After finishing up working on the Jeep's new spare tire rack yesterday, I was just standing around and noticed that Jim decided to wash his car. OK - no biggie. But then Tony decided to wash his as well (that's just crazy since Tony doesn't wash his cars). Then one of the other guys did the same thing. And of course, since the Honda was slowly turning brown from all the dust in the air and hasn't been washed since sometime in February, I decided to give it a bath as well.

Turns out the whole reason Jim started with his car was because someone had left a container of car-wash soap at the Auto Hobby Shop and he decided to use it since it would've required an MSDS for them to keep it around.

Too funny.

Then... it rained last night. Hence, the topic title.

It's time once again for a safety inspection. However, the little car squeals like crazy when backing up and even sometimes when it's hot outside and I'm making a turn at low speeds. I remember when I installed the front brake pads about this time last year, something about the hardware clips not going together the same on the left side and they did on the right. So, I figured I'd buy some new clips and swap everything out.

When I pulled the Honda into the lift-stall at the Auto Hobby Shop and got it into the air, I spun the tires and Jim immediately noticed the squeal. Of course, he reached up, grabbed the dust shield and gave it a yank - no more squeal. Apparently, the dust shield had gotten warped or something and was touching the brake rotor, causing the squeal.

Sweet! That's the fastest repair that's ever been done on that car. While I had it in the air, I changed out a burnt bulb in the passenger-side driving light. Everything's great now, and the little car passed inspection the next day with no problems.

Now, I just need to find, err... make some time to wash and wax the car again since the weather's getting nicer.

Last tank with a mix of driving with and without the A/C compressor running (in Defrost mode to keep the windshield de-fogged): 36.2 mpg. Just over 201,000 miles as well. Gotta love it!

I got to the Hobby Shop early today, and actually got to working on it on-time. Everything went well and I was able to get the struts and half-shafts swapped out in what would be 'record time' for me - I didn't have too many interruptions and didn't actually need much help either. Started around 1030L and had it all back together around 1530L - except for getting the oil back in the transmission. This time I used some Royal Purple 10W30 - which seems to be fine so far.

The passenger side outer CV boot was split, which prompted the work. The struts were also making 'crunchy' sounds going over speed bumps, so I knew they were getting close to needing replacement as well.

I also figure I saved about $1200 on this job... so it's all good.

... need to do the half-shafts and shocks. I meant to work on these a few weeks ago, but then a couple of friends decided to do some major stuff to their cars (needing my help), and the water heater at the house died (which is a day of vacation I'll never get back - but oh well). Last week, the Ram decided to take a sick day without consulting me, so I worked on it over the weekend. It was something simple, but the Genesis computer told me to replace the thermostat and temperature sensors... so I did... which has exactly ZERO effect on the actual problem. Further diagnostics showed the Idle Air Controller to have been bad - which was a 15-minute job, once I actually started working on it.

Oh well - I guess I'll try to get the 'shafts and shocks done this weekend.

So far, so good. The Honda's hangin' in there like a trooper. But I'm having trouble deciding whether or not I want to keep it - I've been driving the Ram a lot more lately just because I like driving the Ram. OK, so maybe it's just getting in and out of the Honda that I don't like so much. I don't know... we'll see, I suppose. It's a fun car and is definitely doing it's job very well as an econo-box... better than most new cars that claim superior economy even. The little hatch is still pulling roughly 39mpg in-town (without A/C running), and around 33mpg when I do finally light up the A/C button and enjoy the cold air.

A few days before Christmas, I treated it to a detail-job, and cleaned the snot out of it. Had it up on the lift while I was getting the tires filled with Nitrogen, and Jim discovered that the boot on the passenger-side CV-joint was sliced up. No biggie - the joint's still holding up, but I think it's probably time to just replace the half shaft (maybe even both) since they're probably the original factory half-shafts. Probably make the swap next weekend and replace a couple of burnt out bulbs (one dash light and one of the driving light bulbs are out).

The struts have been making 'crunchy' sounds when going over speed bumps, so that means I need to replace those soon as well. I'm thinking I'll go with a 1.5" drop as well, to soak up some fenderwell and level out the car. Should be fun.

What I didn't notice the last time is that when the car wash dude took the brush to it, there was something abrasive on it - and he scratched the crap out of the finish. Not bad enough that you can see primer or anything through the paint, but if you catch right, you can see the new 'brush-swirls' on the right side.

So now I guess I need to rub out the scratches and re-wax the car. I guess that's the plan for tomorrow.

Oh, and it rained the next day as well. Yay!

Today was a slow news day. The only thing of any significance that happened today was that I washed the Hatch during lunch.

Whoopee. Call FOX News - I'm sure with all the crap they've been running lately, this would be news-worthy to someone.

