"The Mothership" - 1998 Civic - Maintenance Log

[Brak]

Bummer. but as long as everything lines up properly, it's an easy fix.

any weld shop can knock it out in about 20 min.
just make sure to test fit everything on the car first.

nothing more frustrating than having to redo the welds

 

[ctag]

nothing more frustrating than having to redo the welds

Brak advice: 2
Ctag follow through: 0

Another look through the boxes revealed a flange ready to be welded! I picked up an adapter tube from the local auto parts store and started figuring out how this would work.


With all of the other exhaust pieces mounted to the car, I held the cat in place, and it fit between the header downpipe and catback flange perfectly. So I should just make the new adapter + flange equal the same length as the existing cat, right? (Editor's note: NO!)

Armed with an angle grinder and my old mini-oxy torch welder, I got to work.





I got this far before I ran out of acetylene.



Rather than dump another $70 of acetylene into finishing the second ring weld, I pivoted to FCAW. This little Harbor Fright jalopy did surprisingly well.


It ain't pretty, but it's done!


... Until I went to install it. I had forgotten that the rounded gasket on the header pipe goes into the receiving flange. Almost an inch short. I couldn't justify pulling the rubber mounts that much, the cat was going to have to be re-welded...


It turns out the section I'd cut off of the adapter tube to make it fit originally was the right size to now weld back on... Everything would have worked if I'd just left it alone the first time...


The Frankenstein's exhaust flange:


But it fits now!




I went for a little test drive. The new exhaust setup is fairly deep and very subtle. I love it.

Over the past decade and change this car's gone from sounding like it had rocks in the transmission to a refined purring. It's been a lot of work, but we've come a long way.

 

[Brak]

glad you were able to get it sorted.

 

[nd4sped]

I currently have this exact same issue with my 1320 header for the CRV. I ended up putting a high flow-cat on the CRV to get rid of the raspiness. I had to cut the flange and ended up with the same offset alignment issue. I ending using a long set of skinny grade 8 bolts. Those eventually found there off my CRV somewhere coming down from Lee Canyon from snowboarding all day long.

I have it temporarily resolved right now and I am too ashamed to share how it is temporarily resolve for the moment. Because moment has turned into several months now

 

[ctag]

Because moment has turned into several months now

Boy do I feel that haha.

One thing I didn't anticipate with this job is that the new muffler interfered with the hitch that was mounted under the trunk. So it had to come off

I'm about to get new tires, and want an alignment too. Read online that I should use a wire wheel and get all the rust crud off the wheel mounting surface beforehand so that it can't interfere with the alignment, so I did that as best I could. Before I put the wheels back on, I noticed that one of the brake drums in the rear was looser than the other on the hub. Turns out it's mounting holes are ~0.5mm larger than the other drum, and allows it to slide around and make a clicking noise very similar to the clicking I've been hearing while braking for the past year....


I cut some coke can shims, and got it so that the drum wouldn't click anymore. Still hear the clicking while stopping though. In retrospect I'm not surprised, if the drum was sliding around I'd see evidence of the wear on the surfaces...

 

[ctag]

Went back out for another look, and noticed the wheel cylinder was leaking.


I absolutely hate these things. The originals lasted 20 years, and ever since I've had to replace the garbage aftermarket ones almost every year because they keep failing.

Cleaned things up and bought a new wheel cylinder. I swapped the brake shoes left-right and buffed the friction surface with some sand paper to get rid of the oil and junk.



I also hit the contact points with a wire wheel to get rid of any rust. Put some caliper grease on and then did the swear word dance to get the springs and everything reassembled.

It's too soon to know if that fixed the clicking, since the pads need to wear back in and the parking break auto-adjuster is too loose. But for the moment the annoying clicking is gone. At the very least it proves the issue is in that brake assembly, and not the suspension or something.

 

[ctag]

Like a new pair of glasses. Feels good.

 

[nd4sped]

Luckily you can still get OE brake cylinder rebuild kits from Honda still. I have found that they are the ONLY ones that wont leak after service. also recommend getting a tiny cylinder hone for the brake cylinders and just run it through a few times to get rid of any gouging that may exist. I find that this tends to resolve any future leaks caused by the plunger gasket failing In the future.

 

[ctag]

Mmmm, golden toasty.


Just for kicks, I thought this was cool:

 

[nd4sped]

Mmmm, golden toasty.
View attachment 31908

Just for kicks, I thought this was cool:
View attachment 31909

This is tickling my inner nerd.