1995 Honda Accord EX 2.7L V6
Auto
180,000 km

I posted a while back about how my tach would jump erratically during operation. It was getting to the point where the tach would read 0 for extended periods of time and then jump intermittently. The car would run fine and in fact ran for a 200 km drive (I had to move so it wasn't an option to not take the car). Anyway, long story short I was told to replace the ignition coil by the kind people in this forum and now it doesn't have any tach issues. However, a brand new problem has arisen now... After installing the new coil, I took it for a test drive with great results until I noticed smoke coming from the hood and coming into the cabin interior as well! I pulled over and popped the hood to see that the engine bay was covered in coolant. I double checked to ensure that the distributor lines were reattached properly as I had to remove them from the distributor cap so I could access the bolts to the ignition coil. Anyway, I drove the car for hours today with no issue of overheating except for a short period of it reaching close to the halfway point at a stop light until the fans kicked in and I started to drive again.

The really weird thing is that if I accelerate to increase airflow and cool down the car it seemed to overheat even more until I slowed down. This is really a pain in the a$$ and I'm at a loss as to what to do at this point. Another point worth mentioning is that the car does not overheat in idle but when it is being driven.

Other problems that the car has been having that may relate are:
-Idles erratically (the ignition coil seemed to fix this until it overheated)
-During the summer there would be the occasionally period where the exhaust would spit out white smoke (This is hard to tell if it is still happening as it is now winter).
-The heater no longer blows hot air (This stopped as of yesterday the heater worked fine two nights ago).

Anyway, like I said, I'm at a loss and starting to want to give up on this car altogether now. I got some great advice the last time I posted something on here and I'm hoping I can get some more now because I could really use it....

Sorry for the long post but I find it best to be as detailed as possible.
Thanks in advance!

 

Sorry just to be clear.

I had no issues with overheating today or further back UNTIL I installed the new ignition coil. The smoke happened to start about 3 mins after I started test driving the car AFTER installing the coil.

Sorry, I just didn't think I had stated that clear enough in my original post.

Thanks again!

 

Did you refill the radiator with coolant and bleed the air from the system after you lost coolant?

You need to find where the coolant leaked. It could be from a stuck thermostat, bad radiator cap, cracked radiator.... Try to clean the engine up as best you can and locate the leak.

It is possible that you have a blown head gasket. I think that you should do a compression test to see if all 6 cylinders are within 10 or 20 % of each other.

 

Okay, so I found the problem out. It looks like when I had installed the ignition coil I bumped the rad cap which caused it to overflow? I refilled the coolant levels and bled it and now it's not over-heating at all but it is smoking a lot still and I'm guessing it's from the spillover from the loose rad cap as it seems to be steaming from the area below the rad cap. Anyway, thanks for the quick response PAhonda I apologize for the long msg given that it was all my fault...

 

Check to verify it's steaming from past spilled anti-freeze, just in case you damaged the seal surfaces of the radiator neck. Make sure it's not steaming from a continuing leak.

 

Just drove it around for a bit and it looks like it's actually coming from the rad grille area. It's continuous enough to look to be a leak/crack. There hasn't been any more leakage from what I can see in liquid form but there is definitely steam wafting up. I'm going to take it to a rad shop and have them diagnose it because I'm not gonna risk any DIY for the rad after the last catastrophe from swapping the ignition coil. Thanks!