alan lx : 1992 Accord LX

[alan lx]

Thanks a lot everyone. Today, i made a mix of about 1 part to 20? parts of gain laundry detergent in a spray bottle. I used this to clean the carpets and seats. Type G had a thread on this a while back using tide, but i used gain. It worked very well. Just mist it on there and i used a towel to scrub the nap of the carpet. The soiled places took 2 or 3 times. But its looks pretty good now.

[Kboers]

I love this color on cb's and your black house headlights and mesh grill go very well with the car. Hope to see good stuff in the future

[kouzie]

I like!!! Clean!!!

[alan lx]

Thanks to everyone. Yes in low light conditions, this color looks really good. Up close, my car is far from perfect. Its going to take me probably a year or so to get it looking like i want. I am planning on making another mesh piece to go in the grill except, paint it black. I am thinking i make like it better. A few other items that need attention is I think I have a RR wheel bearing going out. Another Pull a part trip in about a week or so for that. My gas gauge has went out a long while back. I have a parts car i will be swapping it out along with some trim items and stuff. Just need more time. I am making progress though.

[alan lx]

Today I got 3 main things done to the car.
First, I found a valley trailer hitch on craigslist for $20.00. This hitch is $212.00 on amazon. I had to drive about a hour to get it. So also cost some gas money but hey. Here is picture of it.

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Then after getting it on the car and the trailer wiring done, I finished wiring up the front bumper lights I installed in place of foglights. Going to experiment with some led's or other bulbs to get some light output.

Also, on the way home from buying the hitch, the car started missing really bad after i made a stop. It started showing a code 16 CEL light. This is a fuel injector issue code. To make a long story short, there was a loose connection on the fuel injector resistor box. It is mounted on the left strut tower in front of the strut. Here is a picture of it.

[IMG][/IMG]

[alan lx]

Today, i had a chance to finish fixing the receiver hitch for my small trailer i tow. Also, I made a slight bend in the tail pipe so it would not hit against the hitch and rattle.
After doing that I found a problem with my suspension. A few weeks ago, I replaced the upper left control arm (had a bad upper ball joint). The nut on the bolt that holds the bushing in that bolts to the strut tower, backed off and the bolt was starting to slip out. Basically, the bolt was hitting against the spring was the only thing holding it in. This very alarming to find this. I assumed when i isntalled it was tight. Anyway, its fixed now.
Also, I have noticed the radiator fan had stopped working. So i got one off a parts car we have. I will have to swap the blades and stuff out with mine to make it work.

[Raf99]

Today, i had a chance to finish fixing the receiver hitch for my small trailer i tow. Also, I made a slight bend in the tail pipe so it would not hit against the hitch and rattle.
After doing that I found a problem with my suspension. A few weeks ago, I replaced the upper left control arm (had a bad upper ball joint). The nut on the bolt that holds the bushing in that bolts to the strut tower, backed off and the bolt was starting to slip out. Basically, the bolt was hitting against the spring was the only thing holding it in. This very alarming to find this. I assumed when i isntalled it was tight. Anyway, its fixed now.
Also, I have noticed the radiator fan had stopped working. So i got one off a parts car we have. I will have to swap the blades and stuff out with mine to make it work.

Wow. nice DIYs your doing. Its nice to know how to fix things yourself! I imagine if all these repairs were done by someone else you would have to dish out a lot of $$$.

Would you say the tide/spray bottle worked better than a rug cleaning spray on application (bought at walmart, wherever)?

Nice grill too. I didn't know that clear marker lights were the same size as OEM fog lights (or the space they go in).

[alan lx]

Wow. nice DIYs your doing. Its nice to know how to fix things yourself! I imagine if all these repairs were done by someone else you would have to dish out a lot of $$$.

Would you say the tide/spray bottle worked better than a rug cleaning spray on application (bought at walmart, wherever)?

Nice grill too. I didn't know that clear marker lights were the same size as OEM fog lights (or the space they go in).

