1992 honda civic. Drive to work, everythings fine, after work it wont start. Engine cranks over fine, but wont start, i checked the fuel pump, is ok, pressurizes ok, opened the fuel filter, gas comes out fine. My son checked the car for spark, its present as well. So it has gas and it has spark. Take it to a mechanic and they tell me the head gasket is blown....does that sound right? Do head gaskets finally take a dump while the car is sitting? A little history...it was leaking coolant out of the weep hole of the water pump, i had to fill it weekly or at least top it off, i was putting in about a quart or two of oil every week also. Any input on this head gasket stuff is appreciated....

Samantha

 

if its burning that much oil then your rings are shot, but a blown headgasket you will see antifreeze either in the oil on the dipstick or coming out white from the exhaust, but sounds like you have

1.blown rings
2.headgasket

 

rings can get to the point of not giving you compression needed to start.
had one like that.
not a honda, though.
no compression in one of the cylinders.

may check your timing - may still be able to run, but the timing belt slipped (?).

 

remove the plugs , crank the engine and see if coolant comes out of the plug holes, also chk compression ..has car overheated or been overheating ??
\
In all my years i have never heard of a BLOWN HEAD GASKET acting this way,,,,,usually it will make car overheat, or make car miss due to coolant getting in to a plug ,,
but if car ran fine , you parked it and next morning would not start ,, i would look for something other than a blown head gasket causing the no start problem
chk engine lite on when you first put key on ??
you said you got fuel pressure at the filter ,, how much pressure ?? you need to hook up a fuel pressure gauge and see what it is at .. what about the injectors ?? are they firing ??

 

Sounds familiar. I've got a 93 civic and had similar problems.
Step one, replace the water pump. Water pumps seem weird on Civics, they will leak but not totally go as I've experienced with other vehicles. They'll leak but allow you to drive and not lose enough coolant to overheat as long as you fill it up ocassionally.

As far as the not able to start issue, I run into this occasionaly and quite randomly. Especially if the engine is warm and I've made several short trips to places turing the engine off and on. I've had to crank it (with no issue) and wait for a few minutes after trying again before it will fire up. I've not figured this one out, it seems like some sort of vapor lock thing (only during the hot summer months; please help, anyone who can.)

As far as the oil is concerned, I have to put in about a quart every two weeks. I know that this is because the thing burns oil before it warms up, (replaced all other oil seals to the cylinders) past the cylinder rings. Weirdly, once it's to temp, the rings seal up and it seems fine (never any smoke or emmisions problems once it's warmed up.) I've got about 192K and hope to get another year out of it until the major rebuild/junk it point.

 

<<As far as the not able to start issue, I run into this occasionaly and quite randomly. Especially if the engine is warm and I've made several short trips to places turing the engine off and on. I've had to crank it (with no issue) and wait for a few minutes after trying again before it will fire up. I've not figured this one out, it seems like some sort of vapor lock thing (only during the hot summer months; please help, anyone who can.)>>

Same here - in the past now. Drove me crazy trying to figure it out for 2 or 3 years. did not do it all the time.
Did 2 things - one MAJOR, one minor. wish i did the major before the minor. minor was that i took the relay out and just resoldered. MAJOR (?) - rebuilt the engine. Think it was due to the bad valves - but not sure. Oh, i did both of them while the car was sat-up.