right up. I let it run till warmed up it went dead again and it threw a code 15 so I guess it appears to be either the igniter or the coil. I think I will try coil first since everything inside the distributor appeared to be new. Hell even the ECU tray had yellow writing of 93 accord on it and looked almost brand new. So I think the last guy had just thrown the parts at this thing like a dart board. The coil though looks to be original.

 

A bad starter woudn't explain driving and randomly stopping the car, only startup issues.

A bad coil, distributor, injector harness, ECU, etc would have to be in play for a stop to occur while driving. Or the ignition.

You mention turning the steering wheel, could there be a short in the steering column, some wires has gotten worn through?

 

Oh I am fully aware that the starter didn't cause the original intermediate stalling condition that I was in the process of diagnosing. It just happened to occur when I was checking injector pulse so I was tricked into thinking I had somehow shorted the ecu or killed the resistor box. As soon as it was unstuck I was able to continue the diagnosis. At that point I ran the car until the intermediate stall happened again and put in a jumper and it flashed a code 15 (ignition signal failure). I turned the wheel to the left so I could get to the crank bolt, but I straightened it back up and it didn't work at first it took beating the starter to crank it. I don't think the wiring in the column or the ignition switch is causing the problem because you can jiggle the key and turn the wheel all you want when its running or not running and it makes no difference. I still have power to the injectors, fuel pump and at the black power wire going into the coil under the no start condition. What I did was order a coil as the distributor looks to have been replaced by the previous owner. I am not discounting any of them at this time but I think my findings have pointed me to the coil or igniter. If neither of those do the trick I will have to look into ecu and ignition switch. The freak accident of the starter jamming up right when I was checking injector pulse is all that threw me off. I can usually diagnose a problem with a car very quickly. This is the only one that has ever taken more than 2 days to figure out but it was just because I stopped yesterday to regroup after it tricked me jamming the starter. That is why this is my first post ever. I am usually that guy that fixes things for people when the mechanic cant figure it out due to my knowledge of circuits and they also know I rebuild my own motors and have been buying fixing and flipping cars doing my own work since before I could drive. I was just looking for some advice but I needed to take a break and think about it and I figured out what happened and now I'm back on track. Thank you for the responses stockcivic. It seems no-one else was willing to lend a hand right away.

 

Well....you just never know who is around. But it does sound like you are on the right track. Something "central" is causing it and I think the coil makes sense as an item.

If you do find out what it is, just post it up, as it helps others who might be chasing similar items.

 

Thank you StockCivic. I will get her licked and when I do I will post the journey and post the final results as with those intermittent problems its just always a pain. Fine then not fine so you have to tackle one thing at a time after you finally get it to go into the condition. So time consuming... It seems to be multiple things off an on at this point so an ECM or wiring problem caused by rats may very well be the eventual answer. As of now I'm just waiting on parts to see what it is killing the ignition signal.