This is regarding 97 Accord SE. The car doesn't start after I did the following:-

I replaced the seals under the valve cover and under the rocker arm assembly
https://www.hondaaccordforum.com/for...ead.php?t=3088

* I had to readjust the valve clearance, cause some adjusting screws got moved.
* I think I put the distributor at the right orientation, but not sure.

The car was out in the cold for 3 weeks. I thought the battery needed a jump. But that didn't work.

The starter motor is working fine. The engine is cranking up well and sounds perfect, but doesn't get going on its own.

How do I diagnose if its a timing issue? Any workarounds?

 

first thing that i would do is to make sure that you repositioned all the plug wires properly,, if ok...make sure that if you removed the distr you repositioned it properly.. if those are ok,, .i would recheck the valve adjustment ,

How did the adjustment screw move?? you should not have had to touch them

 

THIS IS SCARY!!
I had towed the car to a mechanic to diagnose the problem (before I got a response). After 2 days in the garage lot, they finally got to it. The mechanic found the timing was off by 180 degrees. He thinks 90% chance the valves must have bent!!!

Now, before he gets working on it tomorrow morning, I don't know how that could have happened, I didn't mess with the timing belt at all!

Is it possible that the distributor is misaligned exact in reverse? I had lost the mark on its head while I was cleaning it before reinstalling. Now that I think about it, either I aligned it perfectly right or exactly 180 degrees off! I had started another thread in this regard:
https://www.hondaaccordforum.com/for...ad.php?t=23711

To answer you, Desert: The plug wires were correctly positioned. And how did the adjustment screw move? I might have loosened the adjusting screw while loosening the locknuts (I wasn't sure by how much, I wasn't noticing. So I decided to play safe and redo the clearance)

 

if you did not remove the t-belt from cam pulley or removed and reinstall the camshaft wrong,, and car was running ok before, ,, the only issue is that you could have installed the distr 180 deg off, that will keep car from starting but cam timing will not affected so there should be no bent valves ,,
Now if you removed the camshaft or slipped the t-belt off the cam pulley and reinstalled it 180 deg off and tried to start the car could be bent valves
Another reason is if when you installed the rocker arm assembly and you did not properly lined up the rocker arms properly to the valves, you could have bent valves when you tighten the rocker arm assembly down ..

so my question is ,, did you remove thecamshaft ?? did you slip the belt off the cam pulley ??

 

Thanks to your responses, I had the problem fixed! Yeah, the distributor was 180 degrees off.

The mechanic did a sloppy job on the car though. Instead of taking care of the distr, he repositioned the plug wires, so the firing would still be in the right sequence (charged me quarter of a grand too)! It worked, but the check engine lights came right off. I had to take care of it later myself.

Makes me appreciate this forum all that much!!!