91 civic crank angle senor

i recently did a head gasket on this car and replaced the timing belt.
upon successfully starting the car and adjusting the valves, i took it
for a drive.

at idle it runs fine. about 2 minutes into the drive (not sure if this
is time or speed related) the check engine light would go on
simultaneously as the car would lose power - as though a cylinder
stopped firing.

after getting home, i check the ecu. it claims a crank angle sensor
fault. this is located in the distributor, which is only a few months
old, and is unreplaceable according to chiltons.

if i clear the code by pulling the hazard fuse for 10 seconds or so,
the car starts up and runs great. again, it idles fine, take it for a
drive, about 2 minutes later, bam, check engine and power loss.

now, the ecu has been known to be wrong before. any ideas?

thanks so much.

 

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Did you put the 'heat sink' paste on the backside of the components that
need it? Sounds like a heat buildup problem . . .

'Curly'

 

i'm unfamiliar with what you're talking about. could you enlighten me?

 

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If somebody failed to put the heat sink paste (same as what's used on
Pentium chips) when they assembled the components inside the ( new /
used / reconditioned????) distributor (which was installed when the
weather was cooler) you might be getting overheating problems / circuit
shutdowns.

Do a google groups search.

'Curly'

 

yes, the distributor was remanufactured from Napa. i'd assume they
assembled it correctly. i am not so sure i want to take it apart to
find out...

i think i will take off the cap and see what i can see...

 

Is there anything besides the igniter that needs it?

 

1. consider returning the distributor under warranty.
2. just the sensor cannot be replaced, you have to do the whole unit.
3. ecu's are oh so very rarely defective. you can probably count on the
fingers of one hand the number of them that are genuinely bad each year.
check wiring & connectors.

 

You mean just the distributor sub-assembly.

 

Speaking for the crank sensor, I wouldn't put heatsink paste on
the crank sensor since it works best if it's isolated from the housing.

 

whatever you bought a month ago.

 

don't know if this'll get buried anyway in the forum. thought i'd give
a follow up.

took my distributer to napa tonight for warranty replacement. i bought
it last year, june 17th. five days left on that one! can you say
LUCK?

the guy at napa made no hassle whatsoever. he knows me probably a
little too well.

got home, threw in the new dist. car started right up. went for a
test drive after clearing ECU. drove for at least 15 minutes and
everything seemed fine. i was doubtful the dist was faulty (i'm pretty
skeptical after all the s**t i've been thru with cars), but figured
what the heck. she ran fine. i think the timing was a tad off, but
that can wait.

so keep your fingers crossed for me! this car just dodged a bullet by
five days. if the warranty had expired it would've gone to the junk
yard.

thanks to all.