my car just won't start...

ok.. here's the situation. i have a 91 civic standard hatch. it was -1 out this morning and i got to start up my car but it cranks and cranks but wont start up. eventually my battery was like starting to die out after a few attempts. so i charged it up with the van at our house. tried starting it up again and nothing. so me and my neighbor pushed it into his garage and put a heater in the garage because he thought the fuel line was frozen or something. i come back an hour later and tried to start it up and all it does is crank. so i checked for spark... i've got spark. i checked for fuel and i've got fuel. so what else could it be?

hmmmm.... ur fuel pump is clicking on? does it turn over fast or slow? try pulling the plugs out and cleaning em off

Do you have any codes? You could have screwed up your dizzy or sensors on it. Check wiring. Grounds.

it turns over pretty slowly but that's cus my battery was like starting to die. after i charged it from the van it turned over quickly.

i just tried retarding the ignition timing and advancing the ignition timing and nothing happened.

i do have a lot of play in my timing belt. like 1.5 inches? its supposed to be like 1/8 inch so i'm gonna go tighten it.

i'll go and clean off the spark plugs too.

distributor seems fine i guess. i changed my coil like 3-4 months ago and my cap and rotor recently but..its getting spark so i dont really think its the distributor, but then again, i dunno. no codes, no check engine light. all my grounds are fine. as a matter of fact i have 3 more grounds than before so i really don't think its a problem.

i do have a lot of play in my timing belt. like 1.5 inches? its supposed to be like 1/8 inch so i'm gonna go tighten it.

i'll go and clean off the spark plugs too.

That's a lot of play in the timing belt.

ok, i checked my plugs, they're all clean and are all of a tan-ish brownish color so its all good. i tightened my belt and now there's only like an eighth of an inch of play. but......my car still won't start! god dammit

it was running before you parked it?
and the only thing that changed is that the temperature is alot colder?
sounds to me like a fuel problem. or a fuse is blown. Check your starter and alternator fuse under ur steering wheel. If those are ok, then check all the fuses in your upper left hand corner of your engine bay. Make sure none of those are blown especially the ecu fuse.
no check engine lights?

i just had a similar prob with my si....it ran great when i parked it, then a week later after temps in the teens, it ran like hell when i started it up again, sputtering and missing, then eventually not starting at all. i thought it might be moisture in the gas tank since it was almost empty when i parked it, so i put 5 gallons of gas in it and some fuel line anti-freeze, and i noticed that the gas cap was not on all the way.....probably let alot of condensation build up. anyway, i put the gas in and it started up and ran like a champ. try it out.

ok, here's what happened today.....after my last post today i went back to checking stuff on my car like the grounds and whatnt and i had brian (hybrid1990crx) and 2 other guys come over and help me out. we thought the timing belt skipped a tooth. so we retarded the timing... nothing. we advanced the timing..... nothing. we checked everything. oil pressure, fuel pressure, air. we checked spark and gap setting on the spark plugs and everytrhing was ok except the gaps were at like .044-.045 . we were stumped, we dont know what to do. it worked perfectly fine yesterday, it ran extremely well actually... and then today, nothing. we did somewhat of a compression check and everything was fine and then we took paper and put it on the exhaust tips and as the car would crank the paper would try to get sucked inside the pipes.

we thought maybe i had bent valves but i dunno. brian said i could have his old a6 if i pay for the cam/camgear.

we checked the fuses in the upper left hand corner of the engine bay and they were all fine. i'm gonna go check the starter and alternator fuses under the steering wheel now.

fuses are fine. i guess i'm just gonna go and get some more gas and get some of that fuel anti-freeze stuff even though i dont want to be putting in other additional crap in my fuel.

Does it smell bad when u crank it?

it smells like fuel

weird...maybe since the timing is so off, something was damaged internally?

weird...maybe since the timing is so off, something was damaged internally?

i doubt there is anything really wrong with your motor if it was running strong before you parked it. It prolly has something to do with the cold weather. It wouldn't jump timing by just sitting there not running....lol...think about it logically. did you check the thermostat ground behind the starter?

no, that's probably the only ground i didnt check.

that's the most important one....

i had a similar problem with my 86 Accord... i dunno if your car has a TW sensor but that caused my problem... but mine had a prob when car was hot. started and ran great until it was up to operating temp.

since you are smelling fuel... try pinching the fuel line and have someone crank the engine, if it starts, stop pinching.

Or i found my car barely started when i disconnected the TW sensor from the plug.

If it jumped a tooth or more on the timing belt, you could line it up with top dead center on your harmonic balance. Then take off your distributor cap and make sure it is pointing to the number one spark plug. If it's not lined up, spin it 360 degrees, and see if it lines up.
If it still doesn't line up with the number one spark plug terminal, it has definitely jumped timing.
My car jumped a couple of teeth on the timing belt one very cold morning when I'd let the car sit for a week and the battery was low.
Flunky

but it didnt jump a tooth or anything.... we checked it and all. it crossed our minds that it could have but we don't see how it could have overnight or anything. we just advanced the timing and retarded it to see if it would do anything but nothing happened so we put it back to the way it was in the first place.

i still need to check my thermostat ground but its snowing and its dark and cold out. i'm gonna go get some more gas.

im not sure if it has to do with anything, but i remember a few times when i went out to start my car it wouldnt start, i remember hearing a tick under the dash every day, but this day i didnt and it wouldnt start, but i would turn the key on then off about 10 times and then it would kick in, its some kind of relay or something, not sure if its the fuel relay or what, but maybe try that sence its cold.

you sure it's not fludded did u ever get that idea, or bad injectors its a dualport right? it cant be the starter it cranks ,it cant be a ground or else ur car would flash lights turn signals all kinds of wierd things ,does your fuel pump turn on when u turn the ingnition it cant be a fuse in the engine bay because ur car wouldnt turn over period is it a standard with the "turbo manifold" if not and its a dx then check the cat because one time my accord murder out and couldnt get it started just crank and finally the cat was clogged so theres lots of things to cover just so hard to know the problem if im not looking at the car! good luck.http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/images/smilies/confused.gif

well......after many attempts at starting my car and after killing the battery a few times. i went and filled up my tank, put some dry gas in it, and then tried starting it up. nothing. i went and used some starter fluid and tried starting it up, nothing. after maybe another 15 attempts it started up on like 2 cylinders and then the rest like kicked in. there was a huge cloud of white smoke coming out of my exhaust for about like 40 or so seconds and then everything went back to normal. so i'm assuming i had something in my fuel line freeze? i don't know, but my car is running alot better than it had been before.

i had a problem like this after i changed my ignition coil out. when i start it up, it would only run on 2 cylinders and i would pull hte spark plug wires on the bad ones and it didnt change the idle but when i pulled the spark plug wire on a good one and then pluged it back it. all the cylinders started to work. it was funny

Glad to hear you got it running. I don't know how you people can live in places where fuel lines freeze. LMAO! And you should still think on getting Brian's old A6 head and MPFI cuz you'd notice a big difference...

i doubt there is anything really wrong with your motor if it was running strong before you parked it. It prolly has something to do with the cold weather. It wouldn't jump timing by just sitting there not running....lol...think about it logically. did you check the thermostat ground behind the starter?


My 90 Honda CRX is doing the same thing. I have a question- how do you know if the fuel pump is working right? I took off the air cleaner and the carb looks wet and smells like gas. How much gas is there supposed to be?

Also, what does the thermostat ground have to do with starting? Is there a connection?