96M/100K Home Service at 88,994 miles - Part 2

Now where was I? having changed the pollen filters I moved on to the last part of this particular service, the transmission fluid.

At the 3 o' clock position is the hex filler bolt (17mm) whilst at the 6 o' clock position is the square 3/8" drive drain bolt.

The 2 transmission bolts, drain and filler, sit behind here, the passenger side hub and strut.

I used my 1/2" drive ratchet with extension bar and loosened with a little help from my biggest hammer. Thanks biggest hammer...

I was a bit disappointed when the transmission oil ran out looking so fresh. Still, I wasn't to know that although it was only done in Apr 12 at 65,325 miles (this was the 72M/75K service and it was due then). It was also due this time at 96M/100K so c'est la vie... 

This shot clearly shows the 2 holes, drain and filler. Let as much of the old oil drain out as possible.  

Re-fit the drain plug and then lash up a piece of plastic piping to a funnel and...

Run it down to the filler plug from the engine compartment...

Here it is going in to the filler. Then start to fill the funnel from above. Two problems I encountered here: first, the pipe had a very narrow bore and as the weather was coldish it took ages to flow 1.7 litres of transmission oil into the gearbox. Second, I had to hold the pipe to stop it coming out and lubricating the drive so my wife was on the other end filling the funnel which took about 20 minutes due to the slow flow of the oil. Not happy. Bigger pipe next time but this was all I had from our Karting days and it saved a trip out.

For completeness and to reiterate, the capacity of the EP3 Type R gearbox is 1.7 litres of this stuff - not engine oil.

And here it is all done.

Now, I wonder if I can sell any of this shit on eBay...

As a kind of postscript then, the car was due the 96 month or 100,000 mile service, around Oct 14. This car was a slow starter doing only 1500 miles in its first 18 months which is why it is a little behind schedule. I also spent a year overseas during which time it was virtually never used. The only thing that I haven't done that was due, at least according to the Honda service book, is inspect the valve clearances which I shall do when the rocker cover comes off and goes away for painting. Other than that it is now good to go.

96M/100K Home Service at 88,994 miles - Part 1

We got a dry day today for the first time in a while so I got all excited about doing some actual work on the car. I have seen an number of threads about whether to dealer service or not dealer service and I understand the conflict this can cause. Service it yourself and you lose the all important fHsh that goes with taking it to the local Honda dealer and of course that vital stamp in the service book. Take it to the dealer though and you are relieved of multiple hundreds of pounds depending upon which service interval it is, and the removal of that money is so that someone can do for you something which is actually quite simple providing you have the tools, the time and a little bit of car mechanic knowledge and confidence. In my case this is the first time that I have not taken it to the dealer, but then one of the principles I wanted to adhere to when retaining the CTR as our 3rd car was one of 'reasonable cost of ownership'. Added to that the fact that £400 for the next service is now a much bigger proportion of the value of the car than it was a few years back, and the relatively high mileage of the car, the economics were overwhelming - do it myself. There are some really good servicing threads on the type-r-owners.co.uk forum; this one is particularly good but I don't know how to set it as a hyperlink in blogger so you can cut and paste into the URL bar (is that even the right name for it)?

http://type-r-owners.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?63728-Just-done-service-my-quick-How-To

That said, I wanted to do my own so here goes. In mine you get the pollen filter change and a bit more detail on the air filter change. I know it's a piece of piss but the thread above was a bit light on photos. I don't do spark plugs in mine though because they aren't due yet and I ran out of time for valve clearances but will attempt that another time with the Go Pro on. 

This is the classic wheelie bin shot. Me and my brother love it when you see this on eBay.
The item for sale sat atop a wheelie bin, as if the owner was just about to throw it out and
suddenly thought, "hang on, somebody might buy this shit". 

Look at it sat there all patient waiting for lovely fresh oil and filters. Good boy...

Front wheels off to make access easier to the engine oil sump plug on the driver's side and the gearbox oil sump plug on the passenger side. I also took the opportunity to re-fit the anti-squeal shims which for some half-arsed reason I left out when I overhauled the front brakes which subsequently squeaked like fuck. I worry about me sometimes...it's like I do it on purpose.

