1984 Honda Accord idle stalling problems

JIMYONALLY

MEMBER
1984 HONDA ACCORD

OK first off the car has and had several problems that I'm slowly working on. Bought the car Feb 2006 didn't want to run much past 5 miles from home in the mornings. Would stall when coming to a stop, low power and jerky when driving, sometimes would clear up sometimes wouldn't in the next 10 miles. Always cleared up in the afternoon. I messed around with the engine off and on until it ran fine (HINDSIGHT, MORNINGS GOT WARMER). Drove all summer long with rare problems. Blew and had replaced head gasket after which the car was running rough. Front float on carb needed to be adjusted (some fuel leakage around screw). Last two mornings the car is back to it's old tricks (MORNINGS ARE NOW COLDER). Runs OK for about five miles, dies unless I hold my foot on the accelerator when stopping, very low power while driving, clears up 2-3 miles later.

The car has new rotor/cap/wires/plugs/timing belt.

I probably need a rebuilt carb or a rebuild kit (leaky screw).
Possible culprits are timing advance, fuel supply or?
Any recommendations?

Car is:
Honda Accord, 1984, 5 speed
218,000 miles
Carburetor Keihin
has 3-4 casted in the body
has?90C 105020 on a tag

2 Replies

BRUCE HUNT

MECHANIC
3,754 POSTS

The loss of power got me thinking about the problem you had with the head gasket. When you had the head gasket problem and probably way before that did the car ever get real hot. I suspect that it did and probably sometime previously with the old owner. Here is my thought that I would start with. Pull the head off again and take it to a parts store with a shop. They will test it with a spray to find out if the head is cracked and they will find out if the head is warped. It can be plained to fix the problem. IF you had this done when the head gasket blew forget it. I suspect that over time you are loosing a small amount of coolant and this though unnoticable is being secretly burned in the cylinders and causing the bad running of the engine and loss of power. If not let me know.

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Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 AT 7:26 AM

JIMYONALLY

MEMBER
2 POSTS

When the head gasket was replaced the head was plained when the gasket was replaced but, I don't know if it was checked for cracks. Yes at least once about when the head gasket began to go I'm not sure how far I drove with the problem about 15 miles home from work at about 10 miles I noticed the engine sounding odd, no loud noises, and that's when the temp guage was maxed out. I couldn't stop right away because of traffic but, as I slowed down the temp guage came down. It stayed on the high side. I drove completely home and I noticed over the next few days if I took it easy the temp guage stayed about 3/4, normal is just above 1/2. If I drove a little harder the temp would climb and if I took it easy the temp would drop off. Now temp is staying pretty normal. And today, cold morning, it ran fine!

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Thursday, October 26th, 2006 AT 3:00 AM