Newest Civic owner on the block

[babybluecivic]

Hey guys and gals,

Just bought myself a 1990 Honda Civic DX hatchback for $400 not running. Already have a few leads on what the problem is though, I've heard both the main relay and the distributor are prone to going, the previous owner had it stall out on him on the highway, and it hasn't started since. The plan right now is to get it running and resell.

 

[taluzer45]

Nice man, Put up some pics!

 

[ImportFan1]

 

[XcLuSiVeLy4GoD]

WELCOME! Post up some pics and what has gone wrong and Im sure there are tons of people here that are willing to help out anyway they can!

 

[young_]

Welcome to the site! post up some pics lol

and I'm not sure a main relay will cause it to cut off going down the road.
I had issues with my main relay on my 95 civic and the only problem it caused was the fuel pump didn't want to prime so it wouldn't start. There's lots of things that will cause the car to stall, could be the ignition switch, could be the fuel pump, could be a lot of things really. Good luck with the car and if you have any questions feel free to post up a thread on the tech forums!

 

[babybluecivic]

Thanks guys, pictures will follow, I just need to do it from my phone. Apparently he had a mechanic look at it, said it was the distributor. So not sure whether this was his reply when he took one look at it or whether he actually ran codes. Either way I'm recharging the battery right now to get a good idea of whats actually happening when I turn the engine over. I actually just dealt with an issue like this on my other car, a 1990 mustang fox body 2.3l. Ended up being I accidentally disconnected the cable between the ignition coil and the distributor. Which brings me to my one and only question at this point: how many cables should be connected to the distributor? I have four, and what seems to be a cover for a fifth one but no cable. I had heard there is no visible cable between the coil and the distributor or something like that. so then whats the fifth post doing there???

 

[babybluecivic]

Hopefully this works!

hmm guess not... I uploaded the image to imageshack and copied the url into the image tags... what am I doing wrong?

 

[taluzer45]

I just upload to imageshack, than go individually to each pic and get the main URL, than paste to the reply. Works for me !?!

 

[babybluecivic]

ahh i'll get pictures later... In the mean time I think I'll go see if the battery is charged yet

On a side note, assuming I get it running, and knowing how many potential 16 year old ricer wanna-be's are out there, what would you pay for it? It has minimal rust, interior is in good condition except for driver seat, only slight dents on the hood, but I have an unpainted brand new hood that I'd sell with it. Tires are good, +4 winters on rims. I might also replace the seat if theres a good one at the JY. I'm hoping to make a fair bit of money off this, so if I'm not able to I might just use it as a second car.

 

[Turbo_Freak]

Got some pics?

 

[babybluecivic]

still working on it... but I got the engine to turn over, obviously it didn't start. I do have one quick question, theres no inertia switch (switch that turns off fuel pump in case of accident) is there? I just want to make sure its not something obvious before I start digging

 

[mymmeryloss]

No not from the factory...

Ill give u $100 bucks for it! U pay shipping...

 

[babybluecivic]

Haha I'm fairly sure it would be in my best interest to keep the car in that case

I actually have a friend with a distributor for a Honda accord, we are going to see if it matches. I'm going to start a thread in the tech section to deal with my problems, but I'll still try and figure out how to post pictures in here