slowtec
Internet Tough Guy
Hey CI. I have owned this 1996 Integra LS since July of 2005. I haven’t made many modifications to it because I never really had the time or the money. Not that I didn’t have money, just none was ever allocated for the car.
And times haven’t really changed, other than I’ve been sacrificing time in these last two weeks trying to fix different things on the car. Things that had been broken for years or just recently went bad. I’m pretty bad at keeping a blog or anything akin to this, but maybe it’ll be easier to consolidate my pictures and commentary here. This first post is going to be long as it is actually four to five posts consolidated down into one. Which I have conveniently broken up for you with lines of hashes. Enjoy.
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In 2006, a guy broke into my Integra with a flat head screwdriver and took the sub-$50 stereo deck and a dozen burned discs that mostly contained crappy rips of tv shows or B-level martial arts movies. The thief did jam the screwdriver into the passenger door lock and wiggle it around, basically making it impossible for the key to be inserted into the cylinder ever again. Eight years later, I fixed it!
I went to PickNPull, pulled every lock cylinder out of every Integra and CL on the lot, which was five cylinders in total. It helped that I did it,because after pulling the door handles out of five doors, you start to get a better understanding of how to do it, or not do it, when you work on your own car. I got them home, pulled them all apart and harvested the pins.
There are seven pins in the Integra lock. Pins come in six different profiles, with the number of each stamped on the bottom of each one. After removing all the pins from all the cylinders, I began inserting pins into each slot on the cylinder, inserting my key over and over again to judge which pins sat flush and which still had too much of a shoulder. Interestingly enough, after rekeying the lock and testing both my Original Acura key and my copies to make sure they would all work flawlessly. The pins I used when rekeying were not the same pins that came out of the old cylinder when I removed it. In fact, they weren’t even close. It doesn’t matter because it works and it works well, it even turns a little smoother than my driver’s side lock. And I have enough pins and cylinders left over to rekey many more locks in the future.
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In November 2010, I sat down in the Integra to drive across town only to discover that the temperature mix slider no longer worked on my climate control. It was 30 degrees outside and I couldn’t turn on the heat! I realized that afternoon that I could reach into the passenger footwell and adjust the slider by hand. Four years later, I fixed it!
The temperature mix slider stopped working because of a defect in my climate control bracket. There was a heat deformity in the plastic that has caused a crack that runs along the whole bracket.
Right next to the crack, the clip that holds the cable broke so the cable no longer slid inside the sheath to adjust the temperature. Two separate times I went to parts yards to get a new bracket, one of the brackets was cracked similarly to mine, and the other I broke the clip when I was unhooking everything. I finally got it right. And after putting it back in incorrectly twice in a row, I’m getting fairly skilled at installation and removal. I did notice that the plastic bezel around the vent is cracked itself, and than I saw a few more small cracks running around the whole outside bezel, so I’ll be looking out for one of those on my next trip to the parts yard. When I went driving tonight, I noticed that two of my lights in my climate control are out so I’ll have to remove it to replace those at the same time.
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In April 2012, I noticed a lot of moisture on the inside of my rear window, after pulling open my hatch, I noticed my trunk carpet was wet and found several inches of standing water in my spare tire recess. I soaked it up and thought no more about it until about 4 months ago, we had a pretty severe series of storms. It was worse this time, 10 inches of water in the trunk, a few inches in the back seat. The back seat cushion was like a giant sponge, it took both hands to lift it out of the car. I took out the trunk carpet, removed the back seat, drilled a hole in the lowest point in the trunk and have let it be. Thanks to Nick’s advice, I ordered a new set of tail light gaskets, and they should be coming at the end of this week.
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In November 2013, as I was parked in a large gravel lot at work, with another hundred-odd vehicles, someone hit my car while I was working and didn’t leave a note or anything. Front bumper, and passenger side fender were both damaged. The passenger side headlight was pushed back and is cock-eyed, and the turnsignal was cracked. I ordered a new fender and bumper and they should arrive next week.
