Rice Warmer - '92 Prelude automatic - 19/3 check engine light fixed

[vulgalour]

I like your MoT tester.

[JohnDeere]

The Prelude was washed for the first time today. I keep trying to ignore the rusty bits, but it's getting harder to pretend that it's not dissolving away. And has got worse in the six months I've had it.

 

So what's the best way to deal with these (pics show the worst bits)...

 

( a ) temporarily to stop it getting worse for a bit

( b ) permanently (realising that will need welding and £££ ... but I need a good recommendation of someone with the skills to do it well)

 

I'd like this to be a keeper because I like it, mechanically it's sweet (well, except for the gearbox), and it's very usable daily.

 

 

[tooSavvy]

ha! Arches....

My Toyyo of Much Mintyness (+ improved handling now!) has just shit a tbag of brown flakes onto my shoes, as I drove my screwwie straight thru the sill end/door shut rear n/s.

Panic not... It looked like a weetabix in the 'only grotty bit' piccie, furnished by MrStation in the forceale thredd.

 

I am getting a local sparklystick practitioner to denude the current surplus of MOD filing cabinets, and so revitalise this sad scabby barnacle.

 

my local vinyl bodds may be whisking this up for me.....


TS

[dollywobbler]

I used to use a chap called Tony Coles in Somersham for cheap, nicely done repairs. Not that he ever did outer bodywork for me, but he's the sort who can make a patch invisible. If he's still trading. Next door to TRGB.

[Bren]

Even a £300 heap I would weld rather than just fill.

[tooSavvy]

Even a £300 £350 heap I would weld rather than just fill.

 

 

TS

[JohnDeere]

I used to use a chap called Tony Coles in Somersham for cheap, nicely done repairs. Not that he ever did outer bodywork for me, but he's the sort who can make a patch invisible. If he's still trading. Next door to TRGB.

 

Thanks ... will whizz by there and have a look. Completely agree with Bren that a proper welding is much better plan - I'll have another look for replacement sections.   The back window needs to come out too to do the corners of the wings which are going at the bottom corners of the screen.    Or, I go the cheating way ... flapwheel + Hydrate 80 + filler + rattle can + ignore it for another 18 months.

 

If I find someone good though, they can sort the crusty arches on the Visa too.

[dollywobbler]

Problem with the flapwheel is that it'll probably take a small bubble and turn it into a ruddy great hole. Is tricky to know the best course of action when values are so low. That said, look at earlier Preludes and prices have been rising pretty strongly. You'd struggle to get any of the previous generations in decent nick for under a grand now. Really nice fourth-gens are starting to appreciate, but it's still early days.

[oldcars]

That will need cut out and a new arch welded in i would guess. As a cheap fix cover in waxoil to try and slow it down.

[JohnDeere]

Problem with the flapwheel is that it'll probably take a small bubble and turn it into a ruddy great hole.

 

Probably just my luck.  Would prefer going for the "proper" option - given the very reasonable £17 purchase price there's plenty of value in the car to make it worthwhile.

 

That said, look at earlier Preludes and prices have been rising pretty strongly. You'd struggle to get any of the previous generations in decent nick for under a grand now. Really nice fourth-gens are starting to appreciate, but it's still early days.

 

That had crossed my mind, though seems like luck of the draw - and the auto/non-VTEC probably won't be top of the list. So main factor is that I like it and it works, so worth spending a few quid on if it buys another few years.

 

That will need cut out and a new arch welded in i would guess. As a cheap fix cover in waxoil to try and slow it down.

 

And all a lot easier if I can get repair sections - but tricky because they all go in the same place. Otherwise I need to find someone who's handy with making curvy bits of metal (and hence more £££).  If I CBA doing it right away, I'll definitely shove in some waxoil to keep it going.

[JohnDeere]

Someone of the Prelude forum is knocking out lower-half replacement sections in zinc-protected metal at £250/pair.  PM'd him to see if they have any left.  Makes the whole job a bit steep though - I don't think a rear arch repair is the place for me to learn DIY weld and paint skills from scratch, sadly.

[Craig the Princess]

I'd see if the Crown can do it, the bodywork they have done for us has been at a high standard.

[JohnDeere]

Prelude has had its first mechanical wobble in my ownership. Attempting to blow the cobwebs out this morning I put the 'box into 'S' mode and gave it some welly. Cue nasty hesitation at just over 3000rpm and check engine light coming on.  It won't now rev above 3000-3500 rpm... though not sure if that's due to the problem, or due to the check engine light keeping it in some sort of limp mode.

 

Apparently the light can be reset just by disconnecting the battery for 10 mins, so I'll try that and see what clears up.  Otherwise I'm guessing an O2 sensor.

 

Honestly, this shoddy Japanese engineering. You would really expect a 25-year-old car that hasn't been started for three weeks to just work, wouldn't you.

[dollywobbler]

I wonder if there's any simple on-board diagnostics like there is on the Honda-engined Rover R8s?

[JohnDeere]

I wonder if there's any simple on-board diagnostics like there is on the Honda-engined Rover R8s?

 

Good thought - I have the 1400 page Honda workshop manual as a PDF and it looks like you can indeed count the number of blinks of the check engine light by shorting a connector with a jumper wire.  Will give this a try - but probably won't have chance till tomorrow now... 

[Ghosty]

10 mins with the battery off? There should be a fuse you can pull to make life easier. Ten minutes sounds like overkill too - on the 216/Concerto you only need the hazard warning fuse out for 30 seconds.

The codes are the same across early '90s Hondas - long flash = 10, short flash = 1. If it shows '1' (blinking forever at a consistent rate) then it's an O2 sensor. IIRC they have the potential to store multiple codes so look out for that.

