I’ve been a gear head for quite some time now and have taught myself how to do most repairs that I will need to do during the ownership of a car. Because of my passion for cars, I now own three. One of those cars is my daily driver/beater that I use to commute to and from work, as well as for lugging stuff around. It’s a 1997 Honda Civic DX, an extremely basic car. However, one thing I always admired about this car is how simple it really is. Unlike my two other cars, a 2000 BMW 528i and a 2011 BMW M3, there is less that can foreseeably break or cause me a headache later on, which makes it a great choice for daily driving. It also gets 30+ miles to the gallon, which adds to why I love and need this car for the daily commute.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I am talking about a Honda Civic on a blog for a European car parts website. Well, this seemingly basic car recently taught me a valuable lesson that I will not soon forget. I think this lesson I learned can apply to any automotive car repair and may also apply to other facets of life, as well.
My Honda Civic's transmission started making awful noises about six months ago. After doing some research I quickly determined that the sound I was hearing is the input shaft bearing of the transmission. The input shaft bearing (ISB for short) supports the input shaft of the transmission. My car has a history with this bearing being an issue on higher mileage transmissions. One thing about the Civic that I like is it requires almost no maintenance or babying like my BMWs do. Because of this mindset I decided to let the issue with the transmission go for a while as many people who talked about the problem in depth have claimed to rack on tons of miles without the ISB becoming more of an issue.
Around January of this year is when the sounds from my ISB became more violent. Under certain conditions, my puny Honda sounded like it had a supercharger under the hood. Pedestrians on the sidewalk would turn their head when I drove by. The sound in question was no doubt the ISB screaming for dear life. Being the middle of winter I crossed my fingers in hopes that the transmission or ISB would last until at least April or May where I could drive my other cars while I fix the Honda.
Then it happened…
About two weeks ago, my laziness and cheapness in regards to maintain my Honda finally caught up to me. The ISB started making sounds that I could only describe as demonic, noises that I have never heard a transmission make before. I had two options at this point to repair the problem:
1) Open up the existing transmission, disassemble, and replace the ISB which is about a $10 part
2) Buy a used transmission that has been tested, install new transmission, and fix the bad transmission later to recoup some money on the new transmission.
I chose option #2 and bought a transmission from a salvage yard. My biggest fear at the time was that I would open the bad transmission and find extensive damage making the repair impossible which would force me to buy a replacement transmission anyway. During this time my Honda was down I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow my Dad’s Jeep Wrangler. The unfortunate part is I traded 30+ MPG’s for a slow brick that could barely get 20MPG’s downhill downwind on a good day. (I am not driving my other cars at the moment because of the weather and road conditions if you were wondering).
I picked up a replacement transmission from a local salvage yard for $240 which wasn’t a bad deal. It was money I didn’t want to spend, but at this point my decision to let the problem go put me in a bind where I had no choice. I also went ahead and picked up an Exedy clutch kit, seals, and gear oil from FCP. Replacing a transmission or clutch required removal of the transmission anyway, so the process is essentially the same.
This generation of Honda Civic is a joy to work on. For the most part everything is right there and the small amount of electronics to deal with makes for a relatively worry free vehicle to work on. My only complaints about dealing with a FWD car when removing the transmission is you need to figure out a way in which to support the engine. On my Honda once the transmission is removed there is only one engine mount holding the engine in place. One of my friends was kind enough to let me borrow his driveway and lend a hand on our first attempt to pull the transmission and install the new one (yes, our first attempt).
After removing all the bolts and mounting hardware the transmission should be, in theory at least, really easy to pull. As Murphy’s Law would have it mine was not. After double, triple, and quadruple checking to make sure all fasteners had been removed my friend and I were confused as to when the transmission didn’t want to come out. We were able to split the transmission from the engine block but it wouldn’t split more than an inch. After wrestling with the transmission for 4 hours and using a whole can of PB Blaster the transmission finally came out. The culprit for holding the transmission up was the pilot bearing which essentially welded itself to my transmissions input shaft. It appeared that my neglect to repair the problem had come back to bit me in the ass, again.
Because it took too long to pull the transmission I was not able to install the new clutch, rear crank seal, or any of the other parts on the same day. This repair went from a one day operation that should have been relatively easy into a two day marathon of cursing, swearing, and bashed knuckles. In order to finish the job I had to work on my own, which ended up being fine. I was able to install the remainder of the parts (rear crank seal, flywheel, clutch kit, etc.) and the transmission on my own in 4 hours. Installation went much easier for a variety of reasons but it is still an overall experience I will not easily forget.
The lesson here is simple.
If there is something obviously wrong with your car, fix the problem as soon as possible. Sometimes it’s easier to ignore the problem than address it. We are all guilty of doing it, too. However, it has been in my experience that sweeping the problem under the carpet just allows it to rear its ugly head later on when it will usually inconvenience you even more.
