Dragon@Heart

So, fairly recently, I had to replace my clutch. I bought my 1992 Civic DX Sedan for $700.00 nearly 2 years ago, and had been driving it with the clutch not in the best of health. At a little over 258,000 miles (the car had about 235,000 miles on it when I bought it) the clutch started slipping and I had already bought the replacement for it.

On top of the clutch slipping, the transmission would pop out of gear when I let off the accelerator, and I thought to myself "well crap, I guess it isn't just the clutch".

Well, pulled my car into a buddies garage, started tearing things apart. When I pulled the transmission from the engine, there was oil everywhere inside the bell housing. "Crap, the rear main leaked and soaked my clutch" I said. Weeeelllll... No, it didn't... The rear main was fine, turns out, the transmission leaked into the bell housing. That came to me when I tried to drain what turned out to be an already empty transmission..... There was so much play in the input shaft that you could hear bearings were missing from the race to the input shaft....

Thankfully, a friend of mine had a transmission from his 1995 Civic Hatchback. My friend's Hatch is a CX model, which means it has the longer geared transmission. I know most people frown at this transmission, but I kind of like it. 1st gear with the original transmission was good to right at 35 miles per hour, 2nd was good to 60 miles per hour. Well, now I can do 40 in 1st and 70 in 2nd... just, wow.

So, my thing is this. I know this is not a sought after transmission by most people, but in my car, I went from about 30 miles per gallon in town, 38 or so highway and 45 on back roads, to I am currently getting about 36 miles per gallon in town, and get about 40+ on the highway now. 5th gear, 70 miles per hour the engine now only turns about 2,400 RPMs, and while the car is slower off the line now, I am LOVING the mileage. I am also surprised that my little D15B7 has no problem with driving around with this transmission. I do know that the D15B8 my new-to-me trans. came from was built out right to be all about torque, but it seems the B7 doesn't mind it.

I will say this though, I also added a 4-2-1 header while I had the car apart, and it is bolted to the stock replacement exhaust (cat and all) that someone had put into the car at some point in it's life, so, it could be part of why the car drives as it does now, torque wise. I love this car.

I will post pics of just how bad the clutch was. Forgive the semi rambling nature of this post, it is kind of late, so not 100% sure if I made a lot of sense, and it may waste people's time, but I wanted to basically say, yes, the transmissions from the CX/VX Civics are insanely tall geared, but I think the trade off in acceleration now is a trade off.

I am ok with considering how much it improved my fuel economy. That said, with the right power upgrades, I do not think this transmission is as bad for performance as some might think, you just have to approach things from a different perspective. My car would accelerate better with the old trans. yes, but this one has opened up a whole new world to what I plan for my car. Will have to post my plans once I am less tired.

tony_2018

poor way of doing maintenance

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iTrader: (17)

eH.

mk378

+1 on improper maintenance. Transmission must have been making a lot of noise for a long time before that. Around 150 to 200 K miles you will usually have to pull apart your D series manual and replace the input shaft bearings, especially the outside one. The rest of the transmission will last a very long time if not abused.

Dragon@Heart

First, I bought the car used, very, very used.

Second, yes it made noises, and as I can afford it, I am slowly rebuilding the car.

I started with the important things, like making the car stop and turn first, then new plugs, new plug wires,front upper control arms, upper and lower ball joints, new inner and outer tie rods, tires, alternator, bought the clutch...

...was fired from my job just a week after buying said clutch and installed it when I had the chance. Things are not so easy when you are on a very tight budget and live in an apartment.

And while it did make noises, the car drove fine, and was getting great mileage.

That all being said, it is fixed.

And if people want to judge someone for not having the money to rebuild my daily driver and only car right away, ok, so be it.

Even with the transmission dying it was still better than my 2003 Grand Prix was, so there is that.

If you see the pictures of my car when I joined this site, you would see that the owners before me nearly destroyed this poor car, and I am doing everything I can to save it.