Oh wow. I had to bite my tongue today.

My pal who sold me the Honda is looking for a car for his son, who doesn't seem to be the most 'car-friendly' individual from what I've heard. He's hoping to find a nice, cheap car for himself because his Malibu is having issues. He wants to get himself a cheaper car, and get a decent beater for his son to drive. I asked him how much he was hoping to spend on the 'beater,' and he mentioned if he could find something for $1200 he'd be happy.

He also said something about wishing I would sell the Honda back to him during the conversation, however I'm not entirely sure what he meant by that.

Honestly - there's no way in Hell I'd sell the Honda to anybody for $1200. Thanks to all of the time and money I have invested in all of work I've done to it, I can't let it go for less than $3500 - I would lose money (at the very least). The State of Texas feels it's worth $2860 (which is what they based the taxes during registration on), and I've also got a lot of 'niceness' invested into the little car as well. All told, I bought the car for $800, spent approximately $500 getting it running again, then another $500 in miscellaneous things that were wrong with it as a result of age (brakes, rear wheel bearings, some sensors, et al). Then I decided to spiff it up a little with $800 in rims & tires, $150 window tint, $200 for 'new' Acura Integra seats, then finally $200 for a new stereo and alarm after it was broken into in March 2008. That's almost $3200 right there. Then there's the $200 for the clutch and shop-time expenses replacing it this past March when the Hobby Shop re-opened.

I actually kept all my receipts, and I'm invested into it somewhere to the tune of $4150. In the just over two years I've had it, I would've spent about half again that much money in gas just driving the Ram. So my investment has actually had a return for me, although I'm not sure of the exact math involved. But I'm definitely ahead of the game, that's for sure.

Granted, I don't expect to get all my money back out of a car when I decide to take it on as a project. But what I have invested in the little car is a lot more than just money. Had I paid someone to rehab the Hatch, I would've spent over $1000 in labor alone just getting it running again, not even counting the clutch and other things that I've done to it.

Sorry Bro - can't see it happenin'.

Not to mention the psychological torture I would have to endure watching his kids destroy something I saved quite literally from the junkyard.

After the big AFSCA Site Inspection this past week (we passed with flying colors) the Boss said he didn't want to see my face today, so I went to the Auto Hobby Shop and finally put a coat of wax on the Honda (after rubbing out the paint two weekends ago). After I scrubbed the paint, I didn't get a chance to wax it (it was too damn hot and I was too damn tired of it being too damn hot). We actually had a rain storm earlier in the week, which got all sorts of grime on the car - but not wanting to have my efforts wasted, I promptly went through a car wash after the storms were down.

Today, I started out with the pneumatic polisher on the roof again, but it was going too slow. Sure, air-tools should make things go faster, but it seemed like I wasn't getting anywhere. Or at least, it wasn't doing all that great of a job, what I was doing... which was taking longer because I was going for a mirror shine.

So I gave up on the polisher and just played Karate Kid: Wax On with the left, and Wax Off with the right. Looked a ton better and took a helluva lot less time.

That poor little car is still running like a champ, and even looks good now (all things considered... age and neglect and all).

Today, I braved the 100 degree heat and scrubbed down the paint on the Hatch. It actually turned out looking halfway decent. I used some 3M Perfect-It II we've been using for years - one of the Hobby Shop regulars (while he was here TDY for several months, that is) was a body man in Wichita, Kansas, and he schooled us in the ways of body work. Of course, we'll never be at his level (he was incredible), but Hey - having some more knowledge will at least help us somehow.

Anyway, I used the pneumatic polisher with the Perfect-It, and I'm not sure if I put too much on and let it get too dry or something, but I've got a couple of spots where some waxy build-up seems to have occurred. Hopefully, it'll come out with the next wash. Who knows.

I'll have to take a picture when I get it waxed - for proof that you can indeed polish a turd.

Had Jim pick me up today - there was no way I'm not driving that sucker home today.

Things went really well - got the tranny back in, everything buttoned back up, and fluids refilled by something like 3:00PM. Still had a couple hours to kill, so I did something to the car... I can't remember.

But I remember getting it off the lift, and Jim drove it for some reason. Which, of course, he saw fit to lay a patch with the new clutch actually grabbing like it's supposed to. Who knew 92hp could peel out?

It's all good now.

Thanks to Jim, Tony, Hank, Josh, and Harry - for either helping me, or even just those moments of pointing and laughing. That's why I love the Auto Hobby Shop.

So, after some Corner Stop breakfast burritos, it was time to finish this up. Jim got busy trying to figure out how to fit the Honda's flywheel into the spiffy flywheel machine - apparently, my hatch's flywheel is the ONLY one that won't fit in there. Of course - this is one of my projects, after all.

