Old car problems – importnut.net

Project Civic – 2016 Refresh, Part 1

importnut — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 00:00:17 +0000

During the 2015 autocross season, I started to see the impact that 22 years of use had on random components on the Civic. As the season wore on, I found more maintenance items and knew I had to devise a plan to tackle every one of them before the 2016 season started. The final straw was a throttle cable failure during the last event of the year. I addressed that issue last fall but the rest still had to be resolved.

So…what did the Civic need? While swapping tires for events, I noticed that one of the steering rack bellows was torn and wide open. That was the first item on the list…the first of many. Knowing that the rack would have to be removed to replace the bellows, I decided to replace my crumbling, 12 year old poly bushings.

Moving along…

Proper Venting

A few seasons ago, I installed a creatively engineered catch can that involved a lot of vacuum tubing, a used MTF container. I cut the check ball out of the PCV and plugged the nipple on the intake manifold. The “hack” worked and I stopped sucking oil into the intake manifold that was sloshing into the breather canister on the back of block during very hard right hand turns. This had always intended to be a temporary fix and I decided that the permanent solution would be part of my maintenance work. With that in mind, I knew that accessing the block ports would greatly be simplified if I removed the intake manifold. Since I would be removing the manifold, I decided to install a thermal barrier gasket. I had used one in the past and wanted another. What I remembered from my past experience was that the original studs were not long enough for the nuts to be fully engaged. I found extended studs and added them to the list.

Over the past two seasons, I started to see that I was blowing smoke when decelerating from higher rpms. My 20+ year old valve seals were losing their edge. I didn’t feel the need for a full valve job and elected to replace the valve seals with the head still attached to the engine. A friend of mine found a great tool designed to make quick work of the job.

Better Pan

One other problem I was experiencing was oil starvation during hard right hand turns. Sadly, I do not have an oil pressure gauge to prove my experience, however noticing that VTEC was dropping during those turns was enough for me to realize that I was losing pressure. In order to avoid the issue, I had to overfill by at least a half quart of oil. I ordered a Moroso 5.5 qt. pan which includes trap doors and baffles for better oil control. When I dropped the original pan, I discovered that my oil pick-up was dented. I’ll get into more detail shortly.

In The Back

Moving to the back of the car, I found that rubber in my adjustable camber links had dry rotted and needed to be replaced. They were ten years old and served their purpose. While I was working back there, I decided to replace my original compensator arms (toe links) as well as replace the poly urethane pivot bushing and lower control arm bushings. More on that shortly.

My lengthy intro aside, here is the short list of all the work I completed.

Valve seals
Intake manifold studs and thermal gasket
Injector o-rings and seals
Catch can crank case venting
Radiator and hoses
Oil pan and Oil pick-up
Steering rack bellows and bushings
Rear lower control arm bushings, Camber link, compensator link and pivot bushings
Front brake pads, calipers and rotors
CV boots
All associated gaskets and seals
Gas pedal stop
Door card fabric

The Work

Starting on the rear suspension, I worked my way through removing most of the bolts with no issues. Years of maintaining the car, and liberal use of anti-seize, have prevented the bolts from rusting in place. Unfortunately, the inner compensator arm bolts had never been removed and required the use of a cutoff wheel. Once everything was removed, it was time to install the new bushings and arms.

Once I pressed all of the original bushings, it was time to install the new Hardrace components. Shortly after, the arms were reinstalled.

When using rubber bushings, it is imperative that bolts are torqued with the suspension at ride height. Nearly every bolt is accessible except for the outer upper control arm. Taking advantage of my extended lugs, and flipping my steel wheels, I was able to reach every bolt.

I refreshed the steering rack with new bellows and Hardrace bushings

For the engine block breather kit, I decided to go with a kit from B&R fittings. They were willing to assemble a “back of block” kit that didn’t include hardware to drain back to the pan. I was going to mount the can low and wouldn’t need the additional hardware. My though process for using the back of the block was that I could vent the block without having to modify my valve cover. With no fabrication required, the installation was relatively easy.

To gain better access to the rear block ports, I removed the intake manifold. Once the manifold was removed, I pulled the plugs,installed the adapters and installed the breather plug. I attached the fittings to the catch can hoses and ran them to the front where I mounted the catch can.

