Car won't start
Asked by Sandarak6 Mar 12, 2017 at 08:28 PM about the 1997 Honda Civic EX
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
Okay so it turns over but won't start. The battery,
fuel pump, and distributor are all brand new. It first
happened about a week and a half ago. I drove it to
walmart and it showed no sign of distress. No
lights came on. Nothing. When I went to leave it
refused to start. Tried using a little bit of starter
fluid to get it going and it did nothing. But changing
the fuel pump made it run again. We could turn it
on but had to rev it up to keep it alive after first
starting it. Once going, it ran perfectly fine. Now
here we are again at square one. Pulled out the
distributor and there was a bunch of oil inside of it
So we replaced it. And there is still no change. I
can't get it to start. I'm at a loss. I have no idea
what else could be causing it
7 Answers
Check the engine compression, you may have a bad timing belt. The bad news if it is the timing belt is that all Honda engines are interference except 3.0L & 3.2 which are Non-interference engines.
So if it is the timing belt then I'm probably screwed and will have to drag it in to someone?
Okay. So how do I check to see if that is actually the problem? (Sorry, I am pretty car stupid)
By taking the top cover off of the top timing gear or try to look behind it so you can see the gear, turn it over and if it does not turn, then the belt is bad. Also taking the distributor cap off and turn it over to see if the rotor spins. And checking the engine compression would show no compression in some cylinders.
Hmmm. Okay. I will try it and see what I can figure out. Thank you
beatupchevy answered 7 years ago
remember if it's an interference motor you may wreck it by cranking it over , pull the plugs and see what they look like ,take off the oil filler cap if you can see the rockers turn the motor and see if they move .
