2002 Honda Civic LX auto - repair & modding

[Daox]

Yeah, I am not sweating it, otherwise it would be ground down.

[Daox]

I got a good chunk of reassembly done last night.

First off, the new front engine mount went in. The old one was pretty shot!


Yay, nice new shiny part (yeah the only one on the whole engine ).



Next up was the water pump. The old one was getting fairly corroded from running pure water through the cooling system.




Here we have my solution to not wanting to pay $38(!!!) for a intake manifold gasket.






So, its mostly reassembled at this point. I need to do the valve clearances yet. I was going to do that, but I couldn't find my feeler gauges last night. Also, the timing belt needs to be put back on.

[California98Civic]

Very nice.

[Daox]

Thanks. Its nice to see it coming back together. I'll have had it for 2 months on the 11th.

[MetroMPG]

Are you going to put it on the road and drive it for a while once you've got it fixed up?

(I realize you don't plan to keep it.)

[Daox]

That is a good question. I still don't know. It would be nice to enjoy all the hard work. But, at the same time, its about $100 to get it all titled with plates and what not. It also has 188k miles on it. If I roll over 190k, it will be a bit harder to sell.

I am really starting to wish it would have been a manual trans car. I'd just keep it and enjoy it.

[Daox]

Here we go with the weekend update. I took Saturday to work on the Civic. Sadly, I didn't get real far with the engine. I started adjusting the valves and ran into one that is either stuck, or extremely short! So short that the adjustment won't take up the slack. You can visibly see how short it is. The one second from the left is a bit short too, but I was able to adjust it properly.





So, I started working on other things first. I grabbed two of the wheel covers, sanded them down a bit, and gave them a fresh spray. They're far from perfect, but a LOT better than they were.









Next up was the headlights. They were horribly yellowed from the Texas sun. A bit of Meguiars plast-x and a buffing wheel on the drill takes that right out. I must have forgot to get a finished picture, but you can see it cleaned up nicely. I put some of the nufinish wax on after polishing them to prevent UV damage. I'm not sure that will work all that well, but its what I had on hand.

[Baltothewolf]

Very nice! As for the manual situation, why not just do a manual conversion? Obviously your not stupid, and I'm sure you could do it. You could probably sell the auto tranny for as much as you would pay for a manual tranny + all the parts to convert lol.

[Daox]

I could do that, and I've thought about it. But, I'd honestly rather sell it for profit, then buy what I actually want (less time and messing around). I'll come out ahead financially and time wise.

[Baltothewolf]

Originally Posted by Daox

I could do that, and I've thought about it. But, I'd honestly rather sell it for profit, then buy what I actually want (less time and messing around). I'll come out ahead financially and time wise.

What do you want? A VX?