In order to completely eliminate the original breather, I pulled the vacuum port out of the intake, drill and tapped the hole and then plugged it. I did the same to the valve cover. I also plugged the port just over the original canister.

While I had the intake manifold off, I decided to add a Hondata thermal gasket, Blox studs, calibrate my TPS and install new injector hardware to freshen the 20+ year old o-rings and seals. I also removed the IACV and flushed it thoroughly with brake cleaner; Also reinstalled with a fresh gasket.

My Fluidyne radiator was almost 16 years old and was starting to leak. To replace it, I bought a Skunk 2 radiator. I also picked up new OEM radiator bushings. I also had to order new hoses and elected to use HPS’s silicon hoses. I thought the red hoses were a nice touch!

In hopes of cleaning up an oil burning issue during deceleration, I replaced the valve seals. I picked up a tool from EuroExport to help me with the springs and a compression testing hose to pressurize the cylinders. Once that was completed, I adjusted the valve lash, installed fresh gaskets and new plugs.

In hopes of ironing out an oil starvation issue while driving on a track, I bought a Moroso high capacity oil pan. While I was replacing the pan, I noticed that the original pickup has dented. I bought a new OEM pickup and installed everything with new gaskets.

While I was digging through the car, I noticed that the CV boots had deep cracks. Although they were not leaking, it wasn’t going to be long. Rather than replace my good working Drive Shaft Shop Race axles, I ordered new boots and installed them.

The front brakes were refreshed with new rotors, pads and calipers. This is the poor man ITR brake setup utilizing Mini rotors and the Type R caliper. The rotors and calipers are from Rock Auto and the pads are Carbotech XP10’s.

Once everything was installed and tested, I headed over to a friend’s shop and had it aligned. One thing to note is that I went through and replaced several bolts in the suspension to ensure everything would continue to be easily serviceable.

Here it is, the night before the first autocross of the season. Another minor detail was modifying the air intake to try and push it away from the radiator. I bought a 45 degree aluminum elbow from Summit Racing and managed to get the filter right where I wanted it. Before I turned in for the night, I went over all of the work one last time. Next step…off to the races!

Prior to the first race, I also needed to wrap up my throttle cable replacement. The last step involved creating a proper pedal stop to prevent the cable’s rubber damper form being damaged. You can read about the work here.

At this point, the first part of the refresh project was completed. The project stepped well beyond the original scope at this point. For the most part, on a car this old, I didn’t mind having to order more parts to ensure future reliability. Parts like the oil pick-up, CV boots, fresh brakes, radiator hoses as well as several ancillary “nuts and bolts”. I had hoped that the work and expenses would drop off as I worked my way through the season. Alas, the Civic had other plans. Read about the continuing adventure in the next installment of Project Civic!

Old Car Problems – Throttle Cable

importnut — Thu, 12 May 2016 22:30:48 +0000

I’m kicking off a new series of posts with this write-up and the idea is to outline seemingly invisible parts on a car that are normally not considered normal wear items. However, a failure of one of these parts will leave you stranded on the side of the road or create a situation where safety is negatively impacted. I couldn’t really tell you at what point in a car’s life more detailed inspections are necessary. It really depends on the relative reliability of the car, the amount and nature of its use or what part of the world it is from. That being said, my first post:

Who really thinks about their throttle cables? I know it’s not on my mind. I think about how new cars don’t have them and it makes me sad. That observation aside, I noticed that my ’94 Civic (22 years old at this point) had developed slack in the cable. I had to push the pedal slightly before the engine started to respond. I knew I had set the slack properly the last time I removed the cable. I opened the hood and clearly noticed slack that wasn’t there before.

I really don’t know why or how slack would develop over time and didn’t really have the time to dig into it so I grabbed a pair of 12 mm box wrenches and adjusted the slack and everything was back to normal.

Shortly after the fix, I ran at an autocross. After my 3rd or 4th run, I noticed that I had significant slack in the cable. After finishing the rest of my runs, I headed home. Thinking the cable itself was stretching or in some way coming apart, I drove gingerly to avoid having to be towed as a result of a failure. While driving home, I tried to figure out the problem. Stretching fundamentally makes no sense. I strongly doubt I, or anyone for that matter, has enough strength to apply the pressure necessary to exceed the steel cable’s yield strength. More than likely, something on the pedal side was causing my problem.

