"Kurisutin" - 1993 Civic Del Sol - Maintenance Log

[ctag]

Hello there

I just bought this 93 Civic Del Sol yesterday. I'm more keen on a different naming convention, so this car for now shall be "TPBD".

Purchased for $300 from a friend who's moving on to bigger and better things. Really generous of him, I feel like the car's worth quite a lot more.

The car's got some work cut out for me: crumpled bumpers and the front of the chassis is bent inwards from a crash. Needs some general maintenance, and some not-so-general maintenance. I want to take good care of it and make the process a learning experience; we'll see where things go from here!

First day home

Other pictures of the car as it arrived.

A list the previous owner and I put together of things to do:

• Has an oil leak (a huge one)
  
• Both of the CV axles are shot
• One of the spark plugs was loose (?) and it's slot is covered is soot
• Exhaust manifold is cracked
• Two exhaust manifold bolts have stripped out of the engine block
• One of the bolts on the oil pan is gone (and the oil pan looks like it leaks from there)
  
• Power steering pump pulley is damaged
• Valve cover mounting threads are stripped
• Has aftermarket oil plug (gross, to be replaced)
• Radiator fluid is shot (possible leak)
• Cracked door handle
• Needs brakes and rotors
• Horrendous squealing noise (see previous)
• Air filter box broken
• Front of frame is bent
• Antenna is broken (new one floating in trunk)
• Speakers are old, waterlogged cardboard at this point
• Targa top leaks (surprise!)
• Door switch for rear window has a loose connection
• Driver side window doesn't mate with seal correctly
• Tires leak
• Broken speedometer
• No passenger glove box
• AC's busted (damaged in crash, compressor pulley is unhooked)
• Engine can die in rain/puddle? (stock air filter....)
• Windshield wiper reservoir is cracked.
• Headlight housings are improperly mounted / foggy
• Some trim inside has been destroyed by sunlight
• Steering wheel is flaking apart
• The stock 'leather' outer layer of the seats is cracked and peeling off
• Fuel filter should be replaced
• MTF should be replaced

 

[Mr.Baker]

For $300 it looks like a solid start.

 

[buzzbombtom]

Wow that car is beat lol! Do you have a budget for repair?

 

[dancam]

It all looks fixable, not even all that bad as long as you willing to spend the money. It wouldnt be a ton of money if you could do it all yourself but it would be a lot of time. Tons of money to pay someone though. Do you have access to a frame rack? Do you know how to do bodywork and paint? Do you have access to cheap bodyparts? All that will run you up a ton of money if the answer is no. The mechanical stuff doesn't sound too bad either if you know how to do it, but if you dont itl be an expensive car.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[HeX]

Why "TPBD"? Are you an astronony buff? I just looked up what "The Pale Blue Dot" came from.

 

[ctag]

For $300 it looks like a solid start.

Thanks

Wow that car is beat lol! Do you have a budget for repair?

Also @dancam
Yeah, gonna take my time since it's a hobby car and my daily driver is fine, want to do as much of the work myself. Just put a few hundred into it this weekend, going to save up and see what I can do this summer.
I don't have access to a lot of the tooling dancam mentioned, not sure what I'm going to do about the damaged frame..

Why "TPBD"? Are you an astronony buff? I just looked up what "The Pale Blue Dot" came from.

I am! Used to volunteer at a local planetarium/observatory. I don't know how much I like the name, but this is it until I think of something better.

Got a little work done the past few days. Breaking the post into a synopsis and then a picture tour.
Date: 2-1-2016 -- 3-1-2016
Cost: $241.98
Tasks:

• Changed oil. 3.2qt 10w30 and new 3312 oil filter.
  
• Replaced valve cover gasket.
• Installed Heli-Coil M6-1 on rightmost top valve cover bolt.
• Replaced distributor gasket.
• Welded crack on exhaust manifold. Temporary fix while I get a true replacement.
• Changed coolant. Added some cleaning agents.
• Replaced top coolant radiator hose.
• Replaced spark plugs with cheap-o's.
• Replaced fuel filter.

The cost was high because I didn't plan anything, so there wasn't any comparative shopping. There's an O'Reilly's in walking distance that I just qwop'ed over to and fetched parts from. Very expensive way to do things.

Got the car, got a license plate and registration, and took it over to a local garage. After a few minutes of sitting, it had already puked up about half a cup of oil The next two days went from doing some basic break-in maintenance to trying to staunch the oil flow.

Valve cover was first to go since it was obviously leaking. Paint was chipping off. A lot of it just fell off when I rubbed it.

Timing belt looks not-horrible.

Should have just left that heat cover in place... Damn.

Cleaning the valve cover to tide me over until I can really clean it and repaint. The media blaster wasn't working right, and no machine shops were open that I could take it to.

Distributor.

New oil filter going in.

Continuation #1 from 3-1-2016.

Old fuel filter... I wonder how dirty is was?

Continuation #2 from 3-1-2016.

Replacing the bloated radiator hose.

Ugh. Someday I'll be good at welding.

Prepping the valve cover.

