Hondas, and why they piss me off.

[yardhippie 0]

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Seriously I wish i could do that stuff myself, But its a little intimidating, I feel as though I could save myself a boat load of money if i coould figure out how to do my brakes.

Wow!! Are you in Luck!!

It just so happens that I have an RV sitting at the Dublin Airport that will have to have a Brake Job before I drive it home (Rear Brakes Got Nothin at the moment).

Bring some Clothes you dont mind getting dirty and I will gladly show everything you ever wanted to know about a brake system and let you get all the First hand experience you want.

Hmmm.. thats gonna be drum brakes. Not so many cars still using drums, even on the rear.
Youre just trying to get out of dirty work.

If I was able to bring my car I'd just throw my tool box in the back and we'd knock it out one afternoon.
Drum brakes are easy.
Oh, does it have a fixed axles or floating axles?

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[Thanatos340 1]

Fixed.
I am pretty sure it a good Bleeding should take care of it. Worst case, May have to rebild the wheel cylinders and find the Vacum leak for the Brake Booster. probably flush the Lines complletely as it was sitting for a year before this past weekend.

Stated woking on it on Sunday, But it is pretty dam hard to bleed the brakes without help.. And my help kept wondering off (Kept saying.. Be right back Mate.. Just going to grab another beer).. (Yes, I know CAN do this by usuin a piece of rubber hose and a can of fluid.. But I didnt have that last weekend).

[2fat2fly 0]

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Fixed.
I am pretty sure it a good Bleeding should take care of it

You should cross post the same advice to Bigway's workmate problem thread

I am not the man. But the man knows my name...and he's worried

[yardhippie 0]

Thats your problem right there. You've got a brit trying to work on an american car. hell then cant even put the steering wheel on the correct side of the vehicle!

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[Thanatos340 1]

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You've got a brit trying to work on an american car.

Well its not like I let him near any tools or anything silly like that. It was just sit here.. Pump the brakes when I tell you..
2 minutes later.. After I crawl under the RV finally the Bleeder open only busting 3 kuckles in the process...
OK.. Now Pump the brakes..
"What was that mate?? OH.. I am getting a beer... be right back..



Wait 10 miutes.. Repeat process.. Finally give up.

[sundevil777 93]

A bit on my background:
I worked for Honda R&D in Ohio as an instrument panel/interior chief design engineer for 10 years. In that time the Ohio center engineered/developed the previous generation Honda Accord and Civic coupes, Element, Pilot, and 2 generations of the Acura CL, TL and MDX.

Now my opinion based on that experience:
Hondas and Acuras have a very well deserved reputation for legendary reliability - being hard to kill. It would be nice if the timing belt never needed to be replaced, but since the water pump is likely to go bad by about 100K miles, and replacing it requires the belt to be removed, the engine designers don't consider it to be too much of an issue. A great way to avoid overheating the engine is to replace the water pump before it fails. If the design of the motor was the other way around, water pump 'outside' of the timing belt, then the cams would probably be driven by gears. I don't know if the Honda design is more compact, but it almost certainly is cheaper and quieter than gears. According to the engineers in the engine group, the wearing-out and eventual breakage of the belt is really not just an issue of miles driven, but is more related to the amount of time subjected to high temperatures, so highway miles are less severe in this regard. I got abut 150K miles on my '89 Civic before I finally replaced the belt, and that was when the water pump failed. The recommendation for service at 90K is actually pretty conservative. Of course when it comes time to pay for a timing belt service, it will cost a lot less for the inline 4 cylinder engines than a V-6.

The local Honda dealership will charge 3 hours of labor to replace the belt on a 4 cylinder engine, 4 hours including the water pump. There are a lot of good non-dealership mechanics that will do it for less money, they like to get work where the work to be done is very well defined (no diagnosis needed), and this job is a good one for a mechanic that works for himself that is familiar with it. Make sure to check with a dealer to confirm the shaft seals and other really cheap bits should also be replaced.

