Help with 1987 LXi Repairs! Whistle and miss.

[bobbyfitz]

Hey guys & gals. I'm new to 3geez. I have a 1987 Accord LXi that is multi-port fuel injected. Last week the car was running fine, but the sway bar bushings were shot, the brake pads needed changed, a nd the battery and spark plugs were starting to go (basically it needed a tune up). I have some VERY basic mechanical knowledge and a tool kit so I set to work. Replaced the battery first, no problem. Then, with some help, I changed the brake pads, and installed new sway bar bushings (pretty easy all things considered). We noticed the tie rod ends were very rusted so I switched those out. Then I finished by changing the spark plugs and took it for a test drive. It had a really noticeable miss to it. Especially when just starting or at a lower RPM. The car also had a "put" to it (as in "put put put put put put put"). We thought the spark plug cables may have gone bad (and it looked like they had) so we switched them out, but the miss wasn't fixed. We ordered a new distributor cap, but they sent us the wrong kind. I'm wondering if anyone can help with this issue. There is also a slight whistle when in lower RPM or just starting, but I think that may be because we removed the air filter (it was in really bad shape and we ordered a new one, I didn't notice the whistle until we took the filter out). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Legend_master]

Well the whistle is most likely from removing the intake piping. The iacv tend to whistle lol. Have you looked inside the distributor cap? You can generally tell if they are worn out. Was the car running fine before you replaced the spark plugs? Where they properly gapped?

[Dr_Snooz]

x2 on spark plug gap.

[bobbyfitz]

Thanks for the reply guys. The inside of the cap didn't look too terrible, but some of the wire ends were sticking in the cap pretty well, so I thought it was probably a good idea to replace the cap just in case. The car was running fine before I replaced the spark plugs. This is going to sound stupid, but what do you mean when you say were they properly gapped?

[bobbyfitz]

I bought a set of NGK V-Power's that the guy at O'Reilly said would fit the car, and just installed them. I'm going to assume I made a rookie mistake.

[bobbyfitz]

I've done some research on spark plug gapping and I now understand what you guys are talking about. I definitely did not do this and definitely should have. I'm having a hard time finding the correct gap for my model, any suggestions?

[apache07x]

A whistle? Did you happen to take any vacuum lines loose either on purpose or accident? Sounds like a vacuum leak to me.

[bobbyfitz]

UPDATE: The whistle was definitely from the vacuum line. We had the line loose yesterday in order to access the side screws on the distributor cap. We re-installed the line today and the whistle went away (Thanks legend_master and apache!!!).

Legend_master and Dr_snooz, you guys were right on about the spark plug gapping!!! One of the plugs (the plug on the far right side of the motor) had been totally mashed and had like a 0 gap (it was supposed to be 1.1mm I found out). So we ended up taking out all the plugs and gapping them all (the rest were off, but not by a whole lot). The car runs like a top now! Better than before because of the sway bar bushing, brake pad, distributor cap, spark plug, and tie rod end fixes. Thank you guys so much. I didn't realize it was such a simple fix. This round of fixes cost me about 175 bucks for parts. My mechanic in town wanted between 2 and 3 hundred dollars just to do the sway bars (which he said needed replaced, but just needed re-bushed), so you can imagine how much money whole gambit would have set me back.

Thanks again!

Rob

[Legend_master]

UPDATE: The whistle was definitely from the vacuum line. We had the line loose yesterday in order to access the side screws on the distributor cap. We re-installed the line today and the whistle went away (Thanks legend_master and apache!!!).

Legend_master and Dr_snooz, you guys were right on about the spark plug gapping!!! One of the plugs (the plug on the far right side of the motor) had been totally mashed and had like a 0 gap (it was supposed to be 1.1mm I found out). So we ended up taking out all the plugs and gapping them all (the rest were off, but not by a whole lot). The car runs like a top now! Better than before because of the sway bar bushing, brake pad, distributor cap, spark plug, and tie rod end fixes. Thank you guys so much. I didn't realize it was such a simple fix. This round of fixes cost me about 175 bucks for parts. My mechanic in town wanted between 2 and 3 hundred dollars just to do the sway bars (which he said needed replaced, but just needed re-bushed), so you can imagine how much money whole gambit would have set me back.

Thanks again!

Rob

Congratulation, I always love to hear a successful repair story!

[apache07x]

UPDATE: The whistle was definitely from the vacuum line. We had the line loose yesterday in order to access the side screws on the distributor cap. We re-installed the line today and the whistle went away (Thanks legend_master and apache!!!).

Legend_master and Dr_snooz, you guys were right on about the spark plug gapping!!! One of the plugs (the plug on the far right side of the motor) had been totally mashed and had like a 0 gap (it was supposed to be 1.1mm I found out). So we ended up taking out all the plugs and gapping them all (the rest were off, but not by a whole lot). The car runs like a top now! Better than before because of the sway bar bushing, brake pad, distributor cap, spark plug, and tie rod end fixes. Thank you guys so much. I didn't realize it was such a simple fix. This round of fixes cost me about 175 bucks for parts. My mechanic in town wanted between 2 and 3 hundred dollars just to do the sway bars (which he said needed replaced, but just needed re-bushed), so you can imagine how much money whole gambit would have set me back.

Thanks again!

Rob

Awesome glad you were able to get her fixed Rob