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Two weeks ago I was working out of town. At the end of the week, two miles into the 200 mile trip home, the car started pulling to the passenger side, clicking, and vibrating the steering wheel. My CV joint was failing. It got me home. By the time I pulled into my driveway it was clunking, loudly, every time I turned the wheel or accelerated, but it got me home. That was my catalyst. My moment of clarity when I realized why I bought this car, and when I realized all the ways I had neglected it.
A little over a year ago, I had sheared off a couple of lug studs and after snapping a ½” breaker bar in half and bending another while trying to loosen the axle nut, I started off with a 1” breaker and a nice long cheater this time around. Had the axle nut loose in about 5 seconds. After that it was just a matter of Helen Keller-ing my way around the whole hub assembly situation.
Beyond watching a couple of videos, I had no idea what I was doing. I did discover that MTF is more rare and more valuable than gold. The vast majority of my time invested in replacing the axle was spent looking for a certain tool, or driving to pick up another tool.
Also there was that time I was hitting the lower control arm with my hammer and it glanced off and hit the threads on the ball joint and I swore for a good five minutes thinking I may now also have to replace that ball joint, but it turned out okay. Unfortunately, after all of my indecision, soul-searching, hitting this, prying that, I only managed to replace one axle before it got dark. So I will have to wait for another weekend to replace the other side. I think I can do it in a quarter of the time with the next one.
####################################
Until I saw The Fast and the Furious as a 14 year old kid, I had no desire to own an import car. Before pouring over issues of Honda Tuning in the magazine racks at Barnes and Nobles, I didn’t even know what an Integra was. The first Integra I had ever seen for sale at a car lot is sitting in my driveway right now. And, unless it ends up at the bottom of a ravine or the bottom of the ocean, it will still be in my driveway 20 years from now. Part of it is sentiment for having owned this car for so long, but part of it is the knowledge that Hondas, in general, are what you make of them. They are clean slates, capable of anything. And they get 30 mpg, which isn’t bad either.
This will probably be a slow ‘project log.’ There are some things that need replaced. Like my failing brake master cylinder that I’ve been ignoring for the better part of a year, or the already clicking driver’s side axle, or replacing the spark plug wires that are showing a noticeable bulge in the cylinder 3 wire. There’s a lot to be done, for sure. Hopefully, I can do some fun things along the way.
Thanks for reading. Have a Happy New Year!
And times haven’t really changed, other than I’ve been sacrificing time in these last two weeks trying to fix different things on the car. Things that had been broken for years or just recently went bad. I’m pretty bad at keeping a blog or anything akin to this, but maybe it’ll be easier to consolidate my pictures and commentary here. This first post is going to be long as it is actually four to five posts consolidated down into one. Which I have conveniently broken up for you with lines of hashes. Enjoy.
#####################################
In 2006, a guy broke into my Integra with a flat head screwdriver and took the sub-$50 stereo deck and a dozen burned discs that mostly contained crappy rips of tv shows or B-level martial arts movies. The thief did jam the screwdriver into the passenger door lock and wiggle it around, basically making it impossible for the key to be inserted into the cylinder ever again. Eight years later, I fixed it!
I went to PickNPull, pulled every lock cylinder out of every Integra and CL on the lot, which was five cylinders in total. It helped that I did it,because after pulling the door handles out of five doors, you start to get a better understanding of how to do it, or not do it, when you work on your own car. I got them home, pulled them all apart and harvested the pins.
There are seven pins in the Integra lock. Pins come in six different profiles, with the number of each stamped on the bottom of each one. After removing all the pins from all the cylinders, I began inserting pins into each slot on the cylinder, inserting my key over and over again to judge which pins sat flush and which still had too much of a shoulder. Interestingly enough, after rekeying the lock and testing both my Original Acura key and my copies to make sure they would all work flawlessly. The pins I used when rekeying were not the same pins that came out of the old cylinder when I removed it. In fact, they weren’t even close. It doesn’t matter because it works and it works well, it even turns a little smoother than my driver’s side lock. And I have enough pins and cylinders left over to rekey many more locks in the future.
####################################
In November 2010, I sat down in the Integra to drive across town only to discover that the temperature mix slider no longer worked on my climate control. It was 30 degrees outside and I couldn’t turn on the heat! I realized that afternoon that I could reach into the passenger footwell and adjust the slider by hand. Four years later, I fixed it!
