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Accord Conundrum- 1990 won't start

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Old 11-03-2015, 06:52 PM
thrntnandrw's Avatar
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Question Accord Conundrum- 1990 won't start

I have a 1990 Honda Accord DX. Had it for about 5 years now, never had too much trouble with it. When I first bought it, I was caught in a big rain storm where water ended up leaking into the cab area. Went down a hill and the car stalled out, figured water got onto the computer and screwed something up. I let it sit for a number of days before going back to it, even with water still in the cab, the car started right back up. I took the seats out, ripped out the carpet, added some drain holes to the floor and never had a flooding issue ever again. Car always started right up without any problems. Fast forward to about a month or so ago, I started leaking coolant from near the water pump. In changing the water pump, timing belt, balance shaft belt and tesioners, I found the original balance shaft belt was already busted when I went to take it all apart. Also, since I was doing that, I took apart the engine head, had it resurfaced, changed the head gasket, manifold gaskets, various o rings and seals and whatnot. When I did that, I noticed the distributor had oil leaking into it . Put everything back together, kept the same distributor, turned the car on and it fired right up. Engine sounded beautiful, no misfires, no sputtering, no dinging or knocking, nothing, just plain engine. Everything was perfect. This is where it starts to get difficult. When I was putting it back together, the oring for the thermostat housing that goes into the feed pipe behind the engine was shot, I didn't have a new one so I tried to keep the old on one. When I went to put more coolant in, it was leaking right out of that line and the engine wasn't even running. I went to turn the car back on and it would turn on but immediatly kept stalling most times. I had the car sent to a shop down the road. When I was getting it towed, I turned the key to on in order to unlock the steering wheel to turn it onto the flatbed. I'm afraid I forgot to turn the key back off. The next morning, I got a call from the shop, they couldnt start the car at all. I went down there, put my key in and the car started right up. They heard the engine and it still sounded beautiful. They suggested first maybe it was a bad key I gave them so I turned the car off, tried using the key I gave them and the same thing as before, the car would start but stall out right away. After a while and a few tries, the car stopped turning on at all and would just turn over, but wouldn't even start. They suggested the distributor because I told them about the oil in it, so I changed the distributor with a brand new one and the same problem, not getting any spark at all while the engine does turn over. Brought the car to a dealership and after whatever tests they did they are saying they are leaning greatly towards the ecu. I do know the ground for the ecu is located on the bottom part of the thermostat housing so I thought perhaps it was getting a bad ground but they said that all the grounds are perfectly fine. I don't understand how the car would start at first but all of a sudden now the computer is bad when no other changes were made, does this make sense to you? what are your thoughts? Sorry it's so long; this really is a big conundrum to me.
 
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