I've got a 92 Accord (330,000 km), and have been having some intermittent problems on start ups for the past month or so. Ideally I'd like to keep this car for another 6 months to a year, while minimizing my expenses on it..

The problems started as a failure to engage the starter, turning the key to run did nothing, but trying a few times would eventualy cause the engine to crank, and turn over otherise normally. Once started, running has been fine.

Then, the problem changed...when the starter would fire sometimes it would stop cranking even though the key was still in the start (III) position.

This behaviour prompted me to replace the starter with one from a wrecker. But during the week that passed between when I got the replacement starter and when I wanted to put it in, the problem changed again. Now also, if the car didn't fire up within about 1 second of cranking I'd get a check engine light, which later checked out to be a Code 8 (TDC sensor). The check engine light would not stay on for a subsequent start....only cranking more than 3 seconds resulted in the engine light coming on (oh, and driving with the light on resulted in loss of power at RPMs greater than 3500).

Well, I replaced the starter anyways. While I replaced the starter I noticed that the battery negative cable was in bad shape so I replaced that. I also noticed red/orange dust on the starter spline....could this come from the distributor? I'm thinking of swapping the distributor out for one from a wrecker...assuming that's the cause for the TDC code. I last had the distributor replaced back in 1999 (seized bearing...made a horrible noise).

Am I on the right track? What other reason could there be for a code 8 (TDC sensor) on startup?

Cheers

Kris