The temperature mix slider stopped working because of a defect in my climate control bracket. There was a heat deformity in the plastic that has caused a crack that runs along the whole bracket.
Right next to the crack, the clip that holds the cable broke so the cable no longer slid inside the sheath to adjust the temperature. Two separate times I went to parts yards to get a new bracket, one of the brackets was cracked similarly to mine, and the other I broke the clip when I was unhooking everything. I finally got it right. And after putting it back in incorrectly twice in a row, I’m getting fairly skilled at installation and removal. I did notice that the plastic bezel around the vent is cracked itself, and than I saw a few more small cracks running around the whole outside bezel, so I’ll be looking out for one of those on my next trip to the parts yard. When I went driving tonight, I noticed that two of my lights in my climate control are out so I’ll have to remove it to replace those at the same time.
####################################
In April 2012, I noticed a lot of moisture on the inside of my rear window, after pulling open my hatch, I noticed my trunk carpet was wet and found several inches of standing water in my spare tire recess. I soaked it up and thought no more about it until about 4 months ago, we had a pretty severe series of storms. It was worse this time, 10 inches of water in the trunk, a few inches in the back seat. The back seat cushion was like a giant sponge, it took both hands to lift it out of the car. I took out the trunk carpet, removed the back seat, drilled a hole in the lowest point in the trunk and have let it be. Thanks to Nick’s advice, I ordered a new set of tail light gaskets, and they should be coming at the end of this week.
####################################
In November 2013, as I was parked in a large gravel lot at work, with another hundred-odd vehicles, someone hit my car while I was working and didn’t leave a note or anything. Front bumper, and passenger side fender were both damaged. The passenger side headlight was pushed back and is cock-eyed, and the turnsignal was cracked. I ordered a new fender and bumper and they should arrive next week.
####################################
Two weeks ago I was working out of town. At the end of the week, two miles into the 200 mile trip home, the car started pulling to the passenger side, clicking, and vibrating the steering wheel. My CV joint was failing. It got me home. By the time I pulled into my driveway it was clunking, loudly, every time I turned the wheel or accelerated, but it got me home. That was my catalyst. My moment of clarity when I realized why I bought this car, and when I realized all the ways I had neglected it.
A little over a year ago, I had sheared off a couple of lug studs and after snapping a ½” breaker bar in half and bending another while trying to loosen the axle nut, I started off with a 1” breaker and a nice long cheater this time around. Had the axle nut loose in about 5 seconds. After that it was just a matter of Helen Keller-ing my way around the whole hub assembly situation.
Beyond watching a couple of videos, I had no idea what I was doing. I did discover that MTF is more rare and more valuable than gold. The vast majority of my time invested in replacing the axle was spent looking for a certain tool, or driving to pick up another tool.
Also there was that time I was hitting the lower control arm with my hammer and it glanced off and hit the threads on the ball joint and I swore for a good five minutes thinking I may now also have to replace that ball joint, but it turned out okay. Unfortunately, after all of my indecision, soul-searching, hitting this, prying that, I only managed to replace one axle before it got dark. So I will have to wait for another weekend to replace the other side. I think I can do it in a quarter of the time with the next one.
####################################
Until I saw The Fast and the Furious as a 14 year old kid, I had no desire to own an import car. Before pouring over issues of Honda Tuning in the magazine racks at Barnes and Nobles, I didn’t even know what an Integra was. The first Integra I had ever seen for sale at a car lot is sitting in my driveway right now. And, unless it ends up at the bottom of a ravine or the bottom of the ocean, it will still be in my driveway 20 years from now. Part of it is sentiment for having owned this car for so long, but part of it is the knowledge that Hondas, in general, are what you make of them. They are clean slates, capable of anything. And they get 30 mpg, which isn’t bad either.
This will probably be a slow ‘project log.’ There are some things that need replaced. Like my failing brake master cylinder that I’ve been ignoring for the better part of a year, or the already clicking driver’s side axle, or replacing the spark plug wires that are showing a noticeable bulge in the cylinder 3 wire. There’s a lot to be done, for sure. Hopefully, I can do some fun things along the way.
Thanks for reading. Have a Happy New Year!
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