Before I get to the actual problem, I need to disclose a detail. Several years earlier, while stripping sound deadening and other unnecessary parts from my Civic, I removed the firewall pad. The pad was thick dense foam and extended under the gas pedal. It acted as a throttle pedal stop. Without the pad, the pedal never made contact with anything when fully depressed. At the time, I didn’t think much of it and over the years, completely forgot about it.

So, what happen? The Civic and Integra throttle cable have a rubber damper on the interior side of the cable. The damper protects the throttle body and pedal assembly from over extension caused by the soft throttle pedal stop, or any number of other potential issues. Not having the foam pad to act as a throttle pedal stop subjected the damper to high levels of stress during full throttle application. I would guess that had I never removed the thick firewall pad, this damper would have lived forever. Alas, by not addressing it years ago, I finally destroyed the rubber damper and added an alarming amount of slack to the cable.

As you can see, more than half of the rubber damper has crumbled away.

One, of many reasons, why I love autocrossing/tracking old Hondas is that parts tend to be relatively inexpensive. I was able to buy an OEM replacement from Honda Parts Unlimited for less than $30. Although the stock Civic throttle cable worked for my swap, I decided to buy the correct cable for the engine from the Integra GS-R.

Brand new OEM Integra cable from Hondapartsunlimited.com for less than $30.

The original Civic and the Integra GS-R cables are nearly identical.

The throttle body side is virtually identical except for the “keyed” nut that helps locate the cable on the throttle cable bracket.

The final step in this repair is to create a proper throttle pedal stop. My first idea was to use heavy rubber pads and stacking them to get the proper height. I didn’t think this would be an elegant solution to the problem and decided to search online for OEM solutions. I quickly found a possible solution by using a ’96 Honda Prelude pedal stop. Without having exact dimensions, I wasn’t sure it would work. I was able to buy a brand new one through AFHparts.com for less than $20 shipped. It was considerably bulkier than I thought it would be and it had protrusions that would allow it to be mounted through padding and carpet. Not yet defeated, I decided to see if I could make it work. Keep reading for the details.

Here is an OEM, ’96 Honda Prelude pedal stop. It’s bulkier than I thought it would be but it will do the trick.

I had already started cutting it before I thought to take a picture. The top and bottom protrusions were identical. All three needed to be removed for this idea to work.

While testing fitting, I realized that I needed to cut the bottom tab to address the fact that there is a bend in the floor. This is what is left after all of the cutting and test fitting.

I held the stop in place and made sure the pedal made contact. I marked the hole and used a step bit to drill the hole.

I used a rivet nut to create a threaded hole to mount the stop.

I used a few washers to make up for the dip in the sheet metal (behind the carpet) and bolted the stop in place.

The large hole left by modifying the pedal stop allows for fine tuning. Moving it up and down, because of the wedge shape, changes the height. With the help of my wife, holding the pedal to the floor, I was able to confirm that I was still getting full throttle.

There you have it. I have a fresh new throttle cable and a solution that will prevent a future failure of the cable damper.

B-Series Cam Seal Install

importnut — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 13:58:00 +0000

A simple but common problem to most B-series Honda engines is an oil leak around the front cam seal. A simple and aesthetically pleasing solution is to replace the seal with an aftermarket aluminum seal. These cam seals are a machined aluminum piece which utilizes multiple rubber o-rings to create a seal. There are several brands available such as those at Password JDM, Skunk 2, Blox, Golden Eagle…to name a few.

A quick comparison between the original seal vs the aluminum upgrade. STR has long since gone out of business, but you can find similar seals through several other manufacturers.

Tools Necessary

Reliable socket set
Metric wrenches
Torque wrench
High temp sealant or Hondabond
A valve cover gasket set if necessary

The installation process is very easy. Start by removing the spark plug wire cover. After you’ve removed the cover, pull the plug wires out and lay them over the side. Remove the valve cover and set it aside.

Once the valve cover is out of the way, remove the oil rail that runs across the cam caps. There are 10 bolts that require a 12 mm socket and 2 that require a 10 mm socket.

