IrishBrewer

I've been having intermittent starting problems as of late on my 94 Integra LS (B18B1) and I'm beginning to suspect it may be a problem with the main relay.

Here are the symptoms.

1. Most of the time, the car starts right up without any problems. Once the car is started, it runs fine.

2. Once in a while the starter will crank away but the engine won't start. I let it crank for a few seconds then try again and get nothing.

3. After a while, I give up on trying to get it to start and I let it sit for a while, say about 10 minutes or so. Then I go back and try to start it and it starts right up.

4. I am getting a good spark so the plugs, distributor/cap/rotor and wires seem to be good.

From what I've read, these symptoms could be due to a problem with the main relay. I'm going to pull the main relay and test it out but it seems like it might be hard to tell if the problem is with the main relay due to the fact that it is intermittent. The tests to be performed on the main relay involve checking for continuity when certain terminals are connected to battery voltage. Any tips here?

The other thing is that when I go to look up the part online, I get multiple choices. How do I know which one to get? Will my existing main relay have an OEM part number stamped on it that I can use as a cross reference?

The only other thing I can think of to check is the fuel filter - I guess it could be that there is insufficient fuel flow to start the car but this is doubtful because there are no problems when it is running.

JimBlake

If you're gonna take out the main relay to check it, here's another check. Open it's case & look for cracked solder joints. That seems to be a popular reason for the failures. Once you get that far, it's supposed to be pretty easy to re-melt the solder to fix.

I agree the fuel filter is not very likely to cause this without giving you big trouble while driving.

IrishBrewer

Over my lunch break, I took the main relay off although I didn't crack open the cover yet to look for bad solder joints. I'll take a look to see if I can re-do the joints.

The part number marking on the relay is 'Mitsuba RZ-0132" Anyone know where to get a cross refrence for equivalent aftermarket relays in the event that I can't fix this one?

burgan_30

does it happen when the relay is hot?

IrishBrewer

Yes, it seems to happen at the end of the day when the entire interior of the car is very hot from being in a parking lot in full sun. Maybe I should have a can of compressed air handy to cool it off to see if that helps. I guess if cooling the relay down when I couldn't get it to start would pretty much pinpoint that as being the problem if it started right up after doing so.

At any rate, I think I'll try taking it apart this evening to see how the joints look.

burgan_30

i had the same thing on my 86 honda accord. when i lived in texas it was a killer. finally had a mechanic jump over the relay. probably not a great thing to do, and if i had a good car i would have replaced it.

Muddy9069

If you need a new one it's $56 at the below online dealer. I just did a search on the web for "Mitsuba RZ-0132 relay". Below is the first place I found.

http://www2.maximumautoparts.com/par...lay&category=P

Hope this helps
Muddy

IrishBrewer

Muddy,

Thanks for the link. I did the resoldering thing and afterwords, I tested the relay per the shop manual and everything seemed to be working good. Replaced it and for giggles put in a new fuel filter. So far, so good. Hopefully that's all that was needed.

joseph_77

Thank you all for this info. I was very close to buying a new fuel pump thinking that the problem was the pump.

v6_accord_jerz

Hey welcome to the board.


There's alot of useful info on this site but there's no need to reply to 3 year old threads.