Friday 24 January 2020

My £3,456.96 Honda CRX III "Del Sol" ca. 1996

Basic car £1,050, plus another £2,406.96 on various bits and pieces and labour:

MOT fail type stuff
ABS sensors (salvage) - £100.00
Rear trailing arm rubber bushes - £66.00
Rear trailing arm (new) - £64.38
Rear trailing arms (salvage incl. shipping from USA, ordered in haste/anger and not actually needed) - £76.10
Catalytic converter - £33.95
New clutch kit - £102
Fitting the above stuff incl. brake pads/discs and tracking - £1,119.39
Replacement number plate (original one fell off on the motorway) - £21.00

Not so essential but nice to have
Wiper blades - £24.00
Interior light cover (salvage) - £10.00
New floor mats - £32.90
Leather steering wheel cover - £15.00
New stereo - £105.00
Clip-on cup holders - £20.00
4 x Uniroyal Rainsport 3 tyres* and balancing - £219.22
MOT and new front windscreen** - £397.98



All I need now is a working aerial mechanism, as it doesn't retract properly, which is not cool. And a bit of welding on the rear arches. Maybe replacement rear panels and a respray..?

* It came with two 'budget' front tyres and two OK rear tyres, one of which was irreparably punctured last month. With the new tyres, the steering and handling has gone from 'pretty awful' to 'pretty good actually'.

** The windscreen wasn't badly damaged, but with a million tiny scratches, it looked nearly opaque when the sun was shining on it at a certain angle. Which was disconcerting to say the least.

10 comments:

Lola said...

How many miles has it done?

Mark Wadsworth said...

141,000

Lola said...

Just nicely run in then...

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, runs like new, apart from changing from second into third gear.

Lola said...

Honda's are really well engineered. My No 1 daughter had a Y reg Civic that was brilliant. It;s gearbox eventually failed. but the garage who looked after bought it off her and in their own time swapped the gearbox and put it on their loaner fleet.

Have you looked into the gearbox problem? Is it the synchro?

Mark Wadsworth said...

L: "Have you looked into the gearbox problem? Is it the synchro?"

I have no idea. All I know is, the gear box is fine, all the changes are fine, changing DOWN into 3rd is fine, the horror is when you change UP from 2nd into 3rd at more than 30 mph/about 4,500 rpm.

Less than that is fine. More than that, you have to double de-clutch or you get a horrible crunch. Or you just change up from 2nd straight into 4th. It's a typical high revving Honda, so going from 2nd to 4th isn't a problem.

Lola said...

It sounds like the synchro to me. I had that in the racer. Took out and rebuilt the gearbox in the course of which I replaced all the synchro cones. Complete cure.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, thanks. But I have no technical or engineering skills whatsoever. So whatever I have done will cost me £££s.

Lola said...

I bet that there is a gearbox specialist in London somewhere that could sort you out for relatively modest money.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, thanks. I'll start saving up.