I taught my kid how to purchase his first car.
He. Is. Ecstatic.
Yes, he's only 13, but owning my first car at 12 was instrumental in getting me to plan, budget, and manage my finances.
Plus, what better car to "imprint" on, than a Civic? (I "imprinted" onto the Ford Pinto.....).
Do I spy a Sprint turbo?!?!
Used to be.
SkinnyKid1 has talked about following suit, but that kind of mod isn't for beginners.... (V8 Firefly Build)
There are lots of turbo kits to play with before he goes that far.
Congrats! Does he have an idea for a colour yet? Looking at the state of the paint it could probably do with a respray.
I had put a 2-day permit on it, because I wasn't sure when I could pick it up, then forgot that my wife was working Sunday afternoon, so we went and got it Saturday. Which means I still had another day of insurance on it.
So the boys and I drove it to Menchie's to celebrate.
It -sounds- like there are a couple of wheel bearings going. The brakes are shot. The interior is pretty stanky. Check engine showed up today, but imagine it's the pending Evap code I saw last night (I'll check later). Air Bag light is on, and Service light is on. Suspension seems tight. Motor smooth and quiet. Trans seems a tick noisy clutch out in neutral, but I hear no trans noises on the road.
Goal #1 is make it safe, Goal #2 is make it reliable, Goal #3 is make it pretty. He want to keep it black, but once we fix the mechanicals we'll look at a re-spray. We talked "fart pipes" and I gave my suggestions that make it more sporty/throaty but not rice, we'll see when we get to that point. He says it looks low enough for his taste (who's son is this???), so I'm not pushing to go lower. I'm sure it will come.
It's a manual gearbox too?
Congratulations! He turned out awesome!
Check trans fluid now. Last car I bought with noisy trrans in nuetral with clutch out was “rebuilt” but installed without any fluid.......
You bet - I'll get him all over that car.
Just as a note on bodywork, I just bought enough vinyl on Amazon to do a Miata for well under $300...
I remember the day we brought my son's Protege5 home. We actually had a lot of fun sorting out the various hiccups associated with a 15 year old entry level car. Did it make him into a "car guy"? No, not really. What it did do was give him enough respect to check the oil periodically, make him familiar enough with the car to know when something is wrong and make him like the car enough to take at least decent care of it. It also allowed him not only to learn to drive a stick, but to do most of his "practice driving" in a manual that would ultimately be his car. (As far as he knows, he's the only one of his circle of friends that can drive a 5 speed) Barring some unforeseen tragedy, it will probably get him at least through high school before it returns to the earth. Worth every penny we spent on it.
Ok, well. That was a year ago. Here's what's gone on:
Once we got the car up on the lift at home, and took a really good look at it, I cautioned him with "don't spend a lot of money on this car." It is, in fact, two Honda Civics welded together. And not very well done so.
We started scuffing and Tremclad and Rollering some black paint to make it pretty again, with plans to order all the parts for new brakes, as well as figure out what that noise is in the transmission. And figure out how to replace the windshield inexpensively.
And then this happened today:
This one is a year older (2003), but is in very very good shape, except the engine that ran out of oil. We happen to have an engine that ran out of car, so it's like it's meant to be. We're going to swap motors over Spring Break.
This also how hoarding starts.
Why do you always have way cool cars to the right of his cool Hondas?
SkinnyG said:Used to be.
SkinnyKid1 has talked about following suit, but that kind of mod isn't for beginners.... (V8 Firefly Build)
Didn't this get sold?
Mndsm said:SkinnyG said:Used to be.
SkinnyKid1 has talked about following suit, but that kind of mod isn't for beginners.... (V8 Firefly Build)
Didn't this get sold?
There is a big time lapse between the first pic and the second
Yeah - SkinnyKid1 bought the '04 in February of last year (2019), I sold the V8 Firefly sometime March/April of that year (2019), then SkinnyKid1 bought the '03 this year (2020). The Super 7 is not (and won't be) for sale.
Spend today with SkinnyKid1 pulling the "good" motor out of the "crappy" Civic. It's a D17A1, manual trans has bearing issues - "good" car is auto with no issues.
Tomorrow we'll pull the "crappy" motor out of the "good" car.
Pulled the bad engine today, and got it off the trans.
Tomorrow hope to swap everything over.
Appleseed said:There are lots of turbo kits to play with before he goes that far.
Yes, the variety of options to ruin a Civic on the cheap is astounding.
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