90 accord LX won't restart but 15 minuts later starts fine.

This has hapened 4 times over a period of about 4 months. The car is
around normal operating temperature. Turn off the engine. Come back
in a few nimutes and it won't start. The starter turns over the engine
normally but there is not so much as a sputter. Sort of sounds like no
spark. At least there is gas in the tank and it runs normally later.
I have a Haynes manual and did some checking in the electrical section.
There two 20 amp fuses. #27 goes to the ignition switch which a month
ago I swear measured 1.5K ohms so replaced it. Maybe I measured wrong.
The car restarted fine for a month so I thought I had it beat. This
morning same problem and again it restarted after 15 minutes wait.
It's hard to fix something which only fails once a months and stays
froken for 15 minutes. Any ideas???

 

google is your friend. this problem comes up on this group weekly.

 

I would say faulty main relay.

 

Thanks for both of the speedy replies. Google steared me to a bunch of
good info. It seems that it might be a bad main relay or perhaps an
intermitant ignition module. As it only hapens once a month or so I
will probably never catch it when I have the facilities to test it.
The best move seems just to change the main relay and hope it never
happens again. So I have just 2 questions. Where is the main relay
located? Secondly, there were several references to the igniter. Must
be some part of a solid state ignition system but what is it?

 

it's the main relay. just replace or resolder. check out tegger.com
for details on how to do it. don't worry about the igniter - it doesn't
give intermittent faults.

 

I'm no expert, but I'm not so sure the ignitor doesn't produce
intermittents. My daughter's '93 Accord was giving her intermittent trouble,
especially on starting. I resoldered the main relay - still intermittent. I
replaced the main relay and there was only one more intermittent before the
ignitor died completely (a week or two later, IIRC). No more since then. But
at least she has a new main relay now, and that's a good thing. And I
agree - the main relay is the way to bet.

Mike

 

Thanks again.

Bob

 

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Search this group for more confirmation. When it won't start, turn the
key to position II, and smack the dash with your fist. You'll hear the
fuel pump run for two seconds. Start car. The vibration will keep it
going.

'Curly'

 

My wife drives this one to work. I thik I'd better save this trick for
an emergency. Thanks