Hi everyone,

I bought my 1984 Honda Accord about a year ago with 112,000 miles on it. For a while I drove it, and the 1985 Honda Accord I had too, but one had to go so I kept the one with the lowest miles. Anyways I love these Hondas and you can't beat their durability, enjoy!
I have an issue and could use some help with my Honda that I've been dealing with for a while now. It will always start, idle and then not, or not idle right away and then all of a sudden start idling again. I realize factors such as hot and cold, or rainy and dry, can affect the way a car runs, but it will idle in the rain or without, cold or hot. I might add that you can keep the car running fine if you feather the gas and two foot it at stoplights or slowing down. It's an annoying problem and it's really throwing me for a loop.

 

Can we assume all of the tune up stuff is up to date.

Have you looked for any vac leaks, yes there is a nest of hoses and that.

 

No check engine light? The guys here need all info you can give about motor and any recent changes you may have made. Possibly bad fuel or filter. I'm not one of the many pros here, but wanna give back to the community.

 

Hey guys, thanks for responding. I usually keep a pretty tight ship when it comes to my car maintenance and I've changed both primary and secondary fuel filters. I thought I may have had a run in with bad gas as you mentioned, but it's been a few tanks ago and the problem still persists. I've opened up the carburetor and cleaned anything out of it that was inside, the problem seemed like it went away for a bit but came back and could have just been one of the "good days" it has every now and then. I've looked over the vacuum lines and the only thing I've found weird is when I pinch the two lines going to the distributor, the engine will start to die. Someone told me that may involve the timing getting thrown off when I pinch it? Also attached to the firewall in front of the driver are two little black cylinders which click while the car's running, for some reason I want to believe that I've never heard these click before the problem started, but I could be wrong. New items on the car: Timing belt, Clutch, Water pump, Fuel pump, Serpentine belt, All four wheel bearings and brakes, Head gasket, Fuel filters, Air filters, Oil and oil filter.

Thanks for help, and sorry for the book haha

 

For giggles, have you checked the timing with a light? Your statement about the vac lines makes me wonder.

My 2nd gen skills are just faint memories, on the 3rd gens you have to set the timing with the vac lines pinched off. So, theory, with the work done and that and you pinch off the lines and have a bad idle....can it hurt anything to check it?

 

Hmmmm, I seem to remember checking it whenever we did the head gasket change since we had to pull everything off including the distributor and it was fine. But could the car run fine one minute and then not the next if the idle was off? Seems like it wouldn't run right all of the time or at all, but I'll give it a try and let you know what I see.

 

Well it's been raining and about 30 degrees all day so needless to say I haven't checked the timing yet. However the car has ran flawlessly all day, even with starting it and stopping it throughout the day at least 5 times, which usually produces the non idling result at least once. So I'll see how she runs tomorrow and get back to you.

 

Update: She ran for 5 days straight without a flaw and recently started acting up again, the timing is fine and continues to run great sometimes, while fluttering and sputtering others. Any more ideas?

 

Well the chance arose and I took it. Got a great deal on a re-manufactured carburetor so I swapped the old one out and she purrs like a kitty, right at about 600 RPM. Thanks again for the help, just glad it's fixed.

 

Thanks for the follow up.

Glad to hear your back on the road