The circumstances for the light coming on sound very similar to that of my R8 when the O2 sensor was broken, too.

Check engine light does put a restriction (albeit a pretty reasonable one) on the performance. Whenever the light came on at more than around 45mph on the R8, the revs went up by around 400rpm.

[JohnDeere]

Four flashes from the Blinkey Light Diagnostic Systemâ„¢ tells me the problem is with the crank sensor.

 

 

Ghosty, you're exactly right - 10 seconds with the radio fuse removed resets the ECU.  I have now done this a couple of times - pointing to the connector. So gave it a blast of switch cleaner and WD40, but the problem always comes back after a few miles. And after a reset in Tesco's car park just now the check engine light stayed on.

 

The Honda workshop manual gives a very detailed diagnostic flowchart - so I'll check some resistances tomorrow morning. Rather worryingly the only option if a wiring fault is not present is "replace the ECU". Hopefully it will be wiring related (especially as it seemed intermittent earlier).

[Ghosty]

Check Engine faults only usually throw the light on after a couple of miles or when you hit 45ish in my experience - I could do ten mile 30mph journeys in the R8 and the light wouldn't come on, and resetting the ECU has no effect. I find the codes tend to eradicate themselves in absence of the previously indicated issue.

[JohnDeere]

Right, this is annoying me now.

 

-- The crank sensor fault code pops up randomly - after about 5-10 miles. But on every journey. No sign of the problem going away.

-- Reset the ECU and all is well again

-- Checked and cleaned the connector for the three sensors (TDC, crank, cyl) between distributor and main wiring harness, all good

-- Checked the resistance across the crank sensor terminals - it's about 380 ohm, within tolerance

-- No shorts to earth from either of the terminals

 

-- The only other tests I could make are on the ECU itself, but this apparently needs a test harness

-- I could measure the AC voltage off the sensor when the engine is cranking, but not sure that will tell me much

-- I could disassemble the entire distributor, but officially the crank sensor isn't replaceable separately, requiring a new distributor (£££). And I'm not sure the sensor itself if the problem

 

Any Honda/R8 experts out there that could give me some more clues as to what's most likely to be throwing this fault code intermittently bu consistently?

[Ghosty]

I'm personally a bit sceptical of testing sensors with multimeters. IIRC Old Man did that on my o2 sensor, he said it was fine, it wasn't.

I doubt it's the ECU.

[JohnDeere]

I'm personally a bit sceptical of testing sensors with multimeters. IIRC Old Man did that on my o2 sensor, he said it was fine, it wasn't.

I doubt it's the ECU.

Agreed on the ECU. Testing there is more to check wiring between sensor and ECU.

 

I found I can get replacement sensors for this type of Honda distributor for £35 online which seems to be the only option to try. Will no doubt be a massive ballache to swap them in the distributor, but at least I can do that part inside.

 

Any thoughts on what else to look for before I go down that route?

[SiC]

The only proper way of testing a sensor like that is with an oscilloscope. That way you see what the ECU should be seeing.

[JohnDeere]

The only proper way of testing a sensor like that is with an oscilloscope. That way you see what the ECU should be seeing.

 

Which is, sadly, not something I possess.  I think it's going to be a case of trying to get the new sensors and hope it's possible to get them into the distributor without needing the skills of a brain surgeon.

[Fabergé Greggs]

You can get really great USB oscilloscopes now. I've got one and it's way more use and easier to use than any oscilloscope of old.

 

This is the one I have but there may be cheaper:

 

https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/2000/picoscope-2000-overview?gclid=CjwKEAiAi-_FBRCZyPm_14CjoyASJAClUigOedujFmA7iKmGW4C2AGOpIk46oIldKzjFt-Mz-p5cSxoCXwvw_wcB

[JohnDeere]

Popped the distributor off this afternoon. Well that's looking borked for a start - wonder which bit of the engine the missing bit is wedged in?

 

 

This sensor doesn't look so good either, covered in a mystery white gunge.

 

 

Looks even worse now I've tried to clean it - the very fine copper wires in the winding are having a bad hair day. Bugger.

 

 

I guess it's new distributor time. I have a choice of (a) random "compatible" made-in-China part from eBay; (b ) various used parts on eBay that look like they've come off a 250,000 mile Accord mini cab, (c ) perfect looking new-old stock and only £45. But from Americaland with lots of delivery and customs charges and general uncertainty that it might arrive.

 

It's a TD-58U distributor. Or maybe a TD-88U. They seem to be interchangeable and mine has no part number. Fairly common on 2-litre Hondas - Prelude, Accord and Rover 620s. If you happen to know of one in a scappy please let me know

[J-T]

I've just remembered, I'm sure when I first bought this (and when I sold it) there was another dizzy in a box in the boot, so maybe this has happened before.

 

Also did someone not mention ages ago that the fact that the D4 light on the dash didn't illuminate could be masking some kind of fault code issue, or did someone fix that?

[dollywobbler]

Ah, that box that is still in my garage?

[JohnDeere]

Ah, that box that is still in my garage?

If you could have a look, that would be great. I have a feeling this one might be a replacement already - so wonder if the one in the box was the old-old one? Even so I should be able to cobble together one good one.

[dollywobbler]

Well, look what we have here.

 

Only slight issue is I'm not going to be able to get a to a Post Office before Thursday.

[JohnDeere]

That is brilliant.... I won't get chance to fit it till next weekend so if you can post it Thursday first class / Hermes that would be great. Any other bits you have also welcome. Let me know the postage cost and I'll send it over.

 

In other questions, I need to buy a timing strobe, anyone have a recommendation?