"Fixing" the stripped mount for the valve cover bolt.

And the result?
Still leaks. The oil pan still has a slow leak. And I suspect the VTEC solenoid gasket also leaks.

Alright. The oil leak has been tamed a bit. This may be it for a while, I'll return later after thinking heavily about whether I want to ditch the engine and start over or not.

 

[HeX]

I may have come up with the perfect name for this build.

Kurisutin

The reason: It was cheap, it needs alot of work, not many will understand why you chose to battle it, you intend to do all the work yourself... That all reminds me of the movie "Christine". Therefore, this is the Japanese version of Christine; Kurisutin... at least according to Google. It may be a little cheesy but Im a movie buff so I like it.

 

[ctag]

Kurisutin

I love it. The movie reference is definitely sappy, but I think it fits well. Thanks, HeX!

I almost forgot, a friend had a borescope at the shop so we got pictures of the pistons.

Piston 1

Piston 2

Piston 3

Piston 4

 

[NeedsMoreLow]

I actually have a pretty decent valve cover for that motor, lol.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ctag]

I actually have a pretty decent valve cover for that motor, lol.

There's really nothing wrong with my current one, but are you looking to sell it?

I am looking for an oil pan and exhaust manifold

 

[NeedsMoreLow]

There's really nothing wrong with my current one, but are you looking to sell it?

I am looking for an oil pan and exhaust manifold

Yeah, I'd sell it, if you're interested. As long as you're not an Alabama fan.
Unfortunately, I don't have many Z6 parts. (Except an entire head). But if you have parts for a sixth gen LX, we might be talkin.


Not sent from my iPhone using tapatalk.

 

[ctag]

Yeah, I'd sell it, if you're interested. As long as you're not an Alabama fan.
Unfortunately, I don't have many Z6 parts. (Except an entire head). But if you have parts for a sixth gen LX, we might be talkin.

Hehe, my buddy and I were just discussing that. I'm actually a student at a satellite school for Alabama. Not a huge fan of the place though, so I don't have any qualms about the colour.

I appreciate the offer, but I don't have any LX parts, I'll let you know if a valve cover comes up on my list!

 

[NeedsMoreLow]

Hehe, my buddy and I were just discussing that. I'm actually a student at a satellite school for Alabama. Despise the place though, so I don't have any qualms about the colour.

I appreciate the offer, but I don't have any LX parts, I'll let you know if a valve cover comes up on my list!

Fantastic school. Obnoxious sports teams. Like University of Michigan. Or Ohio State.

Alright!! Keep up the great work. I would kill for a sweet little haggard Del Sol for 300 bucks.


Not sent from my iPhone using tapatalk.

 

[ctag]

@NeedsMoreLow, True words right there. Also, thanks!

Spent some time yesterday delivering a bit of much needed TLC to the car. I've been on the fence about this thing for a few days now, so I parked the car and really scrubbed the engine bay down to get all of the fresh oil out. Then I started it up and watched the engine with a flashlight. It looks like the valve cover, distributor, and oil filter have all stopped leaking (yay). The only fresh oil I see is from the VTEC solenoid (which just pours oil) and the oil pan (which has a slow leak). New gaskets are in the mail, soon I should have a non-pourous oil system So I'm feeling a lot better about things here and am more confident about fixing up the engine instead of trying to swap it. After figuring out the oil situation, I replaced the brake pads on the rear wheels to stop the awful sounds (the brake system needs a LOT more attention sometime) and then finally vacuumed and cleaned the interior.

Date: 8-1-2016
Cost: $21.79
Tasks:

• Find additional oil leaks
• Replace rear disk brake pads
• Replace broken radio antenna
• Clean interior trim

This is the side that was making so much noise. Apparently there aren't retaining springs in place to keep the pads from falling back into the rotor while driving, so the bad noise I was hearing was the old worn pads jostling back into contact with the rotor. At some point I need to fix the caliper piston and replace the rotors.

That's all for now.

 

[mymmeryloss]

Good progress. You could swap a B series in there relatively cheap

 

[pmac193]

Nice work!

 

[HeX]

Great work so far. Its sounding like there's less of a headache ahead of you and just alot of fine-tuning and restoring.

 

[nd4sped]

Good progress. You could swap a B series in there relatively cheap

This is an incredibly true statement.

 

[ctag]

Good progress. You could swap a B series in there relatively cheap

This is an incredibly true statement.

So, swapping an engine still sounds incredibly easy to f**k up Also, DOHC is scary. What would I be looking for? Something pulled out of a parts car? I don't see any B series online for less than a few thousand.

Nice work!

Thanks!

Great work so far. Its sounding like there's less of a headache ahead of you and just alot of fine-tuning and restoring.

I hope so, I'm looking forward to it a lot more now. Although.. I accidentally drove it in the rain today, and got a CEL that disappeared after a while, the radio kept resetting, and the engine idled like it's got cotton candy in the intake manifold. I think the wiring is screwed up somewhere.

 

[mymmeryloss]

B swaps are damn near plug and play. So easy man.