• Won't start
  A little history. Went to nashville from Evansville to switch 96 accord s . I was planning to bring it back to Evansville to do timing belt maintenance. Has 200k miles. Bought used,don't know if it's been done. While checking it over for the drive back to Evansville I found it about 2 quarts low on oil. Filled it up, drove it back to Evansville . Was at bottom of fill line when I got back. Put it on ramps and found oil around oil pan gasket. So today was going to work on new gasket. Turned key to start. Did about a half a crank, heard a thud then it continued cranking abnormaly fast ,but wouldn't start. Thought maybe timing belt broke right then. Took off valve cover so I could see part of belt. Appeared to be intact. Checked spark and fuel . Both good. I confirmed engine turning, sounds like there's no load on it when it's cranking. Any ideas? Thanks. Also, sounds like a light thumping or knocking while it's cranking

 

Did compression test : dry 90 60 45 60 / wet 210 130 290 200 wow! Put back plugs and started. Was hard to start, but got going. Lots of smoke. I'm thinking timing related? Maybe tentioner got stuck? Did another compression test. With hot engine and dry: 165-165-170-170. Tested my 95 odyssey with similar numbers.

 

Check the timing marks? Just because the camshaft spins, it might still have jumped several teeth.

You say that it spins fast - I'm guessing that means you don't hear the sound of the cylinders coming up on compression. That's a classic indication of bent valves.

 

Simultaneous posts!
You have compression now, so valves probably aren't bent. Not sure what happened...

Check the timing belt anyway. Some teeth might be broken off the belt?? If so, you dodged a bullet with it skipping teeth & not hitting the valves.

 

Definitely inspect the timing belt and replace if it shows signs of being worn.

I'm not sure how a timing belt could skip teeth, then return to the proper position. Maybe your valves are sticking slightly open?

 

Yeah, valves sticking slightly open seems more plausible. I'd be pretty suspicious of the episode until finding something to explain what happened.

Not only check the timing belt carefully, take off the valve cover & inspect the rockers & valve springs & keepers.

 

Maybe valves were stuck and after doing compression test with oil added to cylinders freed up valves. Watched Eric the car guy video on how to do a dry and wet compression test. As explained in original post van did run low on oil (1-2 quarts). Any good products for sticking valves?

 

Wet compression test puts oil down at the rings, not up at the valves. So maybe a ring was stuck in a position that allowed a lot of blowby into the crankcase?

Anyway, that's just speculating and if you cannot get the low compression to repeat, then cross your fingers... But do the timing belt since post#1 says you intended to do that in the beginning.

During the timing belt job, you can try this. Kinda involved, but maybe you'll see something amiss in the valve train.
- Remove the old timing belt, with the crankshaft timing mark 90 degrees away from TDC. All 4 pistons will be at mid-stroke so there's no risk of hitting the valves.
- Spin the camshaft sprocket & watch the valves operate. (Good opportunity to adjust the valve lash.) Look for anything suspicious or whether any of the valves seem like they're sticking.
- Assuming there's nothing to repair, position the camshaft with the arrow UP and the dimples lined up with the top of the head.
- Turn the crankshaft DIRECTLY to TDC without going around through any other position especially don't go to BDC.
- Install the new belt.