I think my distributor is going bad?

[MattyJ540]

Hi all, well I just started driving my civic that I bought a couple months ago, been great so far! But today i was on my way to a buddys house and the car died on me at a stop light. Didn't want to start but i finally got it to start up again it seemed kinda rough for a minute but then it was fine. Well when i went to leave the car didn't want to start at all. I took the distributor cap off and it was oily inside, it looks like the whole distributor is getting oil on it from the outside so i guess there is a seal going bad inside, anywhoo, i wiped it off as best i could and put it back on and tried to start it again. Cranks over but thats it. So i pulled an ignition wire off the spark plug, cranked it over, no spark coming from the wire. So i put the wire back on and tried one more time and it fired up, so i jumped in and high tailed it home. Do you guys think its the distributor? Maybe the coil? Car is a 1997 Civic DX D16 Manuel. Any help would be awesome!

 

[Clark_R]

When I bought my civic a number of months ago, it idled like a Subaru (ie: running on 3), but it was sparking on all 4, just very faint, and I replaced my coil and bam, problem solved. I'd find a friend with a spare distributor and just try his coil. If it runs again, problem solved. Then go buy one of your own. No sense throwing money at parts if you can borrow some to see what the problem is.

 

[MattyJ540]

Yeah I don't have any friends with a civic like mine, closest thing is my buddy with an EG mine is an EK... and i think i posted this in the EG section I appologize lol. Thanks for the suggestion though

 

[mymmeryloss]

I would do new coil, cap, rotor, plugs and wires.

 

[MattyJ540]

ok, Is there any way to replace whatever seal is letting all that oil into the distributour though?

 

[mymmeryloss]

Yes

 

[MattyJ540]

HAHA ok I'll go search how to do that then

 

[MattyJ540]

Thanks for the help!!!

 

[jameswanser]

actually vwery easy to replace the seal. just pull off the old one, roll the new one on

 

[mymmeryloss]

Yep