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Greetings all, I've been lurking this forum for some time (well, the 7th gen section) and you all have helped me with a number of (mostly minor) fixes. I figured it was high time to join up formally considering the following:

A friend is very likely to offer me a 1999 Si with 160k on it. He has taken good care of it and it seems to be in good shape.

2 questions:

1. He'd like 3500 for it, assuming he decides to sell. To me, this seems like a more than fair price for a good buddy (which we are) - true?

2. The only issue he noted that concerned me was a puff of exhaust smoke on startup when it has been sitting for a week or more (it is not his primary car). He was unsure of the smoke color. Any ideas on this? He had the car looked over last winter and other than new pads/rotors it was fine.

Thanks in advance!

Prof. Chaos

 
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what a steal! grab that one quick. its one of the most popular civics. those engines do seem to have some issues when they get old as ive seen several around here sometimes puff smoke when mashing the gas. i think a good engine treatment like auto-rx.com will get things back to normal but otherwise they are solid cars.

 
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Thanks for the info gearbox. I hadn't heard of auto-rx, seems interesting....

 
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OK, update!

Just got the car home yesterday. It's in pretty good shape overall. I did a bunch of easy stuff today (spark plugs, bulbs, trim touchup, etc). 2 issues:

1. Lots of little chips/scratches that seem like they could be easily touched up. What's the best product for this? I found some Nighthawk Black Pearl touch up paint at walmart but I think the EM1 was a slightly different black (Flamenco?). I'm not a perfectionist about the finish but I think with a few hours work it could look alot better.

2. The gear shifter is very loose - lots of wobble from side to side, etc, even when in gear. I did a little reading on this and it seems like it would be a good idea to replace the bushings. Opinions?

Thanks in advance, I'll post up some pics soon.

 
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according to honda, you have STARLIGHT BLACK PEARL (paint code NH592P) which is a totally different shade of black.

 
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I had the loose shifter problem for awhile and finally got around to fixing it. It's very easy to replace and will cost about 70$ in parts. Luckily I took some photos when I was tearing it apart.



You need part numbers 24, 4, 5, 12, 26, 19, 10. Essentially you have part number 12 which is the core. Part number 24 are the rubber o-rings that go around 12. Take a TOOON of grease and squeeze part number 5 on either side of part number 12 (with the four new o-rings on it's going to be a very tight fit which is what you want). Finally you have part number 4 which is a large rubber bushing that go on the outsides. Swap that back in and voila--your shifter is as tight as it's going to get.

For visual reference:



Yes that's a 12mm wrench. It's going to suck getting off so spray the crap out of it with PB blaster. That's where you're going to be squeezing in your new parts (12, 24, 5 and 4). You can see that they're in pretty rough shape. I bought a new bolt to put on there but it's already starting to rust *shrug* oh well.

The next step is to replace the two other bushings on the shifter linkage--Part number 15 and 18. Energy suspension makes a polyurethane bushing that you can swap in that make's shifting much more crisp--doesn't really help with the wobble though. This is where part numbers 19, 10 and 26 come into play. These parts will be nothing short of busted when you pull them off so it's good to replace them with fresh ones. Up front you just pull the bolt off, pull the bushing out put the new bushing in. Just make sure you really grease em up otherwise they're going to squeak like no tomorrow.