hatch92civic

My girlfriend just bought a 1997 civic coupe ex wit 118k it is in really good shape and has always been serviced at local honda dealer but does need a few things.

1. when the sunroof is tilted up in the back there is a pretty loud rattle coming from the passenger side, when you push up on the glass it goes away. any one have an idea on what it could b?

2. The hood release tab is broken off of the cable. the only way to open it is to use vice grips or pliers. The lady we bought the car from called honda and they said $200+ to replace it. is there anyother way to fix it cheaper?

NOFX

I'd imagine it needs to be tightened up. Go out to the car, open the roof, push on things and look.

It's a pain to disassemble the moonroof btw.

Let me know if you need more guidance.
The hood cable is about $25 iirc.

Remove the bumper and driver's headlight.

Keep the hood up.

Pop out the white clips that hold the hood cable to the underside of the core support.

Remove the end of the hood cable from the latch assembly at the front of the hood. This might be easier if you remove the latch assembly first. It's held on by three bolts. '98-'00 have a black cover over the latch assembly, but '96-'97 do not.

Get into the car and remove the driver kick panel. Unbolt the cable from this end.

You might have to remove the driver front fenderwell trim in order to remove the cable.

Thread the hood cable out. It will come out into the car. There's a black rubber grommet that you'll have to pull out of the firewall in the car. The new cable will have that grommet on it too.

Installation is the opposite.

Sorry if I missed anything. It's been a few years since I last did this.

SEXICAN

i bet you have a loose bolt in the sunroof

hatch92civic

ok I will try to look at the sunroof soon. I tried tightening the screws on the either side of the roof and did not help at all, although they were a little loose. one other thing that has gone wrong is the stereo, the am/fm button is not doing anything, it is stuck on cd. tried disconnecting the battery, ejecting the cd, turning stereo off and on, etc. nothing will allow it to go back to am/fm. the radio is a NEW factory unit put in just a few yrs ago by previous owner.

meandino

Yeah do what NOFX says about the hood release. I've done it before as well and its not to hard. I even bought all new clips with it in case I broke something. Altogether I spend under $30 from the dealership for this.

NOFX

A replacement radio won't cost too much. You can find them on eBay. Just make sure you get the one WITH keyless. Those ones have a little black (IIRC) horizontal antenna attached to the back.

hatch92civic

what about going the and after market cd player such as a pioneer? The cd is separate from the radio, it is down near the cup holders (not sure if all of them are like this, i have never seen it before) do they make something to put in place of where the cd player part is? also the pervous owner had problems with the factory keyless entry/ alarm(reason for newer radio) and it is disconnected right now. does that make a difference in what stereo/connector i need?

NOFX

Yes, those cars have a CD player slave. This is normal. The tape deck was like this too. Both of them were optional parts.

If they don't have a slave then they have a little cubby there instead.

The factory keyless is a part of the radio for '96-'98 Civics. The alarm box bolts onto the top of the radio iirc. So more than likely if the radio was replaced for either of those I'd guess it was for the keyless. The factory alarms seem to be somewhat uncommon or even rare.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean about if that means you'd need a different radio or connector. There's so much you said before that I'm not sure what you're referring to.

If you want to keep keyless then you need to keep using a stock radio equipped with it. The dome light will stop working if you remove the radio too, but there is a harness you can buy that will allow you to keep it and the keyless (you have to hide the stock radio behind your dash - which is tight - in order to keep the keyless).

Honestly, unless she has some other reason, it's just much easier to keep the stock radio or rather replace it with another stock radio since hers is currently broken.

The AM/FM button being broken is not a normal problem with them. One of these radios should be pretty cheap on eBay. Salvage yards will try to sell them for a lot more than they're worth used.

hatch92civic

I just checked ebay and found the exact factory radio for $33 shipped, its from a salvage yard and says in is in working condition with 30 day warranty. so that is worth a try and will go from there. thnx for all the info about it. it really helps.

NOFX

Think of it this way.

Pioneer Radio - $150-$250
Special Harness - $20-25
Stock Cubby - $15+

TOTAL - $185-290

Remove the panel that the 12V plug is on (the piece under the climate control). This means you need to drop the glovebox and remove the knee bolster panel under the steering wheel. Then remove the bolts/screws for the 12V panel and unplug the 12V plug.

Reach up from this "hole" you've built and find the one screw at the back of the radio that's holding it in. Remove that. Push the radio out and unplug it.

Remove the armrest. Remove the cupholder. Remove the CD slave from the cupholder assembly. Install the cubby.

Plug her new harness into the car.

Plug her new harness into the stock radio. Hope to god that her new harness is long enough so that you can put the stock radio into the dash (behind everything, where's it's hidden) facing upward instead of down. If it needs to face down then you need to carefully pry the faceplate off.*

Pull the other plug for the new harness through the slot for the radio. Plug her new radio in and install it.

Reprogram the keyless.

Put all the panels back in place.

* If you remove the faceplate from the stock radio then everytime you disconnect the battery or otherwise lose power to the stock radio then you will need to disassemble everything, reprogram the keyless and then put it all back together.

OR...

Stock Radio - $10-25

TOTAL - $10-25

Remove the panel that the 12V plug is on (the piece under the climate control). This means you need to drop the glovebox and remove the knee bolster panel under the steering wheel. Then remove the bolts/screws for the 12V panel and unplug the 12V plug.

Reach up from this "hole" you've built and find the one screw at the back of the radio that's holding it in. Remove that. Push the radio out and unplug it.

Plug the new radio in. Replace the screw on the backside of the radio.

Put all the panels back in place.

Reprogram the keyless.

I might be missing a few steps from all this.

NOFX

No problem at all. Good luck with her car.

hatch92civic

did all the 96-98 civics have keyless entry? if so, are all the radios the same?

NOFX

No, all '96-'98 Civics did NOT have keyless entry.

The radios are NOT the same.

The one with keyless will have a black piece attached on the rear of the unit. It's sort of like a black ladder shape IIRC. If it doesn't have keyless there's nothing like that at all on it.

The reprogram button IS on all the radios, so don't use that as a way to confirm. You need to see the backside of the radio.