What is wrong with this $800 2002 Civic with 250,000 miles? Is it a melted crank position sensor?

[Xist]

Do deep dives on random topics, like recycling plastics at home, count as me time?

All of that research feels like work, but it is satisfying somehow--except I keep trying to find solutions to big problems and concluding that we are doomed.

Then there are the games that I play that I describe as "Like work," but those are also satisfying somehow.

I enjoy making things, even if it is virtually.

Also, I talk to many ladies on-line, but I have been spinning in that wheel for 20 years.

I am sure that if I told a therapist about all of the things that Mom does and says the therapist wouldn't say "Suck it up forever and act happy," but instead "Your mom is emotionally abusive, you need to move out."

I am sure that Mom would have many opinions about my counselor's credentials.

[freebeard]

If you're like everyone else I know, you are also captive to history and habit.

I don't know how to break out [except total recluse] but as long as you're in the situation you might as well experiment. Hypnotize your mom.

You can call it persuasion and learn the techniques -- leading and pacing, the High Ground Maneuver, etc. If nothing else it will 'shake the box'.

[Xist]

How about this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvfLTpPxDA

By the way, guess whose mom picked clear glass lamps?!

[Xist]

That did not spark joy.

There is just enough room to walk around my car with the doors closed.

The 2024 is 20" longer and the current Accord is 195".

The $250 17' portable garage is 204" and has been on sale for as little as $170.

Apparently there is a new $440 12 ft. x 20 ft. portable garage and it is too new to have been on sale.

Mom would probably have a heart attack and then haunt me for the rest of my life if I put in one of those.

I had wanted to store everything from the greenhouse and shed in the back half of the garage and I guess that I still can, but I sure will have a difficult time reaching some of it.

There is not a back door.

I am tempted to build an add-on for the front so I can move Chorizo forward and store stuff behind it, but then we get into heart attack and haunting forever territory.

Now that the portable garage is out of the shed I guess there is room in the shed for the stuff in the greenhouse and then when I finally work on the shed I can buy a king-sized comforter from Goodwill, strap it to Chorizo, and then pile junk around it.

I want to at least store lumber in there.

I can put down cinder blocks and start piling stuff, but I still have so much from the ramp Mom didn't let me build that I don't believe I can safely pile it next to my car, let alone the wood in the garage.

The garage is high enough that I can build a loft and store wood up there, but that seems like more work than it is worth.

[Xist]

I just wanted to put my 2002 Civic together until I found out which parts I need to order. It took 30 minutes to install 3 studs. A mechanic told me that, instead of jamming 2 nuts together, which never sounds right, I can just use one nut, and then hold the middle of the stud with pliers and loosen the nut.

Considering the difficulty I had keeping the wrench on the nut (I didn't dig up a 13mm socket, just installing the stud with pliers seems like a better option, although it would have been easier if I had one of those nuts with a built-in washer.

I realized that Eric had reinstalled the studs before he reinstalled the head and I wouldn't have been fighting the intake manifold if I did it in that order.

It refused to move out of the way.

The next step was reinstalling the head bolts, which felt like progress!

Everyone says to keep track of your bolts, but I didn't poke holes in a box like I have before, I just lined them up on the bottom of my upside-down magnetic wrench holder, which worked until my brother moved everything.

I just felt happy to find all of my bolts!

I had my grad school interview and wanted to grab a breakfast burrito, but my brother was still trying to sleep, and Mom had a dental appointment, but as soon as I started cooking he got up.
We ran errands, I cut up some big boxes, and I took a long nap.
I was only able to sleep four hours before my interview!
I woke up at six and Mom was asleep, so I asked my brother what he wanted for dinner.
There isn't anything worse than making dinner and having a kid refuse to eat it!
He said spaghetti, but I learned that one.
One time he asked for spaghetti, but threw a tantrum.
The next night he asked for spaghetti again and we figured out that he wanted linguini with shrimp, so I had him get the noodles, he chose linguini, and I said "If you want shrimp, get it," so I made linguini with shrimp for dinner.
Mom complained that I didn't peel the shrimp, but it already took an hour, and I had already taken care of his breakfast and lunch, as well as several other things today!
I went to work on my car finally, but I couldn't find a bolt for the next step, so I asked my brother to help me.
He tends to come out and supervise.
All that I found were more oil spills. I keep leaving things to drain into my oil catch pan, but they fall over, and make more messes.
I cleaned up the messes I found, but it never seems to do much good.
Apparently my brother found the bolt, but I need to buy shop towels before I can continue, so I will do that the first thing in the morning.