It is easy to think that access for repairs is not considered by the engineers, but I can tell you that is absolutely not the case at Honda. The design approval process consists of a large number of evaluations, one of those being a very detailed maintenance evaluation. The evaluators take apart the car and put it back together again, and a great number of potential headaches are identified and resolved with design changes to facilitate repair. I have great confidence that Hondas are very easily serviced, at least compared to their competitors. Over the years they have become less mechanic friendly, but that is the case with all cars. The factory service manuals are available for a reasonable price on CD, Chilton's manuals are crap, Hayne's are better than Chilton's.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[floridadiver81 0]

OK..motor was a H23. I changed the timing belt and water pump, front main seal and cam seals in 45 minutes and had it back in 16 timing 15 minutes later. Dealerships charge ALOT more than they should. And this was done at a buddy's house without the help of a full service shop.

"Age has absolutely nothing to do with knowledge, learning, respect, attitude, or personality." -yardhippie
"Fight the air, and the air will kick your ass!!! "-Specialkaye

[sharimcm 0]

My little del Sol has 185K on it, and in July, I had Honda change out all the belts (2nd timing belt is now on it), water pump, CV boots, and do a routine oil change and she works like a charm. I haven't had too much trouble with her since I've owned her, and I wouldn't give her up for anything. Hondas are pretty reliable if you take care of things before they happen.

"I had a dude tip his black cowboy hat to me after I provided him with a condom outside my hotel room at 3-something in the morning." -myself

[sunshine 2]

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You should cross post the same advice to Bigway's workmate problem thread

Shane is funny today!!

___________________________________________
meow

I get a Mike hug! I get a Mike hug!

[yardhippie 0]

Ok, so remember that this car has had most of its scheduled service done at the correct time. This timing belt had about 100k on it. My wife is the only one who drives it and doesnt abuse it.

Today after my stop at the parts store again, and an attempt to replace the o2 sensor. It snaps off at the threads. So I remove the heat shield to get at the remaining portion and see that the damn exhaust manifold is cracked, in two. Now I knew it had an exhaust leak, and was prepared to replace the exhaust gasket. No.

Do ya know how many parts stores keeps that particular part in stock? NONE. Cept one. Summit. Yes, the aftermarket performance parts supplier, and after a two hour trip. We get back, replace all these parts total: distributor cap/rotor, spark plug wires, spark plugs, timing belt, water pump, o2 sensor, exhaust manifold and a headlight.
So the car has a miss at idle up to about 2000 rpm, but above that it has the power a 227k mile car should have, and theres a tick, so it sounds like the valves need to be adjusted.

Arrggggh! We'll at least its in running condition. Now all I gotta do is replace an axle shaft.

Woohoo! Im off to Dublin tomorrow cuz I got my chores done.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[sundevil777 93]

I had an '88 Acura Legend that needed an oxygen sensor on the rear bank. A good look showed that similar to yours, it would never come out cleanly, so I left it as is. That generation Legend was a joint project with Sterling, many consider it to be a good example of a very bad overall design, a rarity for Honda.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[jm951 0]

Even with all that work, it's still cheaper than a new car. I used to be a prof wrench back in the day in an Italian garage, lots of stuff ending in vowels except Fiats. We built and maintained race cars for some customers and did general maint for the others. Many of those cars had t belts and since the engines were interference, a belt break could get expensive pretty quick. The best way to deal with it, keep up on the regular maint.

Fast forward to the present, I had 2 Porsches until recently, one was a 944 Turbo (Porsche's dirty little secret ). Again, t belt with interference. If you think changing it out on a Honda can be a chore, try one of those puppies. Waterpump, front seals, t belt and balance shaft belt calls for about 14 hours labor. If you don't encounter any problems and know what you're doing, it's usually done in about 8 hours. You pretty much have to have tools to do the job, but for what Hans und Fritz charge, you'll recoup that in the first job.

All in all, I view working on my present cars as therapy since I enjoy wrenching. It also saves lots of money that could go towards more jumps.....

Bleeding brakes.... install self bleed screws in the calipers/cylinders and get a power bleeder. Then it is a one man job. Use ATE blue or gold, change brake fluid once per year.

