Questions and Answers

Honda Totally Messed Up

Q. Original problem was we needed a cam so we had a used camshaft, rocker arms and oil change done. This is a 1984 Honda Civic 4 Door, stick shift, carburetor with A/C & P/S both still work. Mileage is 202,877. We had a lot of trouble getting it to pass it's smog test. Mechanic had to make adjustments 3 times. Several months later on the end of a freeway, it went a LOUD bang out of the engine compartment but it was still able to drive. It would not idle at all. It misses on one cylinder until you get it slowly up to around 50 mph and it smooths out on to about 60 mph but you can't accelerate or decelerate fast or it gets all messed up and wants to die.

If you are going fast enough you can get it smoothed out again. One spark plug keeps falling out making it very difficult to drive but it will run. It has a hole in the muffler from backfiring and also the carburetor caught on fire twice very briefly from backfiring while trying to get it started. It will start up when it's warm but if it's cold you need starting fluid. Is this within your knowledge to help me fix it.

A. WOW!!! Loud bang, missing cylinder, back firing and a spark plug that falls out? I would love to see this car in person.

It sure sounds like you have some major engine damage here. I think what happened is the timing belt slipped enough to wipe out the valves in one cylinder. That would explain the backfiring through the exhaust and the carburetor. The lack of power would seem to confirm this.

What puzzles me is the spark plug falling out. Are the threads in the head stripped out? If that's the case, it can be repaired. If my suspicions are correct, the head will need to come off, the valves checked and replaced as needed and a heli-coil installed to repair the stripped spark plug hole.

I would not recommend driving this car until you have it repaired. You'll only do more damage and probably get stuck on the side of the road somewhere.