I just bought a 95 Honda accord yesterday. It was running and driving fine, but the radiator was split. So, I went ahead and bought it because it was a good deal and put a new radiator in. Filled up the coolant, drove it a few miles. It ran great, but then started to overheat. I pulled over and turned the car off BEFORE it red lined on the temp gauge. I thought that perhaps an air pocket or something had been in the cooling system and that maybe I hadn't put in enough coolant so I pulled the cap off. Thinking that for sure the fluid was low and it wouldn't spew out, but it did....spewed all over.Put the cap back and tried to start it and it just turns over. It will fire every now and then, but never actually starts.Blown head gasket??

 

1, Didnt the owner mention the overheating ?
2,Blown head gasket is more trouble than you think
and 3,a blown head gasket has little to nothing to do with the car starting.

Goodluck.

 

Start with the easy things first, check the thermastat, justreplace it with a fail safe and see if the car still over heats. Hopefully it isnt a head gasket or cracked block.

 

Update:
I went back to the car this afternoon (about 6 hours later) and it started right up. I was able to make it back home without it overheating. It ran fine, but I'm worried that it will overheat again. There are no leaking fluids so i don't suspect a bad water pump...possibly something as simple as the thermostat?

I suspected that if I was lucky the reason for not starting could have something to do with the water/coolant being sprayed all over the engine, so when I got the car home I shut it off, then restarted it, started up fine. Then I doused the engine area with water and sure enough it would start.

I find this strange, because I will regularly spray off and even pressure wash the engine compartments on my other vehicles....what do ya'll think???

Hopefully all is well internally!

 

'Nother update:

I pulled the thermostat (which for future reference is to be found by following the LOWER rad hose). I put it in a pan with water and a cooking thermometer. At 230 degrees F, it still hadn't opened. Bought a new one, tested it in the pan, it opened right about 185F.

I also checked for the culprit for the "not starting when wet" problem and found that the distributor cap was VERY loose! I don't even see how it ran at all! I took it off, cleaned and dried it.

Now my car runs great and stays cool!

Finally, something went right!!

 

i always put a tiny , tiny hole in my thermostate just in case theres air in the system or buy one with a rivet in it to keep air out

 

Glad you found the problem, a fail safe thermostat will alway fail in the open position so you dont run into this problem again.