Make sure the oil is warm by either running the engine for a while or going to M&S to get your wife a Snowman advent calendar. Once you're back you should take the oil filler cap off and then get under the car and remove the sump plug which is offset to the driver's side. I used a 17mm socket on a 1/2 drive and it came off fairly easily. Have the drip tray ready and remember it won't drain directly down initially, rather it will come out like taking a piss in a long, fairly powerful curve. It's so easy to miss the drip tray completely. Not with your piss.

Let the oil run out as long as possible to get the majority out. I used to flush the engine year's ago with flushing oil but I'm not sure how necessary that is these days. Thankfully the oil filter isn't hard to get to!! Stick your boney arm in and try and release the filter. It should be hand tight but my experience is that they are always very reluctant to budge having been hot, cold, hot, cold for the last umpteen thousand miles. My filter strap tool thing (it's actually a chain) wouldn't touch it so I used the tip in the thread above and tapped the filter anti-clockwise by striking the base of it on the thin metal lip with a long, thin Philips screwdriver and a hammer. Only enough to break the seal (not actually break it) and then you can do the rest by hand. 

While the oil was draining I changed the air filter. The filter box is held on by 5 screws which have a Philips head but also 8mm flats. Mine were a little corroded so I used the 8mm option with a long-reach bar. They are captive too (mine were) so if you are still turning after 2 minutes you might want to stop as they aren't coming out but they will be released from what they were screwed in to. 

Th clamp on the front has Philips and a flat option too, this time 10mm. Just loosen a few turns.

Use pliers to pinch the little clamp together and move it along the rubber tube to the left (I'm sure there are more technical terms for these parts other than 'little clamp' and 'rubber tube'). Gently prise the rubber tube off using the long  straight metally thing...

There's the filter nestling in it's little hidey hole...

Look at the shit in there! I cleaned out some twigs from the filter box too.

Fresh new K&N going in.

Sleep tight precious.

Tightening the last bolt.

The new filter ready to begin it's new life underneath my car. Not a Honda original but a Denso which sounds sufficiently Japanese to reassure me. Put some of the new oil on the rubber seal, lie down on the floor again (not randomly but near enough to the car to reach the filter housing), make sure the mating surface is not damaged in any way and screw on the new oil filter - hand tight. 

And there it is. At least the next time I remove it the twat that I'm cursing will be me.

This is Toyota oil but I don't think it's like Papworth where there's a risk that it might be rejected. It doesn't look very clean in the big 2 litre jug but it is brand spankers and this is a really good way of ensuring exactly 4.7 litres goes in, other than using the side of the container of course. I went 5W 30 in the end and I think 5W 40 makes little difference for how I'll be using the car. This oil is fully synthetic too so it's basically the shit and nothing more than this car deserves...

Is this too many photos now? Man pouring oil. Just to reiterate, the capacity of the
EP3 Type R with filter change is 4.7 litres (4.5 litres without a filter change).

Now it might just be me but from experience, whenever you give the Honda service desk the whiff of an idea that you are considering doing the service yourself, they quote the old pollen filter line: "well don't forget Sir that with the full service you'll get the pollen filters too". Like they're made of fucking platinum and the fitting of them is equivalent to splitting the atom. Or they're so vital than anyone traveling in the car with even the slightest allergy will swell up like a balloon with anaphylactic shock if the filters aren't changed yearly. The reality is they are cheap as chips and easier to fit...than chips. Two pollen filters from eBay were less than a tenner for both including postage - thank you autoperformanceonline with your 636,598 feedback. Oh and they're just paper filters too so it's not like they're protection against ebola.

Open the glove box (I'm embarrassed by how dirty it is). Basically you just squeeze the 2 sides inwards (which is not difficult because they are basically made of old milk cartons painted grey) and then rotate the glove box down to the footwell. 

This is what you will see. Just above the big '3' you can see a little black door.

Close up of it and that little clip at the bottom just pushes up...

I'm definitely being over helpful here...

You can see 2 vertical tabs to the let and these are located on the filter boxes. First pull the tab on the right straight towards you to remove the filter in its box.

Here it comes.

With the first box out, pull the other tab to the right until the whole of the second box is exposed. Then pull it straight towards you like the first to remove it from its home.

Come on little fella...I'm not going to hurt you.

Remove the old filters from the boxes and make sure you orientate the new ones correctly as the air flows through them in a certain direction.

Done. Now just give the glove box a little squeeze and rotate it upwards into position. Voila.

