Robert,
I have
a coil of green plastic coated hanging wire (it's stiff & about 1/4"
thick) I got from Home Cheap-o and I use it continually for car projects,
so here's an idea. Buy a coil of this wire and cut off about 2-3 feet of
the stuff, straighten it out, tear a small piece of cotton white rag (small
enough in size to fit down the spark plug hole) and crimp it tightly onto
one end of the wire with pliers. If you haven't guessed by now, you're
making a giant Q-Tip. Now, slowly lower the giant Q-Tip cotton-end down
into the hole and mop up anything sitting on the piston, then pull it out
& check for color. Let me know if this helps.
-George
-----Original Message-----On 09:40 PM 12/01/02 -0500, George Freeman said...
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Robert K. Kuhn
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 3:02 PM
To: The Rex list
Subject: Re: CRX: RE: Won't start, think it's the EACV
Robert,
On page 23-56 in the Helms book, it describes checking timing by warming engine up, cutting off motor, putting a jumper wire across the connector with the yellow cap (remove cap), then starting engine and setting timing. Also, double-check the screw holding down the rotor in the distributor- if it's at all loose, that will slip up the timing adjustments.
Your symptoms definitely sound electrical- today I just replaced the ground cable from the battery to the body/engine on the wife's Nissan Quest and it was an absolute mess in corrosion. Good news was I found a 36" replacement cable at Discount Auto that was 1-gauge! (like �-inch thick). That's serious cable- but made a big difference gaining back horsepower as well did the home-brew cold air intake I made from 3" duct elbows (easy pass through in the fender wells on Quests/Villagers).
I replaced the stock battery ground back in 1999 when I did the stereo installation. Yesterday, as I was troubleshooting the problems, I did clean up the ground points and even added another battery and engine ground. So the car is ground pretty good. :^)
Honda uses I believe 10-gauge on the stock battery ground cable- thinner than a pencil and notorious for getting brittle (it'll crumble in your hand). I replaced the ground cable with 4-gauge and replaced the positive lines going from the battery to the first fuse box (passenger side) with 8-gauge oxygen-free copper wire. Take extra time to clean all connection points with Brasso & contact cleaner. The result will be a big difference in idle, throttle response, horsepower, etc.
I too used a 4 gauge battery ground cable when I replaced the stock one. The additional grounds that I added were also 4 gauge (made by Stinger).
Okay, one last tip- when's the last time you replaced the idle screw o-ring (located at the top left on the intake manifold)?
To my knowledge, never. Also, I never had the need to adjust the idle since taking possession of the car back in 1999. And the times it's had to go in for it's smog check/tests, it's never had to be touched by the technician.
I did, however, spray some carb cleaner around the idle screw to see if there was a possible leak... the engine RPM did not change to indicate a leak and I carefully did the same around the base of the throttle body.
As indicated in another reply, I fear that I may have a bad (leaking) head gasket. It was about 50K miles since it was last replaced by the previous owner.
The more I think about it the more I believe my fear my be a reality since I have noticed a slow loss of coolant (with no obvious signs of a leak) even before I replaced the radiator back in August. I noticed the slow loss in early Spring of this year. But it was never a huge loss so I just topped up when needed.
I also noticed, at least yesterday, that when it idled really rough, white smoke from the exhaust would be present as well as the smell of coolant in the air and a lot of water condensation. Said smoke also vaporized really quickly but it didn't feel *moist* (if I passed my hand through it or held it in said cloud). I didn't really smell coolant in the smoke but I also didn't take in huge whiffs either. :^P I could smell the normal emissions, however.
My wife things I sabotaged the engine on purpose so that I can use it as an excuse to drop a B18 in. ;^)
Thanks for the reply...Robert K. Kuhn
CRX Owners Group President (http://www.crx.org/southcal)
1990 Honda CRXsi (http://www.hooligan.cc)
ICQ # 3714283 (nickname: godzilla)
Alpine Drive (San Diego County) - December, 2002
http://www.crx.org/southcal/events.html
Or...
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=339727
