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Author Topic: Unwell 1999 Honda Civic - thoughts appreciated Sean McKinnon Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1712 From: Peabody Massachusetts Registered: Sep 2000 posted 04-03-2013 08:42 AM                        Thank you Mike that sheds a lot of light on things. Yes, I am probably over estimating a bit but it has been a problem. I am going to have a meeting with me "Fleet Management" staff to make sure that they are fully charging batteries or replacing them before installing alternators. Unfortunately we do not have any stores from the chain you partner with we only have AutoZone and Advance and a small regional chain store that delivers to professional shops and garages. Most of the problem parts come from the consumer stores and we try not to buy those types of parts from them but unfortunately they are open when the other shop is closed. We tend to buy the mid grade parts and as you said that may be an issue. Thank you for your insight!  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 04-03-2013 09:52 AM                        I have had some luck giving the battery a slight charge from a trickle charger which will excite the alternator field. it will then go on and charge the main battery. (My Cessna 210 has 8 D cells located in the wing for the purpose of exciting the alternator in an emergency.) Louis  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-03-2013 12:49 PM                        quote: Mike Blakesley Supposedly, a lot of "bad" alternators really aren't bad at all, they just come back with a "not charging" complaint when it was really the battery's fault. I'm guessing that must be the case with a lot of car parts, because any one fault on a car could have a number of different causes. Last summer I encountered an example of this: blown bulb (seemingly), replaced bulb, still no light, fault turned out to be that the indicator flasher relay was buggered. It just didn't occur to me to test the continuity on the old bulb - I just jumped to the conclusion that if the light goes out, the bulb is to blame. When I looked at the old bulb I could even see that the filament was intact - didn't even bother to look before replacing it initially. I'm sure that other people in that situation would have taken the new bulb back to the shop. Speed sensor and Molex-type connector arrived yesterday and are now in; just waiting for the charger. There is a bit of vertical play on the shaft of the old sensor, whereas the new one is snug: dunno if that's significant. Watch this space...  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-04-2013 12:11 PM                        Battery charger arrived yesterday. After connecting it, it went into defulfate mode for about 5 hours, and then started charging the battery (which it said only had a 12% charge in it when connected). First thing this morning it said 100% and the battery read 12.78 volts, so the omens look good that we've managed to rescue it. Started the car this morning, let the engine warm up for 6-7 minutes or so and then took it for a 20-minute local drive, all without any problems. The doors locked on shifting from P to D and the speedo worked fine. However, two other gremlins emerged. 1 - Temperature gauge is dead. Olivia tells me that it worked fine when she last used the car, so that's a bit of a puzzle. When the engine has cooled down I'm going to check the connection to the temperature sensor (I did pull it off and look at it when checking the car over last week - maybe I didn't put it back on properly) and go from there. 2 - Parking brake light stays on even when parking brake is off. I suspected a faulty microswitch in the handbrake, but according to online Honda forums this can also mean low brake fluid. The level does look a bit low (though not down to the minimum), so I'll get some more this evening and see if that cures it. I'm a little reluctant to take it for a longer drive without a working temperature gauge, but so far the signs are positive. Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.  |  IP: Logged Sean McKinnon Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1712 From: Peabody Massachusetts Registered: Sep 2000 posted 04-04-2013 01:11 PM                        You might want to take the cap off the brake fluid reservoir fill it the the line and with the cap off pump the brakes to draw the fluid into the system then top it off once more. You will be able to tell if your losing brake fluid if after topping it off once or twice the level keeps dropping below the line after pumping the brakes. (Make sure the car is on when you're pumping the brakes or you won't draw the fluid into the system)  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-04-2013 11:03 PM                        I think, essentially, it's a case of mission accomplished. Topping up the brake fluid (and pumping afterwards to get any air bubbles out of the system - many thanks, Sean) got rid of the brake warning light, after which we took it on a drive to Redlands (21 mile round-trip), during which the car behaved itself perfectly: speedo normal, rev counter normal, gears changed as expected and no phantom door-locking throughout the drive. So I'm guessing that the cause of the original problem was a bad speed sensor. The only remaining problem is the temperature gauge. I suspect that it's been faulty for some time: whenever the car is started, the gauge instantly (and I mean instantly - the moment the engine is started) rises to about a third of the way up the scale and stays there. I'm guessing that Olivia misread that as meaning that the car is running at normal temperature. There is 5v present in the temperature sensor connector, and if I short positive to ground the gauge goes all the way up to the 'hot as Hell' position (plus the check engine light comes on), which says to me that the temperature sensor is the culprit on this one. Still, that's $15 and five minutes - no worry there. Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.  |  IP: Logged Sean McKinnon Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1712 From: Peabody Massachusetts Registered: Sep 2000 posted 04-05-2013 09:45 AM                        Great I am glad you were able to repair this car pretty easily. I would tend to agree with your assessment on the temperature gauge the only thing I would look out for is an air bubble in the coolant system (which can be bad the three mile island incident was partially caused by an air/steam bubble in the coolant system though not a car a good example of what can go wrong when you get air or steam in parts of a system not intended and it causes blocked coolant flow which can happen in a vehicle) causing the temp sensor to misread but I think if that was the case you would have seen symptoms of over heating.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-05-2013 11:55 PM                        Another 20 trouble-free miles today. I'm as sure as I can be that there isn't an air in the cooling system issue. The radiator fans are triggered directly by the thermostat, not the engine computer's temperature sensor. I let the car idle for 10-15 minutes and the fans came on, suggesting to me that the coolant is flowing properly (wouldn't have taken that long if there was a blockage, I'd have thought). Thanks for the pointer.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 04-06-2013 07:59 AM                        "Keep 'em rollin'"  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-09-2013 05:20 PM                     On the T-stat issue and to rid of the air bubble syndrome called "airlock": If the T-stat has no jiggle valve on the flange, drill a .050" hole in the flange, for this eliminates "airlock" and helps to keep the system "burped" from air pockets and similar. The hole is small enough to still keep coolant behind the T-stat to get heated up and pressurized yet allows the system to breathe since the flow through that hole is so minute .. This trick works great with vertically mounted T-stats where you have the drilled hole at the 12:00 position. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-10-2013 10:36 AM                        Many thanks Monte. I now have the new temperature sensor, but putting it in will have to wait until July (I'm off back to England for three months tomorrow), because that will mean having to drain and refill the cooling system anyway: unscrewing the sensor (it's mounted horizontally, on the side of the engine block underneath the distributor) and then putting the new one in on the fly as coolant pours out will almost certainly get air bubbles into the coolant circuit. Olivia's thinking about keeping the car as a backup (the garage is big enough for two and the insurance will cover both cars for the price of just the new one), and if she does then I'll do the oil, oil filter and bleed and totally replace the brake fluid and transmission oil, too. And yes, I have disconnected the battery (in a fully charged state) this time, and put a quick release lever-type clamp (thank you O'Reilly's Auto Parts!) on the negative terminal, so that she can reconnect it without any tools if she needs to use the car.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-29-2013 05:04 PM                        Well, the Honda has seen some action over the last couple of weeks. The speed sensor was undoubtedly the cause of the original problem, because the car has now been driven for 1,400 miles since it was replaced, without any sign of those symptoms coming back. The battery did not survive its total discharge, though. It was disconnected from April to early July (during which time the car was not used), and when I charged it (about 20 hours at 2 amps) and then reconnected it, it didn't have enough cranking power to start the engine. RIP battery. $84 at O'Reilly's solved that problem, and I've also replaced temperature sensor, the oil, filter, air filter, rear brake shoes (there wasn't much left of them), flushed the brake lines and replaced the brake fluid, changed the automatic transmission fluid and flushed and replaced the radiator coolant. It's running pretty nicely now. I am wondering about the power steering liquid, though. The Haynes manual for the 1999 Civic doesn't mention anything about flushing and replacing it - it doesn't even tell you how to. It just tells you to check the reservoir level, and to top it off as necessary. However, I sucked out a little bit from the reservoir with a turkey baster, and it's a gross and disgusting black sludge. Olivia doesn't have any recollection of it ever having been flushed and changed. I can hear the power steering pump juddering when it's at full lock, and can't believe that having fluid that could be as much as 14 years old in the power steering system can possibly be good for it. I'm therefore thinking about flushing and changing it the same way as I do on my car back home (recommended every 30k miles): disconnect the return pipe from the reservoir and stick it in the top of a bottle, run the engine to pump the old fluid out while turning the steering wheel back and forth and keeping the reservoir topped up, then when the stuff coming out of the return pipe is clear, reconnect it to the reservoir and top the reservoir off. Can anyone think of any reason why this might be a bad idea? Many thanks in advance.  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 07-29-2013 06:00 PM                       I worked on automatic transmissions for a living before I ended up here and did a lot of work on cars for as a hobby. In this application, if it's not leaking from the rack or hoses, leave it be. The new clean fluid just may dissolve enough gunk to cause leaking around the seals.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 07-29-2013 06:21 PM                     I Agree. If the fluid comes up clean on the dip stick, e.g., without any particulate matter, leave it alone. A service manager once told me that unless you have been doing regular maintenance you'd be asking for trouble to start now.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-29-2013 10:53 PM                        Thanks folks. The sample I siphoned out was thick, black and gloopy. Still, if it's not causing any damage to the steering system, advice taken and I'll leave it.  |  IP: Logged

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