advanttage
New Member
This is my 1998 Honda Civic exr - 2 Door Coupe - D16Y8 4Auto - 55,200KM
The backstory:
Basically my best friends family accepts me as family, and that's really cool. I'm from Canada, they're Danish/Mexican. I came to Mexico a few years ago to work on a business with my buddy, and it's been a wild ride. So when I reference Abuelo, I'm either talking about Mexican Grandpa, or the car since I named the car Abuelo.
In 1997 Abuelo went to Honda looking for a car and settled on the 1998 Civic exr 2 door automatic. At this point he was well into his 60's and knocking on 70's door. He used the car mostly to drive from Mexico City to Acapulco and then back again a few times a year. After his wife passed, Abuelo moved to Acapulco permanently to live out the rest of his days. I met him in 2014 on my first visit to Acapulco, really smart and cool guy. In 2015 I returned to Canada and Abuelo became sick, so the family focused on supporting his health rather than the car. I returned to Mexico in 2018, and unfortunately Abuelo died in 2019 just before Coivid hit. When everything was done, the apartment and house was sold, there was the car. Nobody really wanted it... except for me. Oh heck yes I wanted it.
I was living in Mexico City at the time. so I took a trip down to Acapulco. The goal was to figure out what repairs the Civic would need, and if I was willing to fit the bill I could have the car. I didn't want to pay for a mechanic, and I'm technically savvy and a quick learner so I started learning what I could. The car would crank but wouldn't turn on, so I spent hours learning about what to do, eventually landing on Fuel Pump had died. So I got a new fuel pump, changed the fuel filter and she came back to life. I didn't know that gas turns to varnish after sitting for a long time, so yeah that was interesting. Luckily no long term damage came from using paint thinner as gas, and I made sure to dilute it with real gas at every opportunity. This was 3000 km ago and the car runs great now.
The plan:
Abuelo was a mechanical engineer, and he took meticulous care of this car when he was able to. Anything more involved than a fill-up at the gas station was noted down with date and mileage. The car has never been modified, never been driven hard or abused. I know Abuelo respected and loved this car, aside from him and myself only one other person has ever even driven it. So that informed my plan.
First of all I named the car Abuelo, since it just kind of made sense. My goal is to restore the car, bring it back to looking like it did when Abuelo bought it. I do plan to switch out the broken leather seats with the cloth versions from the same generation. I really want to emphasize what this car is good at. It's compliant, easy to drive, easy on gas, and just a great driving experience. So I'll be fixing the roof lining, the paint of course, and probably replacing the suspension as it's really soft and I scrape on the majority of speed bumps with just myself in the car.
What I've fixed so far:
So far it hasn't been a big repair list, but there have been a few things.
The backstory:
Basically my best friends family accepts me as family, and that's really cool. I'm from Canada, they're Danish/Mexican. I came to Mexico a few years ago to work on a business with my buddy, and it's been a wild ride. So when I reference Abuelo, I'm either talking about Mexican Grandpa, or the car since I named the car Abuelo.
In 1997 Abuelo went to Honda looking for a car and settled on the 1998 Civic exr 2 door automatic. At this point he was well into his 60's and knocking on 70's door. He used the car mostly to drive from Mexico City to Acapulco and then back again a few times a year. After his wife passed, Abuelo moved to Acapulco permanently to live out the rest of his days. I met him in 2014 on my first visit to Acapulco, really smart and cool guy. In 2015 I returned to Canada and Abuelo became sick, so the family focused on supporting his health rather than the car. I returned to Mexico in 2018, and unfortunately Abuelo died in 2019 just before Coivid hit. When everything was done, the apartment and house was sold, there was the car. Nobody really wanted it... except for me. Oh heck yes I wanted it.
I was living in Mexico City at the time. so I took a trip down to Acapulco. The goal was to figure out what repairs the Civic would need, and if I was willing to fit the bill I could have the car. I didn't want to pay for a mechanic, and I'm technically savvy and a quick learner so I started learning what I could. The car would crank but wouldn't turn on, so I spent hours learning about what to do, eventually landing on Fuel Pump had died. So I got a new fuel pump, changed the fuel filter and she came back to life. I didn't know that gas turns to varnish after sitting for a long time, so yeah that was interesting. Luckily no long term damage came from using paint thinner as gas, and I made sure to dilute it with real gas at every opportunity. This was 3000 km ago and the car runs great now.
The plan:
Abuelo was a mechanical engineer, and he took meticulous care of this car when he was able to. Anything more involved than a fill-up at the gas station was noted down with date and mileage. The car has never been modified, never been driven hard or abused. I know Abuelo respected and loved this car, aside from him and myself only one other person has ever even driven it. So that informed my plan.
First of all I named the car Abuelo, since it just kind of made sense. My goal is to restore the car, bring it back to looking like it did when Abuelo bought it. I do plan to switch out the broken leather seats with the cloth versions from the same generation. I really want to emphasize what this car is good at. It's compliant, easy to drive, easy on gas, and just a great driving experience. So I'll be fixing the roof lining, the paint of course, and probably replacing the suspension as it's really soft and I scrape on the majority of speed bumps with just myself in the car.
What I've fixed so far:
So far it hasn't been a big repair list, but there have been a few things.
- Fuel Pump and Fuel Filter: they were dead and old so I put new ones in!
- Driver side window elevator: Yeah idk why but the window elevator assembly fell apart and I got a buddy around the corner to weld up a new one for me and it's good as new again.
- Injectors: old and gunked up, I was fighting some compression issues and it turns out my injectors weren't in the best shape so I replaced them with factory spec injectors. Fun fact: one of the orings broke on one of my injectors causing fuel to build up on top of the intake when driving. Finding the orings was a problem here locally, but I made it work.
- Battery: I replaced the battery with a new LTH 51R when I first was reviving the car, but the battery was crap and I had to get a new one just a couple months ago.
- One of the first times I was looking at the underside of the car I jacked it up with the included scissor jack. At one moment I thought to check the jack and saw that it had been slipping. Fell on to the jack stands and the oil pan landed about 1/4" from my head. Bought a hydraulic floor jack later that day.
