cold weather no start

[Dean Bibby]

2004 Honda CR-v Has a new battery and cranks fast enough at -17 deg. C. Has started at -27 deg. C. Changed spark plugs in the fall.
It fires occasionally but no start. Where should I begin to trouble shoot and what path from there please?
Thanks;
The patient Northerner.

Topic

[college man]

Your a crank no start. seeing when its cold it wont start, check for fuel. You may
have water in your gas and the line is freezing. If no fuel pressure or if it runs on
starter fluid you may need some dry gas to melt the ice.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/no-start-faq/solving-automotive-no-start-problems

[Dean Bibby]

Success! Just 5 attempts at ether spray and cranking and the dry gas was up to the combustion chamber. I though it would take a lot longer than that! It snowed all day yesterday and all night giving us about ten inches of nice cold dry powder snow. I think you can guess where I’m going now. Yup out to play in the snow with the 04 CR-V!

[college man]

So I take it the line was frozen?

[Dean Bibby]

Well it could be only part of the problem. It won’t start at even ten bellow C degrees unless the block heater is plugged in to heat the oil.That’s not really very cold! A healthy ignition system will start a 2.4 Lt. at as low as 30 degrees C below zero. This is an 11 year old ignition system and we’ve had three hard winters with temps down to 45 degrees below zero. That’s got to be hard on all electronics. I think I have a weak spark at two or more of the plugs, so since they are new I’m going to start at the coils and check back to the igniter. What do you think? does this sound like a reasonable approach?

[Author]

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