Rep Power: 0

Last year June my Son's 2000 Honda Civic EX died on the road. Engine would crank but not not start. We were able to get it started and drove straight to the auto parts store and they replaced the battery. About a week later it died on the road again. We could not get it restarted. Towed the car to the shop and they replaced the distributor. Just for insurance I replaced the fuel filter after getting the car back. This all happened in June 2021.

Yesterday, the car is having starting problems again. The engine cranks but does not start. I can smell gas from the cranking so I am pretty sure it is getting fuel. Distributor with cap and rotor and fuel filter replaced 2300 miles ago. Spark plugs and wires replaced 15,000 miles ago. Timing belt and water pump replaced 64,000 miles ago.

Can anyone give me suggestions on what to check? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 
Rep Power: 221

Have you verified if you're getting spark at each cylinder?
these cars don't like aftermarket electronics so I hope that distributor was oem

 
Rep Power: 221

Also You may have flooded it as this point, pull the plugs and check if they're soaked

 
Rep Power: 0

I ordered an inline spark plug tester as well as a circuit tester and will check for spark. I will also see if the plugs are flooded but maybe if there was gas in there it has evaporated by now. Thanks for the advice.

 
Rep Power: 0

I got the car started. I pulled the plugs and they looked ok but since I had new ones sitting on the shelf I installed new NGKs. Then I removed the distributor cap and noticed the center terminal was very dirty. The center terminal is removeable. I took it out and cleaned it with brake cleaner then put it back into the cap. The center terminal is backed by a spring and seems to be made of carbon. It was covered with carbon dust. The contact point on the rotor was dirty as well so I cleaned that also. Popped the distributor cap back on and the car fired right up. Since the entire distributor including the cap is less than a year old I am thinking to replace the cap with a Honda OEM as suggested. Internet FTW!

 
Rep Power: 221

Glad you got it started, I would grab an entire oem distributor with the plug wires from a junkyard. Make sure it works on the car and then keep it in the trunk as a spare

 
Rep Power: 0

I bought a Honda OEM distributor cap and will install that soon. The Civic is going to my brother-in-law's stepson so bye bye Civic.