[freebeard]

On the way home from an appointment, I stopped by Goofy's Muffler Cutoms and they put the Metro up on a lift* and we looked at it. They didn't charge for the lift but they want $250 to replace a straight 4ft length of tailpipe.

As he returned the car, I said "I just tell myself it sounds like a WRX" and he LOLed.

*Chevelle convertible to one side and a Camaro with shiny bits underneath, and my Canadian Chevy in the middle.

[Xist]

Wait a minute! Is this one of those virus emails?! Like the kind that moms and offshore casinos send you?!

It is nice when places which want to charge ridiculous rates at least look at your vehicle for free.

[freebeard]

Congrats.

[Piotrsko]

Jeez so many DIY options for a straight piece of pipe repair, but I get it that some of this is beyond freebeards ability to remediate

[Xist]

I was out of shop towels and somehow it took me too long to buy new ones. I went to work on my car the other day and remembered that I needed shop towels.

I went to bed after 1 and couldn't sleep past 6. I tried! I finally got up and went to work on my car.

Right!

Shop towels!

I just wanted to see if there was a big price difference and there was, but did it matter?

Napa had them for $2.29, but is 6 miles away.
Home Depot, 4.4 miles away, had them for $2.98.
Ace, .7 miles away, AutoZone, and O'Reilly's, both .9 miles away, had them for $5.

Harbor Freight had some for $2.39. It wasn't as cheap as Napa, but it was only... 5.4 miles away?!

Now Home Depot is 6.4 miles away, and even though it shows the new address for Napa, when you put that address into Google, Apple, and Bing, it moves to Show Low!

Napa moved to Pinetop-Lakeside!

Somehow the old bowling alley, which was replaced by Napa, is 5.9 miles away, closer than Home Depot, which is on the way!

When I opened private tabs to open Bing that kept not working.

Home Depot is currently 5.3 miles away.
Why does this keep changing?!
Supposedly Harbor Freight is 4.3 miles away.

Anyway, Napa had the best price, but I wasn't driving an extra 1.6 miles each way to save a dime!

I didn't look up AutoZone's distance again, we will just accept that distances are fluid at this moment, even though they absolutely should not be, and will simply state that Harbor Freight may have been 4 times as far away--or more--and charged just under half as much.

Couldn't you argue that it isn't worth driving four times as far unless they cost a quarter as much?

I was not expecting the difference to be this large, but couldn't you also argue that it is not worth looking up shop towels at several different stores to save $2.70?

I am not normally up this early. I wanted to get my brother breakfast while we were out and about, but didn't think that he would appreciate a breakfast burrito, so I took him to McDonald's, which was on the way.

There was not a line.

He ate the carbohydrates and I then drove to Harbor Freight, but it was only 0745, so I drove to Aliberto's for my burrito, and grabbed one and a Jamaica for Mom.

I try to only buy sugar-free soda, which neither McDonald's or Aliberto's really offer, so I stopped at Walmart on my way back... and picked up shop towels.

Good thing I did calculus!

I don't know what happened, I found and printed off valve lash instructions here, and then for some reason decided that I needed to clean the valve cover first.

The valve cover that cannot be in place for me to lash the valves.

Then I realized that I need to install the new belt so I can lash the valves, so I found these instructions.

Yeah, um. I have a lot of work to do:

