93 accord mystery issues starting

Asked by Jaden Aug 24, 2018 at 07:44 AM about the 1993 Honda Accord LX Wagon

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

Ok so to give back story on how we got here: I
bought the car from a guy about an hour and a half
from me who had put on a new head, gaskets,
pumps, belts, etc. The car was in his yard and has
been parked for a couple years. Records pointed to
2015 but it has a 2017 emissions sticker. I bought
the car and drove it home fine. Only issue was the
radiator needed replaced. Fast forward to last
week. It was the week before school started and I
finally got the car on my insurance and got tags for
it. That Saturday I replaced the radiator. When I did
that I also did the hoses. Once I was done I headed
to a friends. After 5 minutes of driving I noticed the
temperature gauge had just hit red so I pulled over.
15 minutes later I drove it 2 blocks worth down the
interstate to Home Depot where I found the radiator
hose on the top had blown off due to me not
putting the clamp on correctly. Me and 2 guys who
stopped helped me get it fixed and filled the
radiator. After this the car would not start. 30
minutes later we had sprayed starting fluid in and it
fired but was still overheating. The oil was normal
still. So we let it set for 2 hours before I discovered
the radiator hadn’t been filled all the way because
the guy didn’t have enough. Drove the car home
fine but the exhaust would pop/gurgle every now
and again (it also has a major leak). Later that night I
went to start it and a bit of white smoke puffed out
but the car ran. Oil was still unchanged. The next
day I put blue devil gasket sealer in it and it ran for
50 minutes. After parking it the car would no longer
start. I had replaced the plugs and wires. Upon
putting the old plugs in the car would start but it
would take a lot of messing with the pedal and it
was misfiring in all cylinders. Also my radiator holds
pressure when the car is off and cool. Yesterday I
took the #1 plug out and turned the car over and
clean green coolant came out. The oil was still the
same so it made no sense. The car wasn’t
overheating nor smoking. After this the car would
turn over as it always has since this issue. It’ll turn
over for a bit before it starts firing and then it builds
up only if you hold the pedal to the floor and
eventually runs but this time it ran just like it always
has. The check engine light gave me code 43 which
means fuel system. This went away after shutting
the car off and restarting and I drove the car for a
bit and it was completely fine. But strangely enough
the temperature would go up after you shut the car
off and go back down once it started. The longer
you leave the car off and the more it cools down the
harder it is to start again but once it does it runs like
normal with no issues.

2 Answers

103,075

You should run a compression check on this engine, before investing too much into it. A compression test will indicate a blown head gasket or not. You could also use Block Tester to test if you have combustion gases in the coolant, another indicator of a blown head gasket. Not all blown head gaskets result in cross contamination of oil and coolant. I would also check the operation of your cooling fan(s).

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