Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

Hey everyone.

So last week, I bought my red '97 Honda Prelude Type SH. She's not the prettiest thing on the road, but she's mine and I have to say I'm already in love with this car.

I haven't been able to do much of any work. First of all, financial constraints. I haven't been paid since basically spending all my cash on hand to get the car in the first place. But I've done a few free things to it.

One thing I did was to take it to my local dealership to have it more fully inspected. It went about like one would expect.

Apparently, it needs all of the things.

So to keep it cheap, I tried to get the trim piece in the center console cleaned up. It's damaged, but I have all the pieces. I tried at first to super glue it back together before realizing my super glue is super old. It didn't do anything.

And so I still have a busted trim piece. I'm half considering buying another and selling the one I have. Broken, these things go for about $40. They cost $100 for one that isn't busted. It's almost worth it to me...almost.

I believe I said in the last post that the radio install was kinda jank. Turns out, it doesn't really work at all since the speakers in front are blown out. In fact, only the left speaker in front was putting out at all. I tried fiddling with it, but got nowhere. I did flip the connectors on the back of the radio, and the right speaker was putting out sound. So I've come to the conclusion that one of the jacks on the back of the radio isn't good anymore.

Instead of trying to fix it, I'm planning to take this to Best Buy to be recycled and get a new one. Which is kind of a shame because it's got most of the features I want. I do want a CD player, though. Silver lining.

When I got the car, the radio wasn't very secure at all. It flopped around. And I found out why. The thing is tiny.

And where there would be two screws on each side to secure it in, there was only one on each side. I guess the idea was that you would tighten the shit out of them and that would keep it in place. It's kind of funny how much space a CD player does take up, though. Once you remove that, you really don't need much for a functioning car stereo...

My biggest order of business was to address the power steering pump. It leaks. It whines. It pulls in a lot of air. But as it is, I don't have the money to do anything about it. So I peeked under the hood and followed the belt.

Did you know that in a 5th gen Lude that the power steering pump belt runs only to the power steering pump? I've heard of other cars where the pump is driven by the serpentine belt, but not this one. There is a second, smaller pulley coming off the crankshaft pulley that runs only to the power steering pump.

And so...

I have more or less performed a power steering delete.

It wasn't easy. There was a bolt that was really holding on. The adjusting bolt came free easily but the lower bolt holding it onto the engine was on so tightly that the pump wouldn't budge a millimeter. It took some WD-40 to break it free and slide the belt off. I considered cutting the belt like an absolute barbarian, but then I considered the thing was under tension, and I'm not a fan of hospital visits for being dumb.

I'm probably not going to reuse the belt because they're super cheap. But I will keep it around so that I can compare it to the next one. It's actually still in pretty good shape.

So yeah, now I've got no steering assist. It's actually not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It's pretty heavy maneuvering in parking lots and backing into my garage, but I hardly notice it's gone once I'm up to speed. I mean, it's not preferable, but it's preferable to having my pump grenade itself right now. It could actually look pretty good inside once I crack it open. So I'm going to run without it until I can address it. The bearing feels absolutely fine. No resistance or grinding or crunching to speak of. I'm pretty happy with that. So I think all it needs is to have new seals put on.

And so that's what I have.

So aside from all that, all I've really been doing is getting to know my car. I've put about 60 miles on it since I got it.

No surprises. I'm getting pretty smooth with my shifts. The car can absolutely pull pretty hard. It's not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but it's much nicer than my 10th gen Accord, where you have to wait for the turbo to spool to get the power. In this thing? It's there as soon as you ask.

God, I love NA power.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope to post more in the not so distant future. But also, don't be surprised to not hear about this car for a while. I'm probably just going to be driving it around for fun when I have the time. I'll have that oil leak fixed soon...but it's a 90s Honda. It's a lean mean oil leaking machine. Until the next time I post here, peace.