Can anyone supply me with or point me to a diagram of the fuse box and what each fuse is for? Thanks ... I am particularly interested in learning if this car has an ignition fuse, and if so, where it is located.

your best bet is to look at honda-tech's DIY page...

i found and printed mine there...

With this car having about 160K on it, I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and replace the distributor (CARDONE Select New Ignition Distributor), the plugs (Bosch Platinum 2) and the plug wire set (Borg Warner Spark Plug Wire Set: NASCAR) for my daughter (also replaced the air filter, but who cares related to this discussion, huh?).

The good news: I have spark on all plugs now. Tested by taking out a plug, putting it into the holder, setting the plug against the casing, and hitting the starter. Spark at all 4 points.

The bad news: The car still won't start.

During crank one time, I did get two little "burps" out of it (sort of a pop-pop), but that was it. My guess is that the timing is off now, and I just didn't/don't have the tools or the know-how to set the timing.

Any other thoughts/suggestions than to take it into a shop and have them set the timing? Would you agree the timing is likely the issue now?

(Btw, one person suggested having a look at the fuses -- they are all A-OK)

Bill F

Yes, sounds like timing. You can't turn the engine to top dead center and set the rotor to the #1 plug position???? And the second stupid question... you DID put the wires in the correct order, right?

Well, Tinman, you haev to remember that I haven't worked on a car in about 20 years, so to say I am rusty or haven't quite kept up with this type of stuff would be a compliment ...

If I had a diagram or sketch or something that showed me HOW to set the engine to DTC and HOW to point the rotor to the #1 spark position, then I'm sure I could do it. But pulling the plug and cranking with my thumb over till I start feeling compression and all that ... I just am not sure how to do that or what to do next, and I damned sure don't want to screw anything up that would make the situation worse.

And yes, one thing I am positive about is that the wires are in the correct order.

Bill F

"The only dumb question is the one not asked."

well, If I remember correctly (and it's been over 5 years since I worked on a D15 motor), when you connect the distrubtor to the cam shaft it can only go 1 of 2 ways. You probably connected it the wrong way, you have a 50/50 shot, if you forgot to look at the old one before you took it off. Anyway, take the distubtor back off and rotate it 180 degrees. This should fix the timing problem, assuming that is the problem. It does sound like a timing problem though.

The part I am talking about has a circle in the middle and a bar going throught the center, that is what the rotor is connected to, and that hooks up to the cam shaft.

There is no need to set the engine to TDC, because the cams are still properly timed, and the ingition timing is based off the cam timing. If you are still lost, I can try and scan in some pics from a Chilton that I have at home, but I won't be home till later tonight, this is just off memory.

I'm pretty sure I know what you are talking about. Now, I bought the entire distributor (as a complete unit, inc rotor, dist cap -- the whole nine yards). There is no way the distributor could physically be upside down, but I am wondering if you are referring to the grooves ("lugs"?) in the distributor end against the grooves in the camshaft end. I lined them up and put it together at install, and it fit together like a glove. But if I am understanding you correctly, are you saying that the lugs might be off 180 degrees? In other words, if I rotate the distributor lugs 180 degrees, I can then reinstall the distributor into the damshaft grooves, put it together again, and that might resolve the timing issue? If so, I can do that easily. But if I am not understanding, I'd be very, very appreciative if you could scan me those Chilton pix you are talking about. You could either post here or send to me via email in a pdf or something.

Thanks so much for your help on this ... I know I am sooooo close, and just need to put that final piece to the puzzle in place. Maybe this is it ...

Bill F

You've got what I'm saying, those little grooves that go into the camshaft, I'm not sure what they are called though I can't remember if that groove or bar or what ever is offset, that would make sense, because then it could only fit one way, but I'm pretty sure it is centered, so when you put everything on, it is either correct or off by 180 degree. I would try disassembling it and rotating it 180 degrees, it shoud still fit like a glove. I think you have the right concept of what I'm saying

Hope that helps

Heading out now to try it (car's about 40 miles from here). Will let you know if it works ...

Well, here's what we learned this afternoon. You can turn the lugs on the distributor the 180 degrees we discussed, but they then do NOT fit the grooves on the camshaft, i.e., they are tooled to fit only one way (if you examine the lugs you can see that their shape will only allow a one-way fit). So the only option we had was to put it back together the way it was -- and of course, the car still won't start.

One thing I noticed while doing this, and I wonder if there is any significance to it: On the distributor where the lugs are located, there is a groove right next to one of the lugs. There is also a set of grooves on the housing behind lugs, and one other groove on the side of the housing behind the lugs. You can turn the lugs so they line up exactly with one set of grooves, and when you do, the other groove by one of the lugs lines up exactly with the other etched groove on the housing. I can't believe these are there for no reason. I almost want to think (and for me, that can be dangerous!) those have to be lined up, and then somehow placed into the camshaft. Can think of how you would do that (since you can't move the grooves on the camshaft, but wanted to advise you of this.

Truthfully, I don't even understand how the timing could now be off since it was fine right up until the moment the car wouldn't start. What did we do in replacing the distributor that would impact the timing?

Final question for evereyone: Is there any chance we are looking at the wrong place now? E.g., while the fuel pump is working fine, do we know the fuel injectors are actually firing gas into the chambers? Is there any kind of hardware that could be bad that would preclude that? If so, what's the fix?