[bloody_trauma 2]

i happen to love my honda civic hybrid, im in houston right now and it makes me feel good to own it, its runs in conjuncion with an electric motor and shuts off the gasoline engine after stopping from an 8 MPH speed, im getting somewhere around 30-40 and at times although not constantly 50+ MPG,

kinda sucked for me today though cuz they got the plastic covering that goes under the chassis, and a drove over some clumps of mud that came off a truck that the city was using to repair I-10 and it tore a hole in the plastic underbelly lining, so now i have to get 3 damage estimates and send the pictures i took into the mayors office and somewhere else to file a claim against the city, whatever,
but my hinda is f in great, runs super quite so much so that i cant even hear it turn on when im in the car. i like it

Fly it like you stole it

[sundevil777 93]

The civic and accord hybrids aren't as popular as the Toyota Prius because they don't look different enough to let everyone know you're driving a hybrid.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[yardhippie 0]

Oh, I can come up with soooo many more examples of why Hondas piss me off.
Dont get me wrong here. Someone in my immediate family has owned a honda for almost as long as I can remember. They are pretty much bulletproof.

Hell my dad had a '83 Civic station wagon. He drove 40 miles one way to work for at least 10 years with that thing. I drove the living shit out of it while I was in high school and my car was broken down. My brother got it his senior year in high school and proceeded to drive it to somewhere around 277k miles when it finally died.

But I also have nightmare stories from working on hondas. Some mid-eightys engines liked to freeze the cam in the head (a friend had a CRX that did that), spindle bearings in early 90s accords, changing axle shafts is easy, but often you tear the lower ball joint boot, and holy shit if you have an electrical problem.

So, after a few more repairs to the wife's del Sol it should be good for at least another 50k, if I can figure out why its missing.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[usedtajump 1]

I had a 77 Civic Hatchback that I bought new and it had 189,000 miles on it when a skydiving buddy in Texas bought it before he moved to California. The only thing major I had done to it was change the timing belt at 60,000 miles as a preventative MX measure. He never did anything else to it but change the oil regularly and had over 300,000 miles on it when he was involved in a wreck and it was totaled. Yep, Honda really has it together as far as automobiles are concerned.

The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

[warpedskydiver 0]

Hey my parents had a 1972 Caprice 4 door ex police supervisors car, my dad was a mechanic and he fixed it when we got it, it was sluggish/ No Power.

He found that that carpet padding had balled up under the accelerator pedal and prevented full operation of the pedal.

Seven of us kids drove that car, including drag racing it, and beating it like a slave.

My dad sold that car in 1984 with 375,000 miles on it for 500 bucks and that guy drove it two more years until it was hit by a city bus.

The engine was rebuilt and went into a camaro.

The oral of this story is CHANGE YOUR FUCKING OIL.

I don't care some manufacturers say 7500 miles between oil changes, you wanna ride in an otter with that kind of neglect?

[usedtajump 1]

warpedskydiver, don't you just love it when things work out like that? Your family got an amazing car and a great story that'll last forever.

The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

[GravityJunky 0]

Known as an 'interference' motor once the belt snaps and the timing goes askew... your valves end up playing "Dixie" on your pistons, rockers, etc are all out of sync! the whole upper end of the motor NEEDS to be redone!

*My Inner Child is A Fucking Prick Too!
*Everyones entitled to be stupid but you are abusing the priviledge
*Well I'd love to stay & chat, But youre a total Bitch! {Stewie}

[yardhippie 0]

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Known as an 'interference' motor once the belt snaps and the timing goes askew... your valves end up playing "Dixie" on your pistons, rockers, etc are all out of sync! the whole upper end of the motor NEEDS to be redone!

A.K.A. close tolerence motors, and wether or not the upper end needs to be redone or not depends on if you actually bend the valves or not. ive not seen too many engines doing over 150lbs on a compression test with bent valves. Granted thats the cylinder im worried about the others have higher pressures.
Even then, provided the damage wasnt severe, drop the two (4 valves per head cylinder) that were damaged out, lap in two new one and slam the thing back together. Theres not much sense having a valve job done and a resurface on the head on a car thats got over 200k on the ticker.

You'd be amazed at the engines ive made run and the condition they were in when I started.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865