cleaned the dist. cap but still the same.
the engine cranks very slowly and doesn't catch to start the car.
do u think that the dist. cap is shot?

 

Replace the cap and rotor, and charge the battery up or jump the car if it is cranking slowly. If it still doesn't fire up after that and you still have the weak spark, most likely the coil is bad.

 

if the coil is bad and giving out weak spark will that cause it not to start or spark up enough to start?

dumb question but how long do I jump it from another car (Honda accord) til the batterys fine? don't want to get yelled at for wasting the inlaws gas.

if the cap and rotor are broken will the car not start?

anyway to test either cap or rotor? I cleaned both up as best as possible.

when the car first died it started up then started shaking hard and then we shut the engine off and it wouldn't restart. would a bad coil/rotor/cap make the engine do that?

 

if the coil is bad and giving out weak spark will that cause it not to start or spark up enough to start? YES

dumb question but how long do I jump it from another car (Honda accord) til the batterys fine? don't want to get yelled at for wasting the inlaws gas. Not a dumb question. Jump it for a couple of minutes, then leave the other car running and try starting it a few times with the other car connected.


if the cap and rotor are broken will the car not start? Yes, it will not start or if it does start it will run like crap and either shake, or stall.

anyway to test either cap or rotor? I cleaned both up as best as possible. Not really. A lot of times the cap or rotor will have hairline cracks that will cause a short between terminals and cause rough running, or no running at all

when the car first died it started up then started shaking hard and then we shut the engine off and it wouldn't restart. would a bad coil/rotor/cap make the engine do that? Yes, see above.

Like you said, when you checked it before, you had really weak spark. That tells me the cap and rotor are functioning, but possibly not properly. More likely it is the coil or the coil wire to the distributor cap causing weak spark.

 

If you're still having problems start a new thread.