Can’t figure this one out. If I leave my car outside, and it’s been raining for a while, it won’t start until quite some time after the rain stops. It runs fine if I try to drive it while it’s raining, as long as it was left in the garage when it was parked. Under the hood, nothing appears wet. The starter turns fine.
When I do get it started after these instances, it takes a while for it to run properly, if I hit the gas it will spin up to about 3000 RPM and then just stay there; if I give it more gas it kind of chokes. Sometimes I have to shift into a lower gear to get up to a higher speed. After a while everything goes back to normal (when it’s running OK I have no problem getting the engine up close to the redline).
The car in question is an 86 Civic with 140k miles. It’s due for a replacement but at the moment I don’t have the funds, and in the meantime I have a long drive tomorrow and I can’t get it started.
Classic problems during wet weather are caused by old ignition wires or a cracked distributor(sp?) cap. The moisture will short out the charge going to the spark plugs. My guess is that some of your wires are worse than others, so only some of the cylinders are firing and that’s why there’s a loss of power even when the engine will start. When the engine gets hot enough, the water evaporates and everythings normal again.
Try a new set of wires, you’re probably still using the orignal set.
And make sure they’re good wires. I tried a seat of cheapo-wires from K-mart on my VW bus once and had the same problems. Put a set of Bosch wires on, rainy-day problem went away.
Checking the distributor sounds like your best bet – you’re pretty much describing the symptoms my '93 Civic showed last winter when it needed a new one. Any mechanic can do the replacement for you (if you don’t want to try it yourself – I wasn’t brave enough to) without putting too much of a dent in your cashflow.
Yes, the WD-40 trick works like magic. I used to have a Datsun that would glide silently to the side of the road in heavy thunderstorms. A shot of WD-40 on the ignition wires would clear it all up. (The “WD” in WD-40 actually stands for Water Displacement.)
“When I do get it started after these instances, it takes a while for it to run properly, if I hit the gas it will spin up to about 3000 RPM and then just stay there;”
Sounds like the choke stuck. You might read the manual on the right starting procedure. Like push the gas pedal to floor, release, start car, wait ten seconds, push gas pedal half way to floor. Thats what my 87 car manual states.
To clarify – we don’t suspect a problem with the distributor, rather with the distributor cap and/or spark plug wires (usually just called “plug wires”). It’s common practice (and usually wise) to replace the distributor rotor when replacing the distibutor cap, and the two together are commonly called “cap and rotor” (there are other caps on the vehicle, and other rotors on the vehicle, but cap and rotor together only apply to the distributor).
It’s a virtual certainty that the no-start is due to the cap, wires, or both. It requires some testing to sort out if it might be only one or the other. The practical thing to do is to replace all the suspect parts (cap, rotor, and plug wires) and be done with it.
IMPORTANT: the routing of the wires is specific. Make a map of what goes where before any disassembly.
Some distributor caps can be improperly installed turned around 180’ – look for little index tabs or slots on the cap and line the new one up carefully – it should fit easily and solidly.