When you're learning how to do things on a car, there really are no stupid questions. And if you are newer to a certain car model, or new to turning wrenches, in general, you need to ask questions before starting on something...

Lots of posts asking how to do certain things, some pissed off responses from people frustrated from trying to explain how to do something. After many years of working on cars (a lot of different cars), I would offer this advice (and so have others on this site "who know")....

GET A GOOD TECH MANUAL

If you want to do something RIGHT the first time, not spend money for parts you don't need, be organized and get the job done in a reasonable time because you have all the parts you need before tearing something apart...

I would recommend you get a HELMS for your specific model car. It will cost you about $75, but after 30+ years of looking at manuals, I really think they are the best (for every day use). Before you start anything-

Study the pictures/diagrams of the system you are working on.
Read the tech-notes and find/bookmark the torque and other specs you will need.
Study the manual to see if you will need to buy/rent any special tools and get them
Make a parts list of ALL the parts you will need, double-check they are all right ones as they come in.

If you do all this, you will become a MUCH better mechanic.

You won't "break stuff" as you work on it, because you will already know what you are doing BEFORE you pick up a wrench.

The job will go smoothly and get done on time because you are organized and have all the parts on hand so you won't have to run around to get parts or return parts that are wrong ,and maybe wait, and wait, and wait... (See my other post RE parts- you will still have enough headaches from (especially) aftermarket parts that are faulty!)

People on the site won't call you a F_ _ _ _ _ _ moron becuase they are frustrated from trying to expain a simple procedure. (It is VERY hard to "explain" procedures, even with pictures)

And if you still get stuck, you will be able to post a question that others will be able to understand and answer- you will know the correct terms and be able to phrase the question right.

We all have to start learning at some time, but if you get a manual and follow these steps you will become a better mechanic, much faster. (For experienced people, sorry if you had to read some obvious procedures you already follow).

I regret I never had this quality of manuals "in the day" I was first learning, they just weren't as good as the Helms are, the good ones were very expensive (by today's terms) and out of reach except for shops.

Now maybe I might step on your toes here. If you won't buy a good manual for your car, maybe you should just take the car to the dealer to get it worked on, because eventually you are really going to screw it up from not knowing what you are doing, and it's going to cost you $$$$ to 'bail it out'.

And if you say you don't have the $75 I would say the same thing- the first time you put something back together wrong it might cost a lot more than $75 to "refix" it. And if you don't have the $75, I can guarantee you will have a very hard time doing anything because you will most likely be working with very cheap tools, and cheap tools "break stuff" (You will have the $$$ for tools for very basic repairs/maintenance, but forget involved repairs...) Wrenchy

 

I am glad someone else aware that honda-tech will only help you out so far.

nothing beat hands on wrench time if you know what you doing, except of paint, alignment, tuning and machining i am doing everything else on all of my cars.

Take classes at your community college, get the basic down and start from there, it's the best way to start for me.

it's funny to see some guy with a throw together mods honda and have no idea how's the car function.

i'll take that back, this is a stupid question:
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1821388

only if we all could read mind


if you stick around long enough, you will see different type of question, some will ask for a spec and they are golden, some will ask how to do certain thing, some will just yell HELP and expect angles came down and save their sorry ****.

 

There are pretty stupid questions asked sometimes. However most of the basics can be answered in the FAQ's or search function. I think thats what makes people mad, that fact that most people are to lazy to find their own answers

 

Or they don't know how to use the search fuction

 

There's a reason why I have under 20 posts since i've been here, b/c everytime I think of a question I search and...BAM its already been answered!