Following the removal of the oil rail is the removal of the cam cap next to the VTEC Solenoid. There are two more 10 mm bolts that need to be removed. Carefully pry off the cap and the original seal.

With everything out of the way, it is time to prepare the new seal. Start by coating the rubber o-rings with oil. For added protection, add a bit of sealant to the inner edge of the back side of the new seal. I have skipped this step with no leakage issues.

When you put the seal in place, you’ll find that it is a tight fit. Don’t be alarmed.

Reinstall the cam cap and torque the bolts to 7 ft-lbs. Next, reinstall the oil rail and torque the 12 mm bolts to 20 ft-lbs and the 10 mm bolts to 7 ft-lbs. If necessary, install new a valve cover gasket and spark plug seals then install the valve cover, spark plug wires and spark plug cover.

Last but not least, thoroughly degrease the engine and enjoy leak free operation!

Nissan Speedometer Repair

importnut — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 18:08:29 +0000

A few years ago, I bought a 1995 Nissan truck to use at work. Given it’s task, I wasn’t too concerned about the general condition of the truck. One small detail did prove to be a problem. The speedometer didn’t work. Considering the fact that I was paid for mileage, it was important that this little detail worked as it was intended. After perusing the internet, I saw several people describing the same problem. I decided to take the time to document the repair. My speedometer and odometer would stop working intermittently. My first thought was that the speed sensor had failed. However, if I smacked the dash, the speedometer would start working. I found a used base model cluster on ebay for a fraction of the cost of an upgraded cluster (with tach) and scavenged the parts to repair my original speedometer. I wanted to retain the mileage as well as the trip meter function. In order to accomplish this, I swapped out the drive motors and circuit board.

In my case, the motor itself was the problem causing a short that disabled both the needle movement and the odometer operation.

Before ordering any parts, test the vehicle speed sensor. The factory service manual is a good source for diagnostic information. If the sensor is in good working order, try the donor cluster to verify that it’s working properly.

These instructions will work for nearly any Nissan that uses a similar speedometer. I know that the ’95-’98 240SX used a similar design.

Tools Necessary:

Soldering Iron
Solder Sucker
#1 & #2 Phillips screwdriver
Small clamping pliers

Remove the 4 screws surrounding the plastic circle.

After removing the screws, the speedometer can be removed.

Before you can remove the circuit board, you will need to remove the 4 screws, marked in yellow, and unsolder 4 posts, marked in red.

Once you’ve removed the solder and screws, you can remove the board. Be aware that the odometer’s motor is plugged into the board.

After removing the circuit board, remove the single screw that holds the odometer motor in place and remove the odometer motor.

Remove the two screws that hold the speedometer motor in place.

The next step is a difficult part of the project. If you try to pull the motor off without holding the shaft, you run the risk of pulling it through and ruining the small return spring. You can try and rely on the needle holding the shaft in place, however it is a substantial risk. Use a very small set of locking or clamping pliers to hold onto the shaft.

It doesn’t take much to keep the shaft in place. This picture shows the base model speedometer which does not have a trip meter. This area is much more congested with the trip meter present.

Once you have the shaft supported, slowly pry off the motor.

Repeat the process for the donor speedometer.

Now that everything is apart and the donor parts are ready to install, you can start assembling the speedometer. I would suggest using all of the new pieces from your donor cluster.

First, install the new odometer motor.

The next part of the process is complicated. Both the shaft and the motor need to be at their “home” position which is 0 mph. Returning the motor to its home position is the hardest part. You may need to solder the motor to the circuit board, screw it into the cluster, connect the cluster and power-on the ignition. This will bring it back to the home position. If you do not do this, you could end up with a needle that will rest at something other than 0 mph when the ignition is off. Like this:

Oops…

The whole process may take some trial and error but it can be accomplished.

Once you get that resolved, screw the motor in place, push on the circuit board and reinstall its screws and solder the motor pins.

Set the speedometer back into the cluster and secure it with four screws from behind.

Finally, reinstall the cluster.

Ultimately, the easiest thing to do would be to use the entire donor cluster or possibly the speedometer itself (if your donor cluster is a base model version and you want to retain your tach. If the mileage is close or you’re not worried about losing the trip meter, you could skip the hassle of soldering and properly clocking the motor to the shaft/needle.

Good Luck!