While he was working on that, I pulled the oil pan to change out the gasket and see if I could bang out the dents from a previous owner's follies of bottoming out the car. No joy - too many baffles inside to get to the dents. No worries - since it's not leaking from any of the dents, who really cares, right? A new pan gasket later, and no more 'evidence' of leaks in the driveway. The Hatch is now finally house-broken.

It took the better part of the day for Jim to rig up an adapter for the Hatch's flywheel - I ran defense against the other customers for him, but he also had a couple of brake rotors to turn and stuff only he can do. No worries - I was just hoping to have the tranny back in and done by the end of the day. But again - this is one of my projects, after all.

I think we had the tranny cleaned up, back on the tranny jack and ready to stab back in there - once he was finally able to get the flywheel turned, that is.

Well, it all started out seeming like it was going to go really well. I got the wheels off, then pulled the passenger-side caliper, rotor, spindle nut, lower control arm, and popped out the right half-shaft. No worries. Moved to the left side and began there - except the spindle nut decided to not cooperate. CRAP!

Spent the next hour-and-a-half trying to coax the spindle nut off. Finally took an angle grinder to it and cut the damn thing off. Fortunately, I didn't damage any threads on the half-shaft.

OK - so now I can get to work on getting the tranny ready to drop. Got the engine supported, and all of the mounts, bell-housing bolts, exhaust collector, shift linkage, and just about everything else disconnected - then pulled the tranny with no hassle.

Not too bad for a day's work - except that I think I would've gotten farther had the driver-side spindle nut cooperated.

Bought the new clutch for the Honda and will take a stab at swapping it out this Friday/Saturday.

On the way home, I got 'smoked' by some Chica in a de-badged black car - it looked like a newer Neon or something - couldn't tell by all the Ricer parts and aftermarket JDM parts hanging off it. It looked like a fairly nice car, except for the fact they must've driven by AutoZone with the crap-magnet turned on.

We were pretty much side-by-side all the way down Knickerbocker (probably because there was a cop 2 cars ahead of us). She's rolling thinking she's all bad and stuff, but I made it through the last light before the on-ramp to the Loop before she did, so I hopped on the ramp and took off like I normally do (I don't like to waste time on the on-ramp - especially with all the Hero-Trucks flying down the Loop to run over my little hatch. I guess she was in a bigger hurry because she flew by me once we cleared the ramp onto the Loop. Of course, her car had some kind of boost going on (supercharger or NOS - who knows) and I got nuthin' but 92 horsepower and a K&N air filter (but I guess my car looks race-worthy or something...).

Had I known she wanted to race... well, then - she still would've smoked me (who am I kidding... my car's a wimpy little econo-box). But Hey - at least I would've been 'losing a race' as opposed to 'just watching her go by.'

She's still not feeling well, so I went back to the Auto Hobby Shop and rewired the cheese-mo 'eBay' fog light kit I bought for the Honda last year. Both lights died sometime last September and I haven't felt much like figuring it out. I took a stab at it about a month ago on a nice Saturday - no dice. Today, I pulled the nose off the car and troubleshot the whole system down to a melted 'El Cheapo' Chinese relay. Swapped out the relay and rewired the 'hinky' parts and now they're working great.

I also discovered a few things about the Honda today. The 'SRS' light (airbag) is on because I pulled the stock steering wheel (and its airbag) in favor of the one that's there now. The SRS light is a PITA to kill. You can't simply pull the bulb - you need some kind of a special took or something.

Another thing I learned is that if you pull the 'ACG' fuse in the process of figuring out how to wire up the new relay and popping fuses, the car won't start until you actually replace it. I had thought all the monkeying with the airbag system had caused the car to think it had been in an accident or something and wouldn't start. Nope - just dumb-ass me forgetting that I swiped a critical fuse and forgot about it.

We also helped some kid who lowered his Nissan 300ZX too far (over 2" drop) pull the car off the lift because it was high-centered. Then later, had to stuff a floor jack under the rear end to get it over the 1"x1" gate channel so he could leave the Auto Hobby Shop. Cracks me up every time.

Of course, since they installed some nice above-ground tire rippers across the outbound lanes at both gates, I'm thinking that guy's not even going to be able to get his car off the base.

And even if he wanted to try and unf00k everything he did to his car, he most likely won't be able to get it back into the Auto Hobby Shop, let alone onto a lift again either.

Bummer... for him. I re-discovered exactly why I have no intention of ever lowering my junk.

Well, not actually "new..."

Finally got a chance today to install some of the junk laying around in my garage into the Honda to boost the low-end of the sound system.