Ministry of the Interior

Now where was I? I covered off the mechanical part of my resto in the previous post but forgot to mention 2 things. First, the clutch is now beginning to feel a bit tired although I'm not sure how much of that is down to driving a '14 plate Mazda as well, after which any clutch would feel tired. I'll stick with it until it gives up the ghost with the plan to replace with OEM for hopefully another 90K trouble free motoring. The car needs a service too. It has a full Honda history to date with what I think is the 84K due shortly. The local dealers wanted around £430 although they all price it differently omitting to say what you should be getting and then giving you expensive options when they have your business. For example, valve clearances should be checked and maybe adjusted but that's a £100 option for those that want it. A transmission fluid change is extra too so the lesson is look at the service book and know what you should be getting before you pay your money and come up short. At that price though for the first time ever with this car I have opted to forego the dealer stamp and basically do the work myself. Proof...

gtschris on eBay has some good deals and I got 5W-30 fully synthetic oil (5l), a Denso oil filter and a K&N air filter for around £85. It also comes with a new drain plug washer and some blue nitrile gloves for an ad hoc rectal examination should you get bored. I went to autoperformanceonline (eBay again) for 2 x cabin pollen filters for under a tenner and finally lizperformance2014 for some cheapish MTF-3 manual transmission fluid (Honda's very own). About £130 for the lot and I have some DOT5 if I decide to push some new brake fluid through. I will take a look at valve clearances when I get the rocker cover off for re-spraying and then maybe take a stab at the adjustment too. If not I'll throw it at the local garage for £100. Still miles cheaper although a bit more work for me.

Going back to the bling from my last post, the oil cap arrived the next day thanks to good old sunnymew (real name Lin xin qun) from Guangdong Province in China. Not a Pokemon but a real bloke the other side of the World who ships decent quality, reasonably priced Mugen oil caps for £6.50. I've just ordered 2 Mugen Reservoir Socks from him too and he ships them in his sleep (or maybe there's a time difference). They are doubtless not as good as the real deal items but you can buy a lot of them before you are short by the same amount of money.

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about what I intend to to do the interior of the car which breaks down into three parts just like the mechanical side did: boot, cabin and bonnet. The boot part is pretty boring really and will be little more than a clean, new carpet (trashed by dogs hanging on for dear life) and new plastic hooks which stop the parcel shelf dropping. I know that this part isn't going to get the lowering and tracking guys on the forums interested but I wanted to cover all the bases. Look how worn they are...

Inside the cabin needs a little freshening up and I'll eventually put in new mats and give the seats a good clean. The big change will be some upgraded audio, swapping out the fairly basic coaxial speakers front and rear for some Focal coaxial rears (165AC ACCESS CA1 6.5") and component fronts 165AS ACCESS 6.5"), also from Focal. I will probably get some JDM style tweeter mounts, £32.95 from manojtailor (where else?) One of the reasons the OEM speakers are so crap apart from cost is that the CTR doors are pretty thin so anything more substantial would vibrate like fuck. The solution is lining the doors with an acoustic foam or some other kind of damping material. Dynamat is one of the better known brands or Skinz. An amp is probably a good idea too but I will probably just let the head unit drive them at this stage. I have an Alpine right now but it is getting on a bit so will go for something newer and more modern. Oh and less tired...

The infill panel will definitely be getting thrown in the bin. The aftermarket ones are awful and whilst  it's clearly showing signs of age it was never a good colour match or fit for that matter. And it always had that little bow you can see in the bottom. There are some great 'how to' videos and articles on the web on audio installs and I've been researching this quite heavily so will give it a go myself when the time comes now that I can tell my tweeters from my crossovers.

Finally I will take some Gunk to its private parts (under the bonnet). This is post-Gunk...

I need to take a wire brush and some alloy cleaner to the headers (is that what they're called?) too. In fact the de-greasing was just the start. The rocker covers on these get a bit tatty...

...and here too.

Not sure how to tackle this yet but I will probably send it to Paul at Spooner Restorations. He's very good and you'll find him and photos of his work on Facebook. My only doubt is that he keeps refurbed replacements in stock but for some reason I think I want my own back as it feels like it's part of the original car. I haven't asked him about this yet so it may be a possibility, albeit it means having the car off the road for a while which isn't a problem as we have others. The new oil cap will slip in nicely and the reservoir socks are on their way from Pikachu. I will probably source a battery tie-bar in red from Tegiwa (that's not another Pokemon but a Japanese performance parts specialist) and maybe throw some red hoses around the place. The OEM tie-bar is a bit 'not red' and just looks a bit shit...

