Hello --

My 97 Accord EX is currently having problems.

- Car purchased used in April with no past maint records.
- In late Oct, I found the car was running cool all the time. Thinking the thermostat was stuck open, I found it had none at all. Put in a Gates 180 degree model.
- Car ran fine for a couple of weeks -- smooth, better MPG.
- Then CEL came on with codes P170/P171. Ran rougher, esp. when cold. Cleared, then came on again for good.
- Noticed I was losing coolant -- about 2 quarts every 2 weeks.
- Rechecked thermostat housing -- no leaks.
- Took it to mechanic who swapped out Gates thermostat with OEM one. Mech cleared code, but it came back within days.
- Ran rougher and rougher until two nights ago. Could barely start it in a parking lot after shopping. Struggled to turn over.
- Now it will not start. Luckily it is at least in my driveway at home.

(I am not sure if the thermostat addition/swap out had anything to do with this, but included it for completeness' sake.)

I am guessing that based on my coolant loss, roughness when running and engine code that I have a leaky/broken head gasket which is causing coolant to go into the cylinders.

Thoughts? Corrections? Advice?

 

A few items to check:

• Check your oil; is the level too high or is it milky or otherwise cloudy?
• Pull your plugs; are they wet with coolant?
• Check your radiator; is there oil floating on top of the coolant?

Report back your findings and we'll be able to opine with greater accuracy.

 

What you describe is similar to what happened to my car when the head gasket lost it's seal, it was allowing a little bit of coolant into the middle two cylinders and making it very hard to start. However, I had none of the tall tale signs like white smoke, oil in the coolant, milky oil, because of the little amount it was leaking and the gasket wasn't blown(Cracked or anything)

 

Ditto. Just a slow loss of coolant on my '96; no other symptoms other than cold starting. The only way to tell for sure is to pressurize each cylinder at TDC and see if coolant gets pushed back out of the radiator opening. Although if the coolant leak into the cylinders if so bad so as to keep the car from starting then it's probably a very bad head gasket. Mine would only misfire for a few seconds when cold; it had no problems starting.

 

Pull your plugs and do a compression test on all cylinders.
Write down the results.

 

OK, I am getting a cylinder compression test kit this afternoon. Will report back. Thanks.

One more question: what is the best way to disable the fuel injectors from spraying fuel in the cylinder while I am testing compression? From what I understand, the fuse that controls the fuel pump also controls some other necessary stuff (forget exactly) that you don't want to disable. Any advise on this is welcome.

 

I can't think of what else is disabled by pulling that fuse, that probably won't matter anyway. Or you could unplug the wires from the 4 injectors.

Get the engine warmed up.
Unplug the injectors or whatever method.
Remove all 4 spark plugs.
Put the compression gauge into 1 spark plug hole.

Floor the gas pedal & crank the starter for as long as it takes until the gauge quits getting higher.

Do it again for each of the 4 cylinders.

Actually, just by flooring the gas pedal, that disables the fuel injection. It's a feature programmed into the ECU, to allow you to clear a flooded engine. Maybe someone can verify that's really true for a 1997 in particular.

 

OK, sorry for the delay in getting back to this. Other life issues came up.

I borrowed a cyl compression test kit from O'Reilly and ran tests on all 4 cylinders. I removed the power connection to the fuel injectors. I am posting the values in both metric and U.S. measurements.

1: 14/200
2: 16/240
3: 10.5/150
4: 10.5/150

As you can see, the values are all over the place. When my wife cranked the engine, some liquid did come out of all spark plug holes except the one the tester was screwed into.

 

What kind of liquid? Water? Coolant? Oil? Fuel?

 

Clear, smelled like gas, watery. Definitely not oil.