The older I get, the less interested I get in keeping up with the neighbours, or "willy waving". I let my legs do the talking when I'm out running or cycling and everything I own seems to have a reason, or purpose now. The days of owning stuff just for the sake of it, or upgrading because there's a new version, are long gone.
I'll grant you I've got some nice stuff, but it's functional nice stuff, not posing stuff. I've got a Titanium bike frame, it's titanium because that's the best thing for the job I need it to do though. Not so I can go down the pub and tell everyone how much it cost (and if your that interested, it's at the cheap end, but it's still about the best at doing what I need it to do).
These days the same applies to my cars. I don't need more horsepower than you, I don't need any fancy gadgets and gizmos, in fact I don't really want them full stop, as it's just something else to go wrong, and I certainly don't need four wheel drive for the one day a year that it snows. What I do need though is some cheap transport for when I'm not cycling or running, and that means "Bangernomics". Which, for the uneducated amongst us, means buying something cheap and keeping it going for as long as you can.
I've had some good buy's in the past. Back when everyone else my age was driving around in hot hatches, I had an ex Post Office Escort van. It cost a pittance to buy, cost even less to run and took us on 100,000 miles of camping, caravanning and general fun for almost nothing. It wasn't fast, but it was brilliant at what it did and was probably the best value for money of anything I've ever bought.
At one point I thought my days of "Bangernomics" where behind me, when I was given a company car, and I almost got rid of the ramps, axle stands, jacks and other things that take up space. Thank God I didn't though, because it wasn't long before I was back in the mechanics game, looking after the van.
And then when the van died big time and the local garages said "Sorry mate we cant fix that" I was left with 2 choices, scrap it and start again, or get my overalls on and take on my biggest car project ever, pulling the engine out and fitting a new one. It was too big a job for the garage, but, with a lot of learning as I went, probably one of the most rewarding jobs I've ever done.
And you know what, whilst it cost me a small fortune to get the engine rebuilt, I think that it was possibly some of the best money that I've ever spent. If someone had said to me you can go on a course for X amount and learn X amount about something, I'd probably have said "that's pretty good value for money". Well, I think that I learnt far more from pulling the engine out of that van than I could ever have learnt from a course, and overall it probably didn't cost much more than a 2 week training course.
A combination of Google, You Tube and figuring it out as I went, enabled me to do something that not many others have done and got me back on the road. And having taken on the biggest job of my life, I now know that just about anything's possible, and the worlds my oyster.
"Bangernomics" it is then!
If you can get one of these back in there and get it to run correctly, then I guess that the worlds your oyster!
No horse power!
I know how it came out (sort of), now I just need to remember how to get it back in again!
"Bangernomics" at it's best. I bought this as it was cheaper than hiring a car to get to a couple of running events when the van was off the road.
A bit of tidying up. It makes no difference to how it goes, but at least it looks cared for.
Turning my hand to a bit of electronics - Soldering on that little switch is easier to say than do.
Bodyworks not my speciality, but that's not turned out too bad, considering it was heavily scuffed and cracked before.
He's always known that the gearbox was "a bit noisy" but through 2023 it got worse and come MOT time he was concerned that it was going to fail the MOT. Being the idiot I am, I offered to help out and swapped his Old Civic for my even older MX5 for a few weeks, whilst the little Civic came for a visit to Dad's garage.
Typically, it flew through the MOT with only a couple of age related advisories, so that meant I couldn't just scrap it and tell him to buy a car more fitting for a 25 year old than an old man Civic, I was going to have to fix it!
From the off I wasn't sure if this one was within my skill set. Front subframe off, and gearbox out, neither of which are much fun on your drive in December, and then the fun began.
I'm sure that everyone I've ever spoken to said that opening up a gearbox to get at the bits inside was beyond the abilities of a man in their garage and needed a specialist. In fact I seem to recall the words "Don't even think about it" being muttered on more than one occasion!
Well, I'm too tight to pay for a specialist and the little Civic isn't worth enough to justify one in the first place. So in I went!
And it would appear that opening up a Honda Civic gearbox isn't actually that hard, and replacing the Input bearing isn't actually that difficult either, as long as you take your time and think about what your doing.
So the little Civic lived to fight for another year, and "The Boy" got a broken gearbox bearing for his Christmas present, and a car that sounded better than it ever had.
Oh, and as I'd gone that far, it seemed worthwhile replacing the Clutch, Release bearing, Pilot Bearing, Diff seals and fixing the stripped threads that some previous butcher had knackered, while I was at it.
I think "The Boy" and his "Old Man Mobile" did alright out of this one!
That's heavier than it looks!
Someone's been in here before (and the gearbox judging by the re-conditioners paint marks on everything and the stripped threads).
Apparently you can't do this, and if you do you'll never get it back together again!
The offending gearbox input bearing.
Getting creative with lifting the gearbox back in.