[Tr-gang] A festive drive home

[Mark J. Bradakis]

Some of you are aware, maybe TOO aware, of the troubles I've been having
with my old '87 Honda Civic Si.  But last night I finally had it running
again after over two months of downtime.  Thanks to Pugs' generosity I've
been driving around in one of his surplus squaretail Spits, quite nice for
what turned out to be a very pleasant fall.  But winter is aproaching, and
I want the Honda back on the road.  So I've got more of an incentive to
deal with it, instead of putting it off until "later."

Bridgette, a local autocrosser and SCCA board member has an 86 Civic,
just like the white one I used to have 15 years ago.  She drops it off last
night at the house, I shuffle parts between the two cars and finally get
the black Honda to where it is running, and running well.  With all the
new parts and tune up work I've done lately I'm not surprised it is running
so strongly -  Yee ha!  I drive it around a bit this afternoon, meet Pugs
for lunch, run some stuff to the shop, head back to the U to work a bit more.
Jump in the Honda and head for home.

A few blocks down the road the car starts acting oddly again, very much
like it had been acting after I put the new crank sensors in and before
I swapped in Bridgette's distributor.  This behavior lasts for about a block
and a half, then the car dies and will not restart.  I coast to a stop
on a handy side street.

I'm depressed and annoyed.  I sit there for a while trying to restart a few
times, no luck.  An occasional huff and puff, but nothing seriously resembling
running.  I'm positive that whatever burned out in my distributor was caused
by something else, and I just burned out the loaner, so now I'll have to fix
TWO cars.  I am not happy.  I decide I'll walk home, jump in the Spit, go get
the tools and stuff I took to the shop earlier today, come back to the Honda
and see what I can do.

But then again, maybe it is just a loose wire, or something else that might
be obvious even in this dark parking spot.  I open the hood and poke around
a bit.  I check various wires and connections, then go to pull the crank
sensor connector off the distributor.  It moves up about an inch without
leaving the distributor clamp.  The whole distributor moves up about an
inch!

Hee hee.  I guess, uh, one of the staff mechanics working on the car last
night failed to snug up the bolts holding the distributor down after setting
the timing.  I get the distributor seated into its proper place, the bolts
finger tight, and get back in.  It fires right up, I drive home.  I'm not
as depressed as I was.

mjb.