Thanks a lot. Most of these things I have learned from messing with old cars with my dad, spent 1 year at a Voc. Tech. Body repair school, or reading stuff online and some things from this site. And some of it just being able to look at a problem and think how to fix it. Yes, I would already have a small fortune spent if I was paying someone to do this. I drive this car everyday so its difficult to drop it at some place for a few days while they charge outrageous labor prices.

I used Gain, and to be honest, thats all i had in the house at the time. I think on lightly soiled carpet, it works just as well. Deeper stains probably require repeating the process 2 or 3 times.

Thanks on the grill, I think I am going to experiment with painting the mesh black. The clear marker lights are actually a little smaller. The light output is not good. At least not yet.

[alan lx]

I took the car back to get emissions testing done today. It failed again, actually a little worse this time. The limit on hydracarbons is 220. It was 485 the first time and 520 this time. This is kind of confusing because the car runs very good and is getting averaging 26 miles per gallon city/hwy mix. The spark plugs look clean. It has had a recent tune-up and most of the exhaust has been changed. I know the cat had some of the cone knocked out of it but i had one before that it didn't effect at all. I do know the exhaust manifold gasket is leaking some. I will change it next, recheck the timing and try again. If that don't work, I will have to take it to someone to put it on a machine to test it. By the way, it is a f22a. Any suggestions, or if anyone has had a similar problem, I am open to listen.

[alan lx]

Yesterday, i spent a couple hours drilling and cleaning the egr ports. This was really pretty easy. I didn't notice any major changes in how the car runs.

Today i spent cleaning the egr valve. It did appear to be sticking. There does seem to a slight difference in how the car runs.

Right before working on the egr valve today, i had to run an errand in town and the car almost didnt start. Finally got it started,it was runninig all weird, not shifting correctly, the dash lights were very dim etc. So i drove to Oreily's auto parts to check the battery.Sure thing, they said the battery was bad. I found one on craigslist nearby, so went and put it in and it was fixed as far the starting. This weekend I will do some more tuning and hopefully get it to pass emissions testing. I think the egr valve may have been the problem. We will find out.

[SPLCB7]

Well best of luck to ya i hope you pass that

[alan lx]

Thanks. I think it may pass now except for one more small issue. Yesterday, I was going to replace the exhaust manifold gasket (seemed to be leaking). Upon removing it, I found I had a cracked exhaust manifold. So Dad and I were off to pull a part. I got another and also found a radiator fan (the old one went dead) and a rear wheel hub (the bearing was worn out). So We got all that put on. We had to use the O2 sensor that was in the manifold I bought. So when I started it, the leak was fixed and my fan worked and wheel bearing noise is fixed. But the problem is now the check engine light is on. It almost has to be the O2 sensor.

So next, I will be swapping the sensor back to the one that was in the car.

[alan lx]

Okay, so this evening I was going to swap the O2 sensor back to the original one that was in the car. After getting it out of the old manifold and starting the process of removing the one that I thought was bad, I found it had came unplugged. Murphy's law. So put everything back together and plugged it in. The check engine light is now off and all exhaust leaks seems to be fixed.

[alan lx]

Today i changed the oil (Pennzoil 10w30 at 238540 mi.) . It was getting close to needing changed anyway and it recently got a little hot a time or two because of the radiator fan issue. As i was washing the car off, I started washing out the front of the transmission cooler and radiator. I couldn't believe how much dirt and stuff that washed out of there. Wow. Just a couple more items to do, and i will have all the maintenance done for the year except for oil changes of course. This car is running and driving better and better with everything I have doing to it lately.

[alan lx]

Today I took the car to emissions testing and it passed. It seems it had a cracked exhaust manifold was part of the issue and then after swapping the exhaust from the parts car, the catalytic converter was bad after paying $130.00 for it to be analyzed and "tuned". Swapped back to the original cat, retarded the timing a bunch and it passed. HC was down to 78. Funny thing is, today the testing person didn't have me take it up to a high idle before checking it. She just put the probe in the tailpipe and ran the test. Not sure what that was about. All the other times, the testing personnel ask to take it to 2500 rpms and take readings before and after. Oh well, it passed anyway.