We are going to be where the car is this evening so if I hear back from any of you this evening, I can try whatever is suggested (if I can do it without having to go buy another bunch of parts), and if those suggestions don't work, I'm going to punt; we have made an appointment to tow the damned thing across town to where my daughter gets her car worked on normally and let them go at it.

Any final words of wisdom we might explore?

Thanks ...

Bill F

My son-in-law bowls with a mechanic guy who owns his own shop, and he agreed to take a look at the Civic. He just left. He says he thinks everything is actually fine, and that the problem is that the engine is major flooded from trying to start it so much. He pulled a couple of plugs out, and they were actually damp with gas. He suggested leaving all the plugs out overnight tonight so the gas can evaporate, then trying it again in the morning. He thinks it will start then. Any opinions on that?

As an aside, when I replaced the plugs, you may have noticed (earlier in the thread) that I bought platinum no-gap plugs at the recommendation of the guy at Checker. This guy says that they are really not only not as good as the regular old plugs, and that they won't last as long. I have no intentions of buying any more plugs, but what do you all think of his opinion?

Bill F

as tinman said above, are you sure you have the wires on the proper cylinder from the distributor. You can have them in different places, and they will still fire, but not at the correct time. thus causing the car to not start.

I would also suggest rotating the distributor around while you crank the car. as said before, the timing may be way off.

Other then that, you can check fuel pressure. But I doubt thats your problem.

I'm sticking to my story so far.

If it's flooded, hold the pedal to the floor and crank the engine. It should clear right out. Put the new distributor right at the middle of it's adjustment to start. Once you do get it started, you need to time it with a timing light and lock it down. I would not have replaced the whole thing. It's really not that uncommon for the coil or ignitor to suddenly die. But it's done, so if you get spark, it's timing.
It's remotely possible that the timing belt decided to slip, but you DID verify you had no spark before, right? And you did check the fuses, both under the hood and inside the car? If everything checks out, it HAS to now be the timing. The window for the right timing is pretty small, so you may have to turn the distributor left or right to initially get it going. If it starts, turn the distributor to where the engine seems to run best until you can properly time it.

I could do all this in minutes, If I were there.... but it's hard to help over the net.

TINMAN -- The last thing I did was hold the pedal to the floor and crank the engine for some time (a good 10 seconds). That's how the car stayed until this mechanic friend of my son-in-law pulled the plugs and found fuel. So I don't know what to make of that.

I also loosened the dristributor and moved it as far as it would go left and right while my daughter cranked the engine. There was no spot where it acted even remotely like it might start. However, I was moving it back and forth pretty quickly; I am new to doing all this, and I was kind of afraid I might screw something else up by moving it like that. Perhaps I needed to do it very slowly ... ???

As I think I explained somewhere else in the thread, I chose to replace the whole thing because 1) it assure me all parts were new without my having to try to figure out what was bad without any tools to do so, and 2) I figured that with around 150K on the car, it wouldn't hurt to have everything replaced -- inc plugs and wires. I also felt that gave me the best chance of getting it to start if one or more of those parts was bad.

As I stated earlier this evening, we are scheduled to tow it to a shop tomorrow morning to have them do whatever needs to be done to get it started. Obviously, I take that as a defeat, but I am disabled, and just don't have the ability to keep screwing around with it when nothing I do seems to be working.

Yes, I did verify no spark before replacing anything, and yes, we (actually, my SOL) checked the fuses inside the car -- but not under the hood -- what fuse under the hood might be a problem?

I'm sure it's hard to explain everything over the net, and dealing with someone who has little experience with this stuff doesn't help, I'm sure. But I am very grateful to everyone for trying to help out.

STREETGLOWER -- I am 100% positive the wires are connected in the right order. Use drawings of it for this car at the Autozone site, and the mechnic who was here confirmed. As I said above, I will try to moving of the distributor while cranking again tomorrow -- and I will do it very slowly this time. Mechanic verified fuel pressure is A-OK. I had to leave for a while when he was there -- why he didn't go ahead and time it, I have no idea. My guess is he was doing my SOL a favor, but his heart wasn't in it ...

Well, hopefully your mechanic friend is correct. The way it normally works is that you try to fix it, end up having it towed to the shop. The the shop tries to start the car and it fires up. Anyway, let us know what it actually ends up being. Sorry it didn't work out

Mechanic's idea didn't work (and frankly, I didn't expect it to). So I loosened the distributor and moved it achingly slowly back and forth while my daughter cranked the engine ... nothing. (I will say I am damned impressed with the cranking power of that new battery! It's still cranking strong as ever, and we have done a LOT of cranking! I'll bet while I moved the distributor, it cranked steadily -- and strongly -- for a good 2-3 minutes)

So with that, we've given up. Have made arrangements to have it towed to a shop tomorrow morning and shell out that cost and the $105 to have it diagnosed on their computer system. Hopefully, it's a matter of timing they can straighten out easily. Otherwise, I'm afraid it's something we haven't even thought of that's causing the problem.

I'll report back to y'all what they find -- and do.

Bill

Well, let us know when you find out it was something idiotically simple. It usually IS.

This whole new distributor DID come with a coil, ignitor and rotor, yes? I never bought one, so I have to ask.

Yeah, it came with everything, inc the distributor cap > http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductD...pe=218&ptset=A

Bill