Hi gang,

I'm new to the forum, but more important I'm new to troubleshooting.

A friend bought a 94 Civic Si a few weeks ago. It had trouble starting - sounded exactly like a dead battery, with just a click and some humming, but engine doesn't turn over. The guy she bought it from said he'd been looking at it, confirmed the alternator was good and replaced the battery. He told her that as far as he knew the next thing to do was replace the ECU, which he described to her as a "small box in the fusebox, but not a fuse".

Now I know an ECU isn't in the fusebox, but I had a spare (long story) so I gave it a try. Still no good - tick, but no start. I can't find anything in the fusebox that fits the description, but I am new at this.

Any advice anyone could give me on what to check next? All I can think of is to start trying to find shorts.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

PS I did check the "troubleshooting" sticky, which gave me a couple more things to check, but nothing seemed like a perfect fit there.

 

A click and it doesn't turn at all is either the battery, starter, or the connections between them. Turn the headlights on and watch what happens when you turn the key. If they go out, the whole car is losing power from the battery. If they stay lit that usually means the starter itself is bad.

The ECU doesn't have anything to do with the starter engaging. There is a direct circuit from the key to the starter.

If it has never cranked at all since she bought it, confirm that the engine isn't seized up by trying to turn it by hand (key off) with a socket wrench on the crank pulley bolt. Unlike most cars, it turns counterclockwise in normal operation.

 

Thanks for the tips mk. I thought the ECU sounded fishy, and now that I've seen how the starter is wired up I get it. Learning is fun! (Even when it is time consuming and messy, and kills my long weekend.)

I tried the light test, and they stayed steady, so I'm now confident that it is the starter.

I picked one up from my local Pick-n-Pull, from their list of compatible units, and while the starter and solenoid look almost identical, there seems to be an interface plate between the unit and the block, and on the "new" unit the bolt holes are further apart than the one I took off. Anyone know if I can swap this piece and be good? Or did Pick-n-Pull get it wrong and I have an incompatible starter?

Thanks to all who read this!

 

Holes don't line up means you have the wrong part. There are two kinds of Civic starters, one for manual transmission and a different one for automatic. Other than that they should interchange over a large range of years, all of the 1990's anyway.