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Old 09-15-2019, 11:56 PM   #61 (permalink)
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Obviously I was an overachiever in the past life and given the Murphy's Touch to keep me humble.

The simplest explanation is that I am freakishly strong, although one could argue that I needed to purchase and utilize a torque wrench much earlier.

It seems like 7.2 foot-pounds does not feel tight enough.

I asked Mom if she thought my Hondas were unreliable and I should get rid of them. She said yes and then seemed to feel that I overreacted to her crazy talk. However, she could not name one reliability problem with the Accord before the misfires.

She just suggested that it "Turned a corner" and somehow stopped being reliable.

It made sense that bad tube seals would lead to misfires and was believable that oil leaks had ruined the spark plugs in a little over a year, but I am not convinced that the distributor is causing misfires. The points are corroded and there is an oil leak, but I do not understand why that would cause a misfire on the same three cylinders that had an oil leak.

I worry that I am fixing a future problem, not the current one.

I do not know why NGK wires would go bad in 13.5 months. I do not see how oil could have ruined them.

Wait.

I had oil in three cylinders from the bad seals. Oil causes misfires because it causes shorts. Does it seep through the threads and cause misfires in the engine, which explodes one or two thousand times a minute?

That sounds highly unlikely.

So, the oil seeped inside the boot, and caused a misfire there?

What had I done about it?

I just thought of it now!

So, with a brand-new distributor sitting right behind me, with that brand-new distributor smell, I just sprayed electrical parts cleaner inside the wires. If that doesn't work, I see if my Civic wires fit?

Is there a proper method of cleaning spark plug wires?

I found a bunch of suggestions. Hand cleaners without abrasives, Simple Green, etc. Some people said to use WD-40, but someone said it attacked rubber. Somebody else said to use silicone spray.

The best price that Google Shopping showed was $41.99 on eBay through some vendor calling itself "AutoZone." AutoZone charges $38.99. I will try to find a coupon code. This one did not work:



If the misfires never returns, I have spare wires!

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Old 09-16-2019, 12:01 PM   #62 (permalink)
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I did not get to bed until an hour after I wanted and still woke up an hour before my alarm. I do not know what the electrical parts cleaner did, if anything, I could still see droplets of oil on the end of the boots. I used a dozen Q-tips, which I guess pulled out traces of used motor oil. I installed the new distributor. The engine started and died immediately. I neglected to take a picture of the rotor location, so I removed the distributor, rotated it 180°, and it did not start again, so I did it again.

Start, die, nothing, nothing, start, and run. I returned the rental, $61 for 24 miles in two days, and drove my Accord to work.

There were three misfires when I dropped Mom off at home, but did not notice any while driving, and no engine codes are pending.

Breakfast would have been nice though. I am sure that I will miss lunch, too.
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Old 09-16-2019, 12:11 PM   #63 (permalink)
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I assume AZ climate is harsher on a vehicle than most other climates.

Dying coil pack? I've seen lots of coils go bad in my day.

One easy test to see if spark is happening elsewhere than the plug is to get a spray bottle and douse the coil and wires when it's dark out to see if you can locate where it's arcing.
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Old 09-16-2019, 02:20 PM   #64 (permalink)
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That has a distributor, not a coil pack. Someone told me that bad wires would cause a visible short in the dark, but water would definitely help.
If I knew where my multimeter was (or bought another) I could test the boring way.
It might only be an issue while idling, but I idled for a couple of minutes while I moved Mom's car out of the way.
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Old 09-16-2019, 03:13 PM   #65 (permalink)
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You've still got an ignition coil. If it's going bad, I would expect the misfire to occur on random cylinders; if bad wires, it would be a particular cylinder.
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Old 09-16-2019, 03:34 PM   #66 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xist View Post
I asked Mom if she thought my Hondas were unreliable and I should get rid of them. She said yes and then seemed to feel that I overreacted to her crazy talk.
It does seem like you're constantly posting about issues with your cars (I think I'm lumping in your Forester, though, and it's gone, right?). It might be worth it to look into ditching both of your cars and getting something newer, especially when you factor in the time that you have to dedicate to keeping them on the road.
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Old 09-16-2019, 04:22 PM   #67 (permalink)
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I was thinking coil packs. Those were implemented this millennium, right?

