SF2K4

(I don't know if this is where to put this, so if not, please move it... heh...)

Ok, so, I've started doing a few DIY things to my car... I'm putting in some interior neon and painting some of the console parts (some people don't like it but I like a little red accent to my car) and well... first time the neon thing went way wrong, and the painting is ok on everything except the door grooves because the paint dripped a little... and I can't get some of the console parts off yet so it's a really unfinished job... anyway, even though I'm happy I'm learning, I am discouraged a little that obviously the job isn't that great being my first time... but I just wanted to know, for those of you that do this a lot now, how bad (or good) was your first DIY project?

DaNnYsEvEn

they only diy that i ever had problems with that really frustrated me was window tinting, i did it on my first car then after that i swore i wouldnt do it again..not even if they paid me. id rather pay and make it look more pro done.
dont be discouraged, thats how we all learn, from our mistakes. within time the more practice you get the more better the outcome is going to be, especially if you take your time with it.
good luck

Provocateur

One of my first DIY was the lowering spring/camber kit install. It was a total nightmare that lasted over 2 days and had about 12 hours of labor invested into it because of stuck/stripped bolts and the lack of proper tools.

Now I got air tools and can do it all much quicker. h:

RicoD

Mine too, cept mine only last a day....

Riding Phat

Well, I have done some minor installs that went well (neons, others) and painted my interior. Now, though, is a major DIY: Strut/Spring Installation.
If you guys have any good tips or good sites for info that could help, that would be great. Wish me luck all, I hope things go well.
They are Tokico 5-way adjustables and HR Springs. Hopefully, the del Sol will look good in a few days here.

Provocateur

www.c-speedracing.com is a great source for DIYs. The job is a bitch if you don't have air tools and a huge breaker bar to get some of those stubborn bolts.

wedley2

mine was doing suspension, went pretty smooth except i almost stripped the nut that holds the top hat and everything...

what pissed me off today was that i painted one of my side skirts and the paint peeled off my door fromt he masking tape since i have a shit ass paint job w/ no prep work...bah i hate this.

but never get discouraged. just take a breather from what you are doing...post your problem ont he internet, get a drink and get back at it. you will only get more frustrated if you trying to keep hackling at the same problem.

almos remember that you are saving a shit load of money and you will feel much more confident in your car and your work...just rmember to double check all your work. you can never be too safe.

Special K

My first few went fine... interior neon, painting console and dash parts, sound system, the only very minor problem was getting the stuff out, after that it was a breeze.

Then there was the fiberglass incidents.... I was bent on building my own pair of fiberglass sub boxes. I sound deadened my trunk (about a day of cleaning and prep work) and had taped off and covered most of my trunk. It was my first attempt at fiberglassing anything. Just getting the trunk moulds was painful. I kept getting air bubbles in the fiberglass and trying to correct it, only leading to more bubbles. about a month and a half later (I had to work during the weeks), I finally finished the mould (7 layers) and started working on the mdf rings and the rest of the enclosure. The rings did not go well at all. I attempted a flush mount, and after about f'ing up about 4 times I got them right.

A month later I had a sad excuse for sub boxes, and then attempted to finish with body filler and paint.... the body filler went just as well as the glass (first time using that too)... after sanding over and over and reapplying I just got frusterated and left them. I only used one... it actually sounded decent. A year later the sub blew (apparently a manufacturers defect), and I decided to cut my losses and toss both boxes and start fresh.

At least I learned from it... but it cost me a sheiteload of cash in resin and glass... as well as many many hours of my life.

dpkelly

This was the second time for me when I checked the valve clearance on my 92 civic dx hatch. The first time was on my 95 Odyssey. Now, the easiest way for me to check for TDC on each cylinder was to insert a long pencil through the spark plug hole and worked great on the Odyssey no probs. On the civic though, the piston comes closer to the head at TDC and so a portion of pencil broke off and was inside the combustion chamber !!!

So I studied the Chilton's manual to see how to remove the rocker arm assembly so I could get closer to the hole and remove that piece of pencil. There was no way I was about to remove the head and put it back on without a new head gasket.

