Car refuses to start

JHMEG

Hoping someone can help me out here!

Coming in the new M4 on Friday past Kinnegad, and the engine suddenly loses power. Drift over to the hard shoulder, come to a stop, and the engine cuts out. It hasn't started since. The starter motor turns it over fine, and there is 3/4 of a tank of petrol in it. It just won't fire.

Here is what I've checked/done etc:

1. Spark: took out all 4 plugs, put them back in their leads and earthed them off the valve cover, and turned on the ignition. They all spark fine (seems to be a blue spark). However, and this is a weird one: my mate's Draper inductive timing light won't pick up a spark on any of them, even tho they are all sparking when out. I don't know if his light is crap or the spark is weak (tho the light works fine on his MR2)

2. Main relay. Is ok, but re-soldered all joints, just in case.

3. Fuel pump/filter: disconnected the fuel line exiting the fuel filter. Fuel squirts out when the main relay turns on the pump.

4. Took off the valve cover and put #1 at TDC. The crankshaft pulley wheel timing notch lines up pretty much 100% with the timing mark on the timing belt cover. My understanding is that even if the belt had slipped one tooth the car would probably still run, just badly.

5. Checked the resistance on the coil in the distributor. Primary resistance is within spec but secondary is reading 11K Ohms. According to the manual it should read 12.8K to 19.2K (I think, not sure if the manual is correct).

6. I don't have a compression tester so I can't check that, tho the car didn't overheat or run out of oil etc, so I have no reason to suspect a serious problem like that.

Can anyone tell me if points 1 and/or 5 indicate a bad coil, or should I start going deeper into the distributor (rotor etc looks fine), at the ignitor and/or the ICM?

Or am I missing something?

The battery is (still) good, and I have let the engine dry out over night as it was flooded from failed attempts to start.

The car is a 1991 Integra XSi, B16A engine, ~205k kms on the clock. Timing belt done about 9 months ago at 191k.

Roy16

hint, hint.......Call a Mechanic:D

greglo23

the bearing in the distributor gives trouble in hondas with high mileage so thats the first thing i'd check. see if theres any side to side movement on the rotor shaft.

JHMEG

greglo23, I'll check that out in daylight. I'm aware alright that the Honda distributors do wear out with age/mileage, but I haven't checked for play on the rotor.

What I'd really like to know tho is: if the timing light not working, even tho there's spark, indicate the spark isn't strong enough?

JHMEG

greglo23, you were spot on. The bearing is gone, and the heat melted the rotor!

greglo23

thanks for the feedback! i've heard its possible to fit a new bearing to these distributors so it might work out cheaper. best of luck anyway !!

AMurphy

JHMEG wrote:

greglo23, you were spot on. The bearing is gone, and the heat melted the rotor!

Interesting; also, seems like the rotor rotated on the shaft when molten, hence the trigger and the arm moved out of phase.

Why did you get a spark when the plugs were out, etc.
normal atmospheric air and compressed air/fuel mix have very different conduction characteristics and breakdown voltages. Thus it is possible to get a very weak spark outside the cylinder and no spark inside the cylinder.

JHMEG

I was still getting a spark as the rotor is intact, just in the wrong place. Hence the timing is retarded by about 80 degrees (the amount the rotor has moved).

With the timing out by that much it wouldn't matter if I was getting a spark, as the cylinders would have been no-where near TDC on the compression stroke.

AMurphy

Exactly. That's what I mean by the trigger and arm (ie the metal piece on the tip of the rotor) being out of phase.

edit; Would be more correct to say the Arm/Rotor was out of phase with the Cam/Crank