Q: After multiple replacement parts, car won't start - 1994 Acura Vigor

asked by on September 21, 2016

After changing the valve cover gasket, now my car won’t start. This is what happened: I was on my way to a store and I stopped to check my mailbox. I had lowered the driver’s window, but it would not raise back up. After that, while on the interstate, the car broke down and I had to have it towed back to my house. When I checked it, there was oil in the spark plug tubes. I purchased a gasket kit, put it on and got all the oil out of the tubes. Plus, I did an oil change. After replacing the spark plugs, I tried to start my car and it did turn over, but would not start. I broke off one of the valve cover bolts by tightening it too tight, but I covered the hole and then put two ground wires bolted separately on the valve cover together. Both of them have a wire connecting them. I saw that the the plugs were clean with no oil on them, when I pulled all of them. Also, I could smell gas and I know it is not a fuel problem.

After that I checked the spark. None of them had spark. So I replaced the wires and that did not work either. Recently I had fixed the distributor leak, so that is probably not the problem either. There was no spark from the coil either. I purchased a new ignition coil, installed it, but still no success. In addition to all of this, it had started to drain my battery until the battery was bad. I installed another battery and now this new one is also being drained. With a full charge and jump-starting, the car barely turns over. The starter clicks, then clicks very quickly. I also recently replaced the solenoid, so the starter should not have gone bad this soon, especially when working well before I changed the spark plug tube seals and the VC gasket. I grounded the two grounds separately from the valve cover onto the heat shield, next to the battery. I just do not know what else could be causing there to be no spark. What is your professional advice for what I need to do next to repair my car?

Camshaft Position Sensor Replacement $119.59 - $907.58 Get a Quote

There may be an engine position sensor that has failed like a crankshaft position sensor or a cam position sensor inside the distributor. If the computer cannot tell where the engine is in its rotation or how fast its spinning, it will not deliver spark.

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