step 11 :Installing the Water Pump
Remove any remaining gasket glue or debris from the water pump mount
Wipe the surface down with a clean rag
Press the water pump O-ring into the back of the water pump
Install the water pump onto the motor
Insert the three longer into the bottom right and top holes
Shorter bolt on the bottom left
Torque the bolts to 8.7 foot-pounds
step 12 :Reinstalling the Timing Belt and Tensioner
Hook the spring into the tensioner
Hook the spring around the stud on the engine
Install the timing belt tensioner finger-tight
Make sure the timing marks are in the correct position
Install the timing belt from the crank pulley
Over the tensioner
Under the water pump
Slide the belt onto the cam gear
Recheck the timing marks
Use a 19mm socket to rotate the engine two complete rotations of the crank by hand
Torque the timing belt tensioner to 33 foot-pounds
Remove the tensioner pin
step 13 :Reinstalling the Engine Crank Sensor
Insert the sensor into its slot
Tighten the 10mm bolt to the sensor
Reinstall the wiring harness
Insert the engine bracket with the bolts already in
Hand tighten the bolts
Install the three bolts on the front of the mount
Shortest bolt goes on the bottom right
Access the bolts on the side of the mount
Torque the bolts to 33 foot-pounds
Use a 14mm to access the ones on the side of the mount
Insert the timing cover into place
Tighten the four bolts to the lower engine cover
Remove the crank pulley bolt from the crank shaft
step 14 :Installing the Harmonic Balancer
Insert the key stock into the slot on the crank
Align the crank pulley
Insert the Honda holder tool and tighten with a 19mm socket
Torque to 148 foot-pounds
step 15 :Replacing the Timing Cover and Engine Bracket
Insert the upper timing cover into place
Tighten the three 10mm bolts into place
Insert the cam position connector into place and its rubber boot
Insert the motor mount bracket into place
Tighten the 17mm nuts to the bracket
Torque the bolts to 40 foot-pounds
Release the jack supporting the motor
step 16 :Installing the Alternator
Insert the alternator into place
Start the top bolt and let the alternator hang down
Insert the bottom bolt at the tensioner
Feed the belt down in around the alternator
Re-tension the alternator
Tighten top 14mm alternator bolt
Tighten the 13mm bolt on the bottom of the alternator
step 17 :Installing the Valve Cover
Insert the valve cover into place
Tighten the five valve cover bolts with the two longest at the top and the two shorter closer to the front
Tighten the valve cover with a 10mm socket and ratchet
Torque the valve cover bolts to 7.2 foot-pounds
Insert the ignition coils into place
Tighten the 10mm nuts to each coil
Insert the oil dipstick and cap into place
Insert the valve cover breather line tabs into place
Reinstall the clamp for the breather
Reinstall the upper part of the harness and snap it into the ignition coils
Tighten the two 10mm bolts to the harness
Clamp the cables into place
Tighten the 10mm nuts to the cable
Tighten the hardware to the engine
Reconnect the EGR solenoid and coolant sensor
step 18 :Reinstalling the Alternator Belt
Move the alternator harness under the A/C line and down to the alternator
Press the 4-pin connector into place
Insert the power lead and the 10mm power-lead nut into place
Insert the top of the retainer on the top of the alternator
Reinstall the power steering pump reservoir holder
Tighten it with a 12mm socket and ratchet
Install the carriage bolt into the bottom of the bracket
Insert the power steering pump and reservoir into place
Secure the carriage bolt and nut
Insert the tensioner into the pump
Hand-tighten the nut to the back of the tensioner
Install the tensioner bolt
Insert the power steering belt into place
Loosen the tensioner
Tighten the 10mm bolt to the bracket
Tighten the tensioner
There should be about 1/4" of play on the belt
Tighten the 12mm nut on the back of the power steering tension bolt
Tighten the 12mm nut on the bottom of the power steering pump
Insert the engine cover with a flat blade screwdriver
Reinstall the power steering reservoir
Reconnect the battery cable
Run the engine for five minutes
Check the tension and adjust
Tighten the push connectors to the splash shield
step 19 :Reattaching the Wheel
Slide the wheel into place
Start the lug nuts by hand
Tighten the 19mm lug nuts preliminarily
Lower the vehicle to the ground
Tighten the lug nuts to 80 foot-pounds in a crossing or star pattern
step 20 :Refilling the Radiator Coolant
Insert a funnel into the radiator
Pour the coolant into the radiator
Reinstall the radiator cap
Run the car for a bit and check the level
Keep an eye on the level the first few times you drive the car

I am going to put that in word in outline format.

Of course, that did not want to work right.
It was just over 2 pages and one step went up to Y.

I tried to see my day program client the Thursday before last and last Monday and Tuesday.

At least once the manager didn't respond the same day, so I didn't bother her on Friday, but still did not hear back.

He was absent on Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday morning I had my interview and Mom had a dental appointment, so I needed to watch my brother.

Thursday morning I was trying to find a place to live.

Friday I was waiting to see if a mom would finally confirm--or cancel.

I messaged her three times without hearing back.

It is aggravating because I keep missing sessions with this client and I am running out of time!

I started going through the forum instructions to see if they included reassembly. There are tons of posts, but so far no reassembly instructions, although the timing belt directions should be adequate.

I just wanted to share that Ezone wrote:

SUCK OUT ALL LIQUID FROM THE HEAD BOLT HOLES BEFORE YOU ASSEMBLE ANYTHING!!!!!

I did not do that.