I had a Fast & Furious 150.2 (150w x 2-channel) amp and 2 Pyramid Super Pro 10" subs (in some nice ported truck boxes) laying around collecting dust. The Auto Hobby Shop is now open, and I used the afternoon to make the installation. About 15 minutes of tweaking the output settings of the head unit in my driveway, and the Honda's JVC Digifine AM/FM/CD/WMA/MP3 stereo is pounding hard with the best of 'em.

It's amazing just adding the low-end boosts the overall output of a system. Before today, I had the stereo's EQ settings backed off a little to save the slightly better than OEM speakers the PO had installed. Now, using the head unit to segregate the lows and mids/highs, then pushing the lows through the amp, I'm able to bump the output levels up a little. What used to be just about the limit for both me and the speakers (around 28 or 29 on a volume range that goes to 35), is now pretty much all I can stand around 22 on the dial with a much larger presence - the mirrors are actually vibrating when the bass hits now (that's how I like it in my other rides).

Total cost: $20 for stall time, since I've had all this junk laying around after collecting it from others when they upgrade their systems.

Wonder how long it'll take for someone to break in and steal it.

Sometime back in October, I was finally able to score the elusive '97 Integra Blue/Black rear seats to match the fronts I installed last February. They went in without having to modify anything, except that the retainer for the bottom cushion was on the passenger side instead of the driver side - so a quick zap with the drill stuck it down with a sheet metal screw and flat washer.

While I was in there, I bolstered the hatch cover I made with a spine on the underside. It was sagging a bit towards the seats because it's really thin masonite, and didn't exactly fit as well as it could've - the wiper motor cover on the glass was kind of squishing it down to help the sagging efforts as well. Looks much better now.

I still need to get the amp and subs installed and wired in - but that'll be for another day.

So far, so good. No major issues with the Honda for quite awhile. I've put some decent miles on the little car since gas was freaken crazy this past year. It's been burning a little oil - but I think that's mostly because I still need to crank down the valves. And when I do that, I'll need to Sea-Foam the engine again, to make sure any build-up gets burned off first. Hopefully, once that happens, mileage and performance might go up a little as well. Although, with 197,000+ miles, I'm certainly not complaining about 38mpg... in the city.

I did manage to snag a new '97 Integra rear seat to match the fronts - but just haven't gotten off me arse and installed it yet. Once I do, I'll be wiring up the amp and 10" subs for a little audio horsepower.

And hopefully while I'm at it, I'll finally install the Integra map lights I found for $6.00. There's a little area right between the visors that's just beggin' for a set of map-lights... and the Integra's set-up looks about right. I'm hoping to be able to wire it up so it'll work independently of the dome light and still work as cabin lights when the doors open. So far, I'm stumped on how that'll actually work, based on what I could see on how the wiring and stuff looks on the back of the lights. We'll see. I may have to just settle for one or the other. Map lights would be better - but I'll try and work something out.

Of course - all of this goes on while keeping the inevitable clutch failure in the back of my head. I'm hanging on and hoping that the Auto Hobby Shop will open before the clutch completely goes out - it's almost right there right now... yet it continues to hang in there.

And oddly enough, I'm actually starting to think that possibly dropping it an inch or two might be a cool thing. Need to shake that off before it actually happens.

Alright - since I took today off to solve a plumbing issue I can't seem to find, I decided to knock out some odd-jobs around the house.

After I broke down a bunch of cardboard boxes living in the garage (and essentially filled the bed of the truck), I decided to take apart the driver side door on the Honda to hopefully fix the binding window. When it's cool outside, the window seems to want to not roll down all the way without binding. When it's hot - it's not so bad. Since I have to roll down the window every time I go through one of the gates to get on base (showing ID), I figured I'd better do something before I snap off the plastic window-crank handle.

Went pretty uneventful. I shot some garage-door lubricant into the window tracks and the tracks where the rollers for the crank mechanism ride. Much smoother now, even though it made a royal mess. Still a little bit of tightness while rolling down, but it's much better than it was.

What I'm listening to right now: "Florentiner March" - from the movie "Brassed Off!"

O2 sensor showed up, and I spent a grand total of 15 minutes changing it out. It took more time to open the hood, grab the tools I needed, and set my drink down without spilling than it did to actually change it out.

Once I did though, the idle smoothed out, and it ran better than it's ever run since I've owned it.

While I was there, I discovered that the engine oil was substantially low - like a quart low off of the 'Add' mark - I guess it's using a little bit of oil, since it's not leaking anymore. I do have a good bit of valve-clatter (kinda sounds like a VW turbo-diesel on hot days, actually), which could mean that I didn't get the valves nailed down as tightly as they need to be... which could be allowing a little bit of oil to sneak by as well. Regardless, the low oil is probably the reason for the Check Engine Light. I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on it a little more closely.

That won't be as much of a problem thanks to the Auto Hobby Shop coming back open hopefully by the middle or end of September.