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Mar. 21st, 2018 02:50 amDoing more of my own car repairs has been revealing. For example, I've been gaining experience on dealing with rusted and broken fasteners. I found it necessary to buy a set of cobalt drill bits, as that's the only thing capable of digging into the hardened metal. I'm also making use of copious amounts of PB Blaster, which helps. Personally I find Kroil's wintergreen scent (also found in Marvel Mystery Oil) to be much more pleasant compared to PB which smells like bug spray, but the PB is much easier to find in bulk around here, so I'll work with that. Although I hear a mixture of acetone and automatic transmission fluid is also highly effective, so that might be worth a try.
Buying parts: With Hondas/Acuras, availability ranges from "this part is used on all of them for the past 30 years" to "this part is only for one specific sub-model and only for these two specific years" and everywhere in between and there's really no way of finding out which will apply until I do some cross-referencing. Many common parts are easy to find because the Integras have a lot in common with Civics of the same vintage, while other parts are curiously tricky and often available only directly from Honda. It's distressing and disheartening when I go to look for a highly specific part, and find out Honda discontinued it because, well, it's for a car over 20 years old and there really aren't many of them still on the road anymore.
Doing my own repairs can be quite dirty, and puts a lot of wear on my clothes, as well as a lot of dirt that doesn't come out easily. My way around that is to use disposable coveralls. If it gets saturated with oil or antifreeze or whatever car juices or other crud, then it served its purpose and I won't feel bad throwing it away. I figure I can get a few uses out of each one before they're too far gone. They're $3-4 each, so I bought a bunch. That's much less than what my average set of clothes cost.
For tools and general supplies, I prefer to buy directly from industrial suppliers as opposed to Amazon. They might not always have the absolute lowest prices, but they deal primarily in business-to-business so they don't mess around. Some of them also have warehouses (relatively) nearby, so anything I order from them is typically here the next day, even with the cheapest shipping option. With Amazon, the last time I got non-Prime free shipping, it took them over a week to process my order. And I don't order from Amazon often enough to justify signing up for Prime.
I've found that when doing work directly under the hood, the lift helps with that too. Instead of bending over to do anything, it's brought up closer to chest level, which is more comfortable. That makes a difference, especially on small cars that are inherently closer to the ground.
"That sounds like a lot of work. Why not take your cars to a mechanic as you have in the past?" As mentioned in an earlier post, those with mechanical aptitude have a tendency to want to use it. More like, we have a hard-wired NEED to use it and there's only one proper way to scratch that itch. You know what it's like to want to do things but you're physically limited from doing so? Yep.
Buying parts: With Hondas/Acuras, availability ranges from "this part is used on all of them for the past 30 years" to "this part is only for one specific sub-model and only for these two specific years" and everywhere in between and there's really no way of finding out which will apply until I do some cross-referencing. Many common parts are easy to find because the Integras have a lot in common with Civics of the same vintage, while other parts are curiously tricky and often available only directly from Honda. It's distressing and disheartening when I go to look for a highly specific part, and find out Honda discontinued it because, well, it's for a car over 20 years old and there really aren't many of them still on the road anymore.
Doing my own repairs can be quite dirty, and puts a lot of wear on my clothes, as well as a lot of dirt that doesn't come out easily. My way around that is to use disposable coveralls. If it gets saturated with oil or antifreeze or whatever car juices or other crud, then it served its purpose and I won't feel bad throwing it away. I figure I can get a few uses out of each one before they're too far gone. They're $3-4 each, so I bought a bunch. That's much less than what my average set of clothes cost.
For tools and general supplies, I prefer to buy directly from industrial suppliers as opposed to Amazon. They might not always have the absolute lowest prices, but they deal primarily in business-to-business so they don't mess around. Some of them also have warehouses (relatively) nearby, so anything I order from them is typically here the next day, even with the cheapest shipping option. With Amazon, the last time I got non-Prime free shipping, it took them over a week to process my order. And I don't order from Amazon often enough to justify signing up for Prime.
I've found that when doing work directly under the hood, the lift helps with that too. Instead of bending over to do anything, it's brought up closer to chest level, which is more comfortable. That makes a difference, especially on small cars that are inherently closer to the ground.
"That sounds like a lot of work. Why not take your cars to a mechanic as you have in the past?" As mentioned in an earlier post, those with mechanical aptitude have a tendency to want to use it. More like, we have a hard-wired NEED to use it and there's only one proper way to scratch that itch. You know what it's like to want to do things but you're physically limited from doing so? Yep.
