When I first got my 87 Accord LX auto transmission, carburated car, it wouldn't start. It had only 28,000 miles, so I knew it had to be something simple.
Here are the symptoms:
- It cranked fine.
- I checked for spark by removing a wire from a spark plug and holding it near the engine while cranking. It was fine. The distributor cap had some oxidation on the plugs, and I replaced the cap and rotor, but that didn't help.
- Occasionally, if I hadn't tried for a while, I was able to get the car to run at around 3000 rpm, while in park, at full throttle. Within
- After many tries, I noticed a pool of fuel in the secondary carb barrel.
The problem was that since the car had sat for years, rarely used, the fuel in the bowl ate away the O-ring in the carb float valve. This caused the valve to be constantly "on", forcing pressurized fuel into a full and overflowing bowl. The overpressure overfed the jets and overflowed directly into the closed secondary.
The only cure was to remove the carburator, disassemble, and replace that O-ring. You can't do it without removing the carb. Once you've got the carb out, and you bought the rebuild kit, you might as well replace all the O-rings in there. The "rebuild" is easy; it's getting the carb off and on that's a big pain (due to close quarters and lots of vacuum tubes). Be sure to replace the carb gasket with a proper new gasket, and replace any cracked vacuum hoses.
Greg