Since my knowledge of automobile mechanics is about on par with my knowledge of quantum physics, I was hoping one of you folks might be able to help with a question.
When my car had some trouble starting up, I checked the engine and saw nothing grossly amiss. I checked around the car, and saw that the muffler was “tilted”. Instead of the exhaust pipe facing straight out, it’s now somewhat angled upwards.
The muffler is old, and there are some holes on the bottom where it had rusted through. Obviously, I’m getting it replaced ASAFP. Tomorrow at a muffler shop that I haven’t picked out yet. I’m new to the area, so I don’t know what’s around here for that. But I’ve got the Yellow Pages in a kitchen drawer.
The battery is about a year old. All of the spark plugs were replaced last December. Various other parts (including the water pump, clutch, and something else that I can’t remember the name of) were replaced as last December as well in anticipation of driving across the country from Portland to Detroit. There is plenty of coolant, and as I said before, there were no major problems immediately obvious to this mechanical moron when I looked at the engine.
Could a problem muffler be the reason why the car won’t start up as easily as it should? It does eventually start after several tries, which is another reason I don’t suspect the battery.
Your muffler has baffles that are designed to trap and dampen sounds. These baffles provide resistance to the fluid movement of gases. This resistance to flow provides some backpressure to the engine, so it may be related to the starting problem.
I have observed that electrical problems may seem intermittent as well (e.g., moisture or temperature related). Inspect the entire starting system for corroision or poor connections: Battery terminals, connections to the starter, negative ground, cap rotor, plugs, and wires
Many cars will actually run better if the muffler rusts through or (even better) falls off. The reason is that the engine has to work less hard pushing the exhaust gasses out. Of course it’s possible that in a modern engine where everything is finely tuned and adjusted by a computer that the computer is getting confused, but that would make the engine run a little rough. I doubt it would cause any trouble starting. Now if the muffler bent and crimped up so that the amount of air flow was lessened, then the engine is going to have to work harder to push out the gasses, and that would cause the engine to be harder to start.
What kind of car is it? Sounds like an older car from your description. If getting the exhaust straightened out doesn’t fix it, pull off the air cleaner and pump the throttle by hand a few times. You should hear gas squirting out inside the carbuerator (the sound may be a little faint). It could be that the little pump in there isn’t working right or the nozzles are clogged. This would cause the car to have a hard time starting until the fuel pump managed to put enough fuel into the carb for it to go, which matches your description.
It’s a 1990 Honda Civic DX. It’s been a quite reliable car since I bought it about two and a half years ago.
I can’t understate the amount of rust I found between the muffler and the pipes connecting tp it. It’s quite extensive. I also note that the car started up right away after I jiggered the muffler back and forth a little bit. I did this gingerly, since the muffler is much lower than it should be.
Also, one of the holes in the bottom of the muffler is not what I would consider a “pinhole”. I think that a dime would comfortably fit into it.
This makes me think that the muffler has self-destructed in a way that parts of it are blocking the air flow. If it were anything else on the car (carb, distributer, etc) then jiggling the muffler wouldn’t do squat to affect the problem.
Engineer Comp geek the car does not have a carburetor.
Knowing it is a Honda civic, and if the problem occurs only when hot, I might suspect the main fuel relay (located in the passenger compartment by the driver’s left knee). This part is known to fail, causing hard starting in hot weather.