So I removed the rocker arm assembly. I still couldn't get that small piece of pencil out of the chamber (about 1/2"). I tried vacumming it out but to no avail. So I had to put that rocker arm assembly back on and torque to spec. I put back everything as before and decided to just start it up. The pencil's only soft wood anyway and should burn. I started it up and there was a slight hiccup but it runs fine.

I then realized that taking apart engines and putting them back together again is really no big deal. So now I'm iching to do a rebuild. Maybe I'll get a junkyard engine and rebuild it.

Provocateur

I had a similar but much worse thing happen to me:

I was doing a compression test with a crappy Autozone compression tester. The part that screws onto the end that goes into the spark plug hole to adapt to Honda size got stuck. I didn't realize this and I put the spark plug in and torqued it down since it fit perfectly in the adapter piece. Then I realized the spark plug was much higher, so I removed it and the electrode was completely mashed and now the adapter piece was torqued tight in the hole.

I tried all the right sockets to try and get it out and none of them would fit in the hole AND fit on the adapter piece, so I tried supergluing the end of the compression tester onto the adapter to try and get it out. Then, the hose got stuck and we had to twist it until it became a gnarled mess and eventually broke off.

Then, I had the brilliant idea of pounding the appropriately sized socket down into the hole to try and get the adapter piece out. It got stuck completely about 1/3 of the way down. So, now I had the adapter piece, part of the hose, and a 17 mm socket stuck in the spark plug hole.

I faced the inevitable: removing the head and trying to get it out the other way. 3 hours and two days later, the head was off and there was no way the piece was coming out without the aid of a machine shop.

So later that week, I took the head to a ghetto machine shop in Santa Ana. They could only remove the socket and charged me $100. They said to take it to another guy to remove the other piece that initally got stuck. $60 and a machine shop later, the pieces were all out and the head was ready to put back on the car.

So I put the head back on with my Cometic headgasket I ordered and got everything back to normal. It gets worse: when I put coolant in it, it immediately started leaking from the intake manifold because the old gasket is made out of cork and I couldn't completely get it off, so the new one didn't have a good surface to mate to. So, I figured I would try and get it to a shop to have them fix it. I started it up and immediately, the idle climbed to redline and oil gushed all over the floor.

3-1/2 quarts of oil on the floor, leaking coolant, and surging idle....I was about ready to blow the car up. I had it towed to my local mechanic but they wouldn't work on it since it was turboed. They said next door was an Acura specialist would look at it in the morning. He also wouldn't work on it, so I had it towed to a high performance shop to diagnose it.

They put oil in it and started it up and it gushed it all out. They later called and said they would charge me over $1000 to take the head off and see what the problem was and it would be in my best interest to have it towed home and try it again. So I did. That was after they charged me $50 to put oil in it and start it. Bastards!

At home, I removed the head and discovered something so horribly wrong! The headgasket was on upside down! I felt like such a dumbass because I invested about $300 at this point, 12 hours of hard labor to remove the head, put it back on and then remove it again.

It gets even worse: unknowingly, I reused the Cometic headgasket and put the head back on and then put coolant in it. It immediately leaked from in between the head and block. I was so frustrated at this point that I almost blew the f-ing car up.

Time to remove the head again. 3rd time is a charm, right? So the head comes off again. I am getting real good at this by this point.... I get an OEM gasket from Honda, install it the right way and double checked. The head went back on and I started it up later that day and it was back to normal. Yippee!

So, after two weeks without a car, $400+ dollars invested, over 30 hours of gruelling labor, my car was back to normal after doing a simple compression test that should have taken no more than 15 minutes.

The best lesson you can learn from this is to not buy cheap parts from Autozone and don't get any brilliant ideas of pounding sockets into your spark plug holes or supergluing anything close to the engine.

I had a strong urge not just to write a nasty letter to the makers of the garbage compression tester, but to drive down there with a ton of ammo and an AK47 and rid the world of the slimey mother f-ers. Luckily for them, I did neither.