Honda Car Forum

Hi All

My wife's just died. No spark in any wire. After replacing
cap/rotor/wires/plugs (it needed it anyway so thought to try that
first) it still does not start.

I opened up the distributor and the coil measures ok (a couple of ohms
primary, about 10K secondary - sounds right, doesn't it?) but looks
weird: the plastic is discolored slightly. On one spot, suspiciously 2
mm away from a small but deliberate bump on the distributor case, I
can see a spot colored like an oil slick on the transformer's case -
all colors of the rainbow. It also feels rough in places, like someone
took sandpaper to the plastic case. I can also see hairline cracks in
the plastic.

Is that an indication that the insulation has broken down since the
coil might be arching to the distributor housing?
If the coil is indeed bad, would the ignition module (ICM) need to be
replaced too? In other words, can my arching coil take it out or was
my coil taken out by a bad ICM?

Thanks for any suggestions.
Remco