This is probably more of a rant than anything else. So here goes. Sherman set the wayback machine to December. Pick up a 98 SC2 for 575 with a bad engine. Put car in neighbors driveway temporarily until I can get my vette out to my mothers place in Indiana for storage. Get that done and my truck springs a coolant leak. Not at the waterpump but at the intake manifold. O.K. for those of you that have experience with a vortec engine, know what that is like. Take the nightmare injection system off and the intake along with the waterpump anyway just in case. And of course since I was already that far into the engine, replace the power steering pump as well since it was leaking due to corrosion of the pump itself. So by early March, I have it all back together and running. The distributor was a whole different story. Anyway back to the Saturn. Drop the cradle and pull the engine. Number one cyl is toast and so is the head. Pick up a 2002 engine in running condition to use as a replacement only to discover that it uses a different head design so I have to get another head for a 98. Luckily the block in unchanged. Now it is May, I have what I need and start to go to work on the car. Then my sister calls and my nephew cant get his camaro started, then a friend on mine calls to say that her 2006 Civic si clutch went south and to top it all off the truck wont start again. My driveway is turning into a car lot. Well the truck got started. The distributor cap had come loose due to the 14 times I had pulled it out earlier in the year trying to get it set up. I got the camaro fixed. What happened there was the security system in the body control module was not making contact with the chip in the key. (Thought it was the starter to begin with.) Basically I spliced in a 9k ohm resistor to match the chip in the key so the car would start. Much easier than pulling the steering column on the camaro. Now back to the Si. From Memorial day weekend until the 4th of July I did an r&r on the clutch, in my driveway. What had I learned? For one, I do have to give Honda credit, their cars are screwed together very well. No issues there. However I am not from Japan and my hands are a bit larger. I have never worked on a car that had so many hidden bolts or so many places that were almost impossible to get to with a wrench. I had to remove the header from the front of the car just to remove the starter. You could not completely drop the cradle unless you took out the electric steering pump. and even if you did you would have to completely remove the A/C lines just to get the trans out. As it was I had about 15 inches between the engine and the trans to replace the clutch plate,pressure plate and the throw out bearing. They must have very little people with very tiny hands assemble this thing. By the time I finished my hands looked like raw hamburger. It took 2 hours just to put the airdam back in place with all the plastic push pins. And since this was a 'goverment' job for a good friend I did not make anything out of the deal. The repair shop that she took it to wanted $1500 to do the job and they really did not want to do it. Now I know why. I would like to ring the neck of one of my co workers who told me that it was easier than pulling a trans on a Saturn. Then I asked him what trans that he took out. A late 80's civic go figure. Then on top of all of this my lawn mower gives up the ghost after 10 years and the front yard looks like the forbidden forest and last Friday my hot water tank started to leak and quit. I just finished putting that in yesterday. (Made the wife very happy.) Is there a moral to this story? Sure, as soon as I think of one I will let you know. Now what happened to that 15 mm socket that I had just had.......
. And I hope your Civic friend was appreciative!