I apologize for the confusion.

At some point I should go through and see what threads I have started about my Accord. I am sure that it has not been as much Skittles and beer as I would like to think. It would also help me update my build log and cost-to-date, but if it goes thirty days without a problem, you guys can do push-ups, okay?

I will do push-ups, too! Celebratory push-ups are the best push-ups!

I spent more on repairs with my Forester than on gas and used too much gas!

I sold it a couple of years ago.
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Old 09-16-2019, 04:58 PM   #68 (permalink)
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I'm probably misusing the term and confused myself. Either way, ignition requires a coil to boost 12v to the thousands required to spark across a gap.

Perhaps electronic ignition uses coil packs triggered by the electrical signal, and an ignition coil is triggered by the distributor.

I've found ignition problems to be somewhat simple to diagnose since the parts are relatively few and easily accessible, and the troubleshooting seems to be mostly straightforward. I have also found ignition problems to be more likely than air/fuel or compression problems.
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Old 09-16-2019, 05:46 PM   #69 (permalink)
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The coil is in the distributor.
I thought so. I was trying to find the part number for my distributor and saw the ignition coil number first.
Google provided a diagram like this:

Quote:
A misfire is not usually cause by a coil unless you have individual coils . This is an excellent video for diagnosing misfires in a honda

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/...+ignition+coil
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Old 09-18-2019, 12:08 PM   #70 (permalink)
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"Your car needs a new engine, but you need to move your car right now!"--former mechanic

Tuesday struck again! She drove fine to and from the school, but I filled the tank, started leaving town, and she started misfiring. I did not have any pending codes, but there was no way that I was going to make it to my appointments, so I turned around, was greeted by the CEL, and drove straight to the mechanic, who apparently closes by 4pm now. I grabbed what I thought was my speech bag from the trunk, and continued trying to reserve a rental. That did not finish until five minutes after I got there.

I saw three clients and drove seventy-five miles, pulled the spark plugs and wires, and looked up how to clean them.

I did not really find anything. Everyone says to just replace them, they are garbage, but I really try to not throw parts at a problem. Fourteen-month-old wires should be fine. Two-week-old plugs should be fine, but the cables would have transferred oil residue to the new plugs, and unless I cleaned the plugs, essence of motor oil would have insulted the chakra of Tīw, my real problem here?!

So, I used Dawn and hot water. I could not find any brushes to fit inside. Small-caliber boomstick brushes may have worked, but the ones that I saw did not have wires at the end, the only place that actually seemed to matter. I needed a stiff paintbrush?!

I do not know, everything sounds crazy, but I needed to do something. I also bought another multimeter and the wires checked out. I asked Mom what time it was, she said "8:01," and I asked her to call the shop and tell them that was my car and I would be there soon. The mechanic said that he had been calling a tow truck to have it hauled off.

I didn't stop to leave a love note, I was already horribly late for my appointments, but I do not have any paper without confidential client information anyway.

So, I drove in the spark plugs and wires, he told me what I put in the subject, and I pointed out that I could not move my car, the spark plugs and wires were sitting on his counter.
"I'm not working on your car, you work on your car, but you can't do it here!"
"How do I get my car where I can work on it?"
"Call a tow truck!"

How long do tow trucks take? How did that make any sense? I had parked in the only available space, but he said that I was blocking his lift. A mechanic could not take the time to install spark plugs and wires and charge me to do so?!

So, I pushed it into the street, the manager from the friendly neighborhood AutoZone helped me push it into the next parking lot, I positioned it out of the way, drove home, grabbed Mom and my tools, drove her back, and she drove my rental while I drove my car.

She did not drive great, but was not misfiring like before.

So, the misfires get progressively worse? What the heck?!

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