There's all sorts of bling available for under the hood so I will see how I feel about adding, for example,  a different induction kit in time but I will get some use out of my new K&N before I do anything different. Other than the rocker cover respray, most of what goes on under the bonnet involves pretty much elbow grease only so another wait out I'm afraid. Not much action so far then but I am keen to set out my plan and as it's November and it hasn't stopped pissing down in about a month I am stockpiling lots of stuff in the garage until a dry moment presents itself.

Ringing the changes

A bit more about the Civic then. Right about now it's got around 88,888 miles on the clock which by my reckoning means that I have filled it up with fuel around 300 times (based on filling it from empty to full every time) put in nearly 3000 gallons of unleaded (based on a 30 mpg fuel return) and paid about £17,500 for the privilege. The tank holds 50 litres or 11 imperial gallons. Since I have owned it I have not had an accident in it (I don't mean pooed my pants) but have hit a pothole so hard that it dented an alloy wheel on the inside, reversed lightly into a temporary road sign which scratched the rear bumper low down, somehow attained a small dent in the rear of the roof and have driven over a low concrete bollard which ripped and scratched the splitter. Voila...

Reliability wise my CTR has never gone wrong except for a dodgy heater fan which sometimes blows on full power but lately has behaved itself. Not until the recent MOT did it need anything other than consumables, one of the front brake calipers finally giving in to the ravages of time and road crud, the piston seizing in the caliper causing the brake pad to wear down prematurely and taking the disc with it. After a quick removal of the pads, discs and calipers, some seals, slider rubbers, pistons and nipples from eBay, and some Brembo pads and discs to complete the job, the result was restored braking, no squeals and an MOT pass to celebrate. Nice hey but note the rusty old drop links in the background (they look like a four on a dice ::) - more on them to come.

So the resto plan. I want to continue to use the car on the road only and I think the best way to do this is to keep it, for the most part, in standard trim. There are some awesome options for stiffening and engine tuning, all ideal if I intended to track it. But I don't so OEM kit will be my aim albeit some aftermarket stuff if money is tight, quality better or a bit of bling required. For example I have ordered this Mugen Power oil cap which thankfully is only coming from China and should be here in the New Year the chap said - the Chinese New Year of the Monkey probably...

I will put an actual photo in if it ever arrives. Anyway, in my mind I have broken the car down into 3 areas: mechanical, exterior and interior. Mechanical is roughly further sub-divided into exhaust, induction, suspension and steering. The exhaust centre section was an MOT advisory this year. A replacement from Honda is big money, an aftermarket noisy one is an option but the front ARB (anti-rollbar) needs replacing in order to fit the thing, or there is always a Kwik Fit special made of old toilet roll inners painted in silver poster paints. As it is I have a year to decide because I wasn't quite ready to pop a cheapie in the middle lest the ends (silencer and manifold) failed as a consequence. I'm pretty sure the OEM exhaust is stainless as it has lasted so long but I've a bit to learn yet in that area 'cos it's not a priority for me right now. On the induction side I don't intend to do much either at this stage. There are some serious upgrades out there in tuning land but at this stage I am plumping for a K&N filter only which I will fit when I give it its next service of which more shortly. I may get a couple of BHP from it if I'm lucky but no re-flashing, mapping or supercharging just yet. That just leaves the suspension and steering. At the risk of any readers from the forums switching off now when I say that I'm not lowering it or changing the suspension, well I'm not. Again all of this works on the track and can be fine on the road. It can though, so I've read, put additional strain on the tie-rod ends if it is lowered too much and also makes camber adjustment difficult and alignment in some cases impossible (too much toe-in). So I've read. So I'm just going to tighten it all up with new OEM bushes, a JDM ARB (JDM stands for Japanese Domestic Market), new drop links front and rear (OEM front and Hardrace at the rear), new ball joints (aftermarket ones because Honda only do them built into the hubs which is big Yen), and some tie-rod ends if I can be arsed. This will be a job for the Spring though because it's knuckle-skinning good. First though, and somewhat bizarrely given the shitty weather right now, will be some bodywork improvements. More on that next...