Captain Regular

Ok, so a coworker bought my 87 Rex last year, and it's been mostly good to him. I have it devacced and it was running well when he got it. Anyway, it was giving him a hard time starting in November/December, mostly in the mornings when it was cold and wet. It would turn over, and in the warmer afternoon, it would usually start, but it seemed there was no spark when it was cooler out. I think moisture/corrosion in the distributor, and the cap is only like $7. He gets a girlfriend, and we FINALLY replace the distributor cap last weekend. It needs to be jumped after sitting for so long, but with a bit of starting fluid, it starts right up. Almost too easy. He drives it for a day, and it starts 3 or 4 more times. Then it does the same thing again. I theorize it MIGHT be the battery, but I can't see how it would crank and crank so easily but not have enough juice to spark. He's already replaced all the plug and distributor wires and the distributor cap (but not the button or rotor or whatever the hell it is that moves inside) and when it IS running, it runs fine. No misfires or skipped cylinders or anything like that.

I figure the next logical part is the coil pack, right? Seems like it's easy enough to replace. He calls me tonight, he's replaced the coil pack with a brand new one and it does the exact same thing. If it were the wiring that leads from the body up to the coil, but I would think that if that were questionable, it shouldn't be so temperamental in the first place. Before I tell him to go spend more money, I want to know what else I could be looking at. The ignition system doesn't seem that complicated on this car, the only ONLY remaining possible points of failure I can even see is the wiring harness from battery-switch-coil or the entire distributor itself, but neither of those seem to really fit the bill.

Real quick one, I can't believe I've never seen this "issue" before on here. '87 CRX with an EW1, carb. Went to do the first real oil change on it. We go to drain it, and what the hell is this double-rubber, non-removeable thing in there? Not a normal drain pan plug, this is a wingnut that seems to press a pair of rubber gaskets together. It's in there pretty good, too. Please tell me that this thing is easily removed and replaced with something that, for one, drains oil faster than a slight drizzle (it took over a half hour of holding this thing open) and also is easier to open and close.

Basically, I've never seen this type of thing before, I don't like it, and I want to put in a more normal oil plug. Can I do this without replacing the whole oil pan? Or, rather, without REMOVING the whole oil pan?

So we're pretty sure we have a blown head gasket. There was a little coolant in the oil (which no longer shows up on the dipstick) and there WAS a sweet-smelling white steam coming out of the tailpipe. The engine can run for at least 5-10 minutes without smoking/steaming and stalling out, so I think that it takes until the coolant is heated and up to pressure before it starts pushing through the gasket into the combustion chamber.

Anyway, we're pretty sure it's a head gasket, and we've resolved to replace it. I've never done anything like this before, and was wondering if there's anything in particular I need to make sure I have. I have a friend that's done similar stuff before, but not on this exact engine, and he says that really the only gaskets we'll need are the head gasket itself and the intake manifold gasket (which I know you don't NEED, but might as well, and no manifold/carb would make it easier to work with) and that's really it. Just those two gaskets. I was concerned about the head bolts and any other gaskets or sealants or anything else.

I don't think we're going to replace the water pump, but we are also replacing the timing belt. We'll be doing a carb rebuild in a few months, but I've done that before, that's easy (to me) but I've never done a head gasket, and I know it's a "bigger" operation. So any pointers or heads up would be appreciated.

I sold my Rex to a coworker a while ago, and he is putting a lot of effort into getting it in nicer shape than I ever could, but he's new to cars in general, so I'm kinda trying to mentor him and bring him into the fold. Anyway, he took it on a 400 mile one-way road trip last weekend and back, didn't have any problems, until the day AFTER her got back, he blew a radiator hose. No biggie, replaced it, filled it with water and he's been driving it since. But, he's run into this problem where he stalls now, after about 15-20 minutes of running. It doesn't seem to be OVERheating, but once it heats up, it no longer runs. Give it an hour to cool down, and he gets some more driving out of it.

When he first called me with the problem, I advised that he CHECK the oil, but it was dark and he ADDED oil and ended up burning a lot of oil and smoking quite a bit, so we drained and refilled and did a proper oil change today, thinking that the engine was just bogging down and pulling oil into the cylinders and clogging up and somehow inhibiting combustion. Sorry, I'm not that great yet on the internal head and block workings of the engine. Well, that didn't solve his stalling problem, as he just called me from downtown with a similar issue. Also, he has a "shaking" that seems to be described as a loose lugnut, which I know would be unrelated to the engine, but it's an awful coincidence.

Anyway, I have one theory, but it doesn't make much sense to me. Since he lost most of his coolant when he replaced the hose, an operation which went well, we put regular old water in it. And we're in Florida, so I'm wondering if it's somehow overpressurizing something and if that can even happen. He's got a manual fan switch for the radiator fan, so he can have the fan on all the time, if need be.

Just thought of one more thing. The coolant loop. The hose he replaced, it's the straight hose from the firewall to the pump, presumably for the heater core. It looks like it was a little long, and I didn't think anything of it at the time, but if that's kinked, could that be closing off the whole loop? Is the heater core a necessary part of the coolant loop for regular engine operation?

Just sold my rex on Friday. Luckily, it's to a guy who lives like 2 blocks down and works with me. He's been driving fine all day yesterday, no problems, and now it won't start this morning. Oil was a little low, but not low enough to cause an inability to start or anything bad. There's fuel in the float bowl, and we've tried spraying carb cleaner to make sure it's getting fuel, no vac leaks or anything like that. I'm pretty sure fuel isn't the problem. So, now I think it's not getting spark. I brought my voltmeter over to take a look, but I've never really done anything with engine ignition systems, this is kinda new territory for me, but she's never given me any electrical problems before. Anyway, here are my results.

When the car is "on" (even though not running) there is about 8-10 volts coming off of the coil pack or ignition pack or whatever you call it (goes to the center point on the dizzy) so it's not even a full 12V. During attempted cranking, this drops to zero. I get nothing measuring DC or AC current. This is a red flag to me, but this might be exactly what it's supposed to be doing. When the car is off, that cable seems to become continuous with the ground of the car, there's a flow from it to everywhere else. I guess I'm wondering how much of what kind of current should I be seeing coming off of that into the distributor?

Also, I thought the plug wires might be suspect. I ran a continuity check on them. Normally, I would expect them to have almost no resistance, but they do. My meter has an ohmmeter on it, and anywhere that grounds on the car spikes the meter directly to the neg terminal, but the spark plug wires are all making it go only halfway. This means there's more resistance in a spark plug wire than there is from any point on the car to the negative battery terminal, although they are carrying electricity. Just to see, I checked my Saturn's cables, and they're the same way, so I now don't THINK that's a problem.

Also checked the timing belt, it looks good, and no timing has been adjusted. The car turns, engine turns just fine, but there's no ignition occurring at all. I think it's lack of spark, but it's hard to tell. Any advice?

EDIT: Quick update, same problem, but looked down into the carb (could see the bottom of the manifold) and it is flooded. This would probably be a symptom, he was cranking it for quite a while before he let me know he couldn't get it to start. It's humid as hell in Florida, any advice on how to get that out of there?