croeybadass

Hey honda tech heads! so i have a bad situation om my hands, a week ago my parents bought me this 1987 honda civic sedan 3rd generation as my graduation present, i love this car and its super clean and original. We bought it and the guy didn't have it smogged, so we went to smog it today and it failed. We called a mechanic and he gave us a list of tings that could be wrong with it, such as the carburetor, Catalytic converter, o2 sensors, egr valve etc.. he said he will check the car for all of these issues which can make it fail but if the carburetor is shot it will be 350 to replace it, i dont have the money for that right now and not too mention if other things need replacing or tuning its going to cost anywhere from 500-1000. i am just wondering at this point should i send it in to a cash in your clunker program? which will give me 1000$ or just hold onto the car and try to repair this just to get it smogged.

croeybadass

dquizten

The list of possibilities is always scary. IF the car seems to run fine then your risk of everything being broken is probably not very high. Is the mechanic charging you to take a look/ inspect it? See what he says before you make a decision. It could be something as small as a vacuum hose being rotted. What state do you live in? A lot of places/states don't require emissions after 25/30 years.
Just don't rush in to anything. Have your mechanic look at it, and tell him you want to wait before doing anything. Come back here and tell us and we can be a second opinion.
Doug

Wanderer.

Post test results? It'd help narrow down what the problems might be.

croeybadass

Hey, yeah the car does run really well, we drove it like 25 miles there and back after we bought it. Yes the mechanic would be charging us too look at it, inspect, then fix what ever is making in unsmoggable. I live in California so we have very high emissions restrictions, and im going to take it too the mechanic soon as i can.


Here are some of the pictures of the smog report. might be hard to read because of the quality

letank

Some basic things that you can do yourself.
The easy part: new gas cap from your local auto parts store, Oreilly, autozone, napa whatever is the closest.
Your timing is off.... cannot read it too well, too blurry, use the macro function on your smart phone... but this is the easiest part, adjust to specs, with engine at operating temp. The right timing will lower your emission.
Was the engine at operating temp when the vehicle was smogged High HC and high CO are the prime indicators of overly rich mixture. The RULE is to drive for a good 15 minutes, a little freeway is also good.... go early enough so there is no wait.... do not turn off the engine, and when the attendant is ready to roll you to the station, revup the engine for 2000 rpm for 20 seconds.... now the smog tech seems to do it.
Now that the car is labelled a Gross Polluter you have to go to a test only smog station, or the new Star station (they used to be gold shield) they can do some of the repair.... $$$ which can be taken into accounting for an eventual waiver, if you spend more than $500, but those $500 have to be documented by a smog station not your local mechanic....
Remember that the carburetor is a real pain, and noboby can do a real good job at cleaning it.... some parts are not available, especially the base gasket between the carb and the intake manifold... so leave it alone for now.

Wanderer.

Yeah, it seems to me your cat is probably ok... do cap/rotor/plugs, adjust timing, get a new fuel cap. All of that can be bought cheaply and done yourself, or if you know nothing about cars any "car guy" friend should be able to do it. You get a free retest right? Use that and see where you're at after all of that is fixed. If that doesn't pass you're probably looking at more expensive work, and then it's up to you if you think it's worth it to proceed with that.

Besides, a mechanic will probably charge you for a tuneup anyway as part of the repairs, and it will cost way more than if you DIY, so might as well just do it yourself.

Like letank said run it hard on the freeway before you bring it in and keep the motor running while you're waiting. It will keep the cat and motor up to temp, it will run rich if it's not, the cat won't be working at best efficiency and you will fail HC/CO.

That's what i'd do anyway.

letank

X2, the cat is probably good... my smog tech made me change the cat.... and it was worse.... the best was that after spending $500 I got a 2 year waiver.... until I fixed it myself.

Get the honda cap and rotor, it is the same price and nothing match the quality of the OEM parts. If you need to change the spark plugs get the ND or NGK listed on the spec sheet under the hood... the owner manual.... or I may find them somewhere.... we probably have the same engine 1.5L stick!