Good evening everyone,

My name is Tyler (rhamza is my nickname) and I'm a 21 year old college student out of school for the summer, and this is my project to keep me out of trouble.

I've been driving for the past 10 months but this is my first car, a 96 Honda Accord LX (manual) 2.2 4cyl.

My car, finally I have one in my name, was wrecked by the previous owner. She...well she couldn't drive a stick and she was not paying attention to the road an ended up in a three car pile up. She happened to be the last person in the said pile up. There was a lot of cosmetic damage, mainly the bumper, hood, both front fenders, and the headlights with slight structural damage to the radiator core support.

For the past week I've been working very diligently and have so far fixed most of the minor issues. The entire carpet and upholstery has been cleaned to near factory conditions despite the hundreds of spills from rough shifts... (seriously...learn to drive a stick before riding around with open drink containers...it helps everyone involved), replaced the airbags, and the radiator core support. Now I am to the point of pulling the engine out and replacing the motor mounts.

It seemed like a lot of work for an 'older' car that won't end up being worth a lot, but I bought the car for $400 from the girl, and so far I have less than $400 more into it. When I am finished, if nothing major appears to be wrong with the engine, I should only be at $1100 total. I cannot wait to share the repair pictures and the final photograph. I'm not sure if I want to sell it when I am finished because I've always love the Accord...

Anyway, I look forward to getting to know you guys and girls!

Cheers everyone

 

What a great summer project! Good luck with it, and definitely post pics. Hopefully, you shot 'before' photos so the 'after' shots will be that much more sweet.

Just one question- regarding the body work- are you welding on new fenders?

 

Sounds great

FYI - you really do not need to pull the motor to change the motor mounts, it would be a lot of unnecessary work.

just change them one at a time.

Also the rear mount is not really known to fail, the front one is the weak one.

 

Welcome!

You said "pulling the engine out & replacing the motor mounts"... You should be able to support the engine IN-PLACE while you swap out the mounts. The rear mount is more of a pain, but probably can do that in-place.

Support the car properly when you're underneath. Get some jack-stands or ramps. Don't ever crawl underneath with the tire-changing jack.

 

Hello New Member and Welcome to the HAF..as You can see we have alot of helpful members to greet and meet you along the way..

Thank You for joining with us..

WheelBrokerAng

 

also if you have not already done so you can download the service manual for your car in the DYI section of this forum

 

Wow, I was not expecting so many responses! Thanks guys.

Well there was one more slight problem...(the reasoning behind removing the motor) the front driver side mount near the shock tower broke upon impact leaving about 1/2 of one bolt broken inside of the motor block. I need to drill/tap or whatever the official term is to get that bolt out and there is not enough room in the compartment to fit the drill in there with the tap I have...so the motor must come out at least enough to get the drill in there to free that hole up.

Thank you all for the advice, I will take to the underside of the vehicle this weekend!
No, I am not welding the fenders on, I've never really seen that done before...I did however have to weld the radiator core support on, from what I could see there were not any locations for bolts to hold that sucker on.

 

Do you know when the timing belt was last changed?

 

No, i have not any clue...the car seems to have been regularly serviced by a mechanics shop, but besides that, I have no idea.

 

Re-read my earlier post and am now shaking my head. I meant to write 'replacing', not 'welding.' Just goes to show that I shouldn't post before I've had my first cup of coffee.

So, given the accident, do you need to replace the fenders and hood, or were they spared in the accident?

And yes, timing belt and water pump are a good idea, as a snapped timing belt on this engine leads to a fascinating, exciting sequence of events under your hood.