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Hey y’all. I’m looking for some help with an issue I’m having.
I bought my 99 Civic LX roughly a year ago as my first car. I had an incident where my top radiator hose burst on the highway. Later on I was having issues with coolant loss. I ended up having the engine head resurfaced, gasket replaced, timing belt and water pump, hoses replaced, etc. Ran great for a while. I thought all was good until recently.My problem now is that the car will (sometimes) crank but not start. It seemed to be random until I noticed a pattern.
1. Wake up, start the car 2-3 times. Starts fine.
2. Drive a few miles to get everything to warmed up.
3. Start the car immediately after driving. Starts fine.
4. Wait 30m-1hr or so, try to start the car again. This is when it will not start. It cranks and sputters.So it seems that only once everything heats up that the car cranks but wont start. I can hear the fuel pump priming, and it still does the same thing when starter fluid is used so I doubt it’s a fuel issue. No issues with rough idling / stalling when I’m driving. Once it starts it runs smooth. Took the car to the mechanic and he could not find any codes.
I’m not a car person but my boyfriend is. We’ve done so many different things to try to fix it already. I’m very frustrated and am getting to the last straw. I also don’t have the money to keep throwing parts at the car. Here’s what we’ve done so far:
-Replaced the ignitor (ICM), rotor, coil, cap, spark plugs, wires. At this point he thought it was the sensors inside of the distributor.
-Swapped out the distributor with another 99 civic. No change.
-Replaced coolant temperature sensor, every filter, oil change.
-I’ve checked the main relay. Solders look okay. (If the main relay was issue, wouldn’t the fuel pump not prime?)
-Fuses look okay.Recently we’ve been smelling coolant when we try to start it. I thought it was just residuals from flushing the cooling system to replace the sensor. My boyfriend assures me it’s not. He checked if it was blowing smoke but it wasn’t. Could this be another problem with the gasket / engine head / block?
The mechanic said he can take it in next week and check over his work. If it’s something we can fix ourselves I’m willing to try it.Sorry if I got anything wrong. I’m a lady who doesn’t know much about this.
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seeing you tried starter fluid and it did not start. I would check spark.
see if this link helps further. I was going to suggest checking for injector
pulse but the starter fluid would have made it start or sputter.https://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-automotive-no-start-problems
The first thing you need is a reliable method to reproduce the problem. That’s the only way to diagnose and know you’ve fixed the problem.
If you just start the car, put it in neutral, and let the engine rev at ~2K rpm until the fan comes on (it does come on, right?), then stop the engine, are you able to reproduce the cranking no start?
What I’m getting at is to isolate the cause. The procedure you outlined involves driving, which could be a factor. You can rule out many extraneous factors by trying the above procedure.
Assuming you still get the cranking no start, you’ll need a direction. The easiest thing to check is fuel pressure. You can rent a gauge from auto parts stores for free. Be sure it works, though.
Assuming you have the expected fuel pressure, the next thing I’d check is mechanical timing given that the timing belt was replaced. A timing belt with an off-by-one condition can exhibit symptoms similar to those you’re reporting:
This is not a simple procedure because it involves pulling the valve cover and replacing it. But it’s the only way I know to conclusively rule out mechanical timing on this vintage Civic. And a situation in which the belt is improperly tensioned could cause mechanical timing to be off under higher temperature.
A somewhat easier direction might be spark. Buy an inexpensive spark tester and make sure you’re getting spark at the coils under your cranking no start condition.
Another easy direction would be compression. It may be the best direction of all given that it’s an easy test to do and especially given the previous head work. Are you getting consistent compression at the right level across all cylinders? If not, follow up with a leak down test.
Finally, when you do get the car to start after the cranking no start, how do you do it? What do you see, smell, or hear when the engine finally starts?
So in the morning I went out to start the car and this time it wouldn’t start, so it really is intermittent. The bf said we could check for spark and fuel pressure later on when he got home. A few hours later we go to check the spark but the car was starting normally. We’ll try again when we can and I’ll keep you guys posted.
We did a quick check for fuel pressure by following this video:
And my car sprayed fuel everywhere.
Civvy, I was able to start the car and had it at 2k for at least 15min. The car heated up but the fan never came on. I’m being told that it does turn on eventually. I’ve been driving it around when the car does start though and I’ve never had it overheat. It’s been a few months since the head gasket was replaced and it hasn’t overheated since, but this whole issue came up a few weeks ago. I did have to top off the coolant yesterday after driving it.
Also, after running it at 2k for a while I shut it off and started it again. it sputtered but was able to start. The thing is that it never stalls like in the video you provided, it’s just the start.If it cranks but doesn’t start I’ll try a few more times and then come back to it in an hour or so, since I’m not sure how bad it is to keep trying to starting it. Usually it sputters for a few seconds before coming to life. Other times it is instant after I turn the key. It seems to turn on instantly with cold starts and sputter once it’s warm.
Every time it’s been starting I’ve smelled the coolant as well. When I went to see if the fan was running, i saw some faint white smoke coming from the front end but I couldn’t see exactly from where. Again, I keep my eye on the temp and no problems there.Do you think I should have the exact fuel pressure measured even after the quick test? If I can’t get my hands on a fuel pressure gauge (and a compression gauge) before next week then I can have the mechanic check it out since he will be looking at the gasket as well as the timings.
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