So I'm looking for a car to learn stick on and a friend of mine has a manual 93 4 door lx hes willing to sell me for $600.


It currently overheats after about an hour most likely due to the head gasket. It has about 160k miles and is going to need a clutch soon. Among this it has other random problems like a broken odo, trashed climate control, and a sticky clutch pedal.

HOWEVER, he managed to spend about $400 on a full magnaflow exhaust and intake as well as a basic tuneup and the car is actually quite fast for a mostly stock Honda.

My question is, would it be worth it to buy it and drop the same amount on fixing it up, or better off searching for a more reliable car thats under a grand?

 

If you pay someone to do the work and trust them it's worth it. If you can do the work yourself it's a steal.

 

Ive never done anything that major by myself so I would need a mechanic friend to help.

The thing is that I noticed that only the fan for the ac turns on, not the other one. Would this cause the car to overheat the way it does instead of the head gasket? It doesnt blow smoke or have any noticeable smell.

 

Both fans should run at the same time when the vehicle is running. Test the circuit. It could very well be the source of the overheating problem, but you may not want to tell your friend that just yet.

 

Thanks for the advice, although I would definitely have to do the head gasket and belts in the near future.

 

Does it require coolant on a regular basis?

If the head gasket isn't leaking there is no need to replace it. It's not part of the regular maintenance. However, a valve adjustment and replacing the timing belt, balance shaft belt, belt tension parts and the water pump would probably be good things to have done. Also make sure the brakes are in good shape. No good having an engine that works good if you can't stop.

Learning to drive stick on a bad clutch may not be the easiest thing to do. At least your not going to have to worry about burning it out if you are going to be replacing it in the future. As for the finding a reliable car that doesn't need work for under a grand...good luck!

Tell your buddy you'll give him $500.

 

This is not directed to the OP but I see it very often, Why do people assume hondas are prone to head gasket failure? when they are not notorious for such an issue.

 

My mechanic friend suspects the head gasket due to it slowly losing coolant and overheating. I'm hoping its actually a bad fan relay or temp switch thats causing it to overheat but that would mean it also has a coolant leak somewhere.

Another thing that concerns me is he said that after it heats up it wont start intermittently and has to cool down for it to be started. He blames this on the head gasket I think its related to his fan not working again. Any ideas what could cause this?

 

Main relay is one of the usual suspects for hot temps no start issues. There is a main relay DIY fix posted online if you know how to solder, or know someone who can solder for you.

 

[QUOTE=kidcool1977;45272024]This is not directed to the OP but I see it very often, Why do people assume hondas are prone to head gasket failure? when they are not notorious for such an issue.[/QUOTE

Because people tend to think the worst case. I have been accused of that before.

 

When I blew the head gasket in my civic, it would not start after I drove it for awhile because the cylinder walls would be full of water. It would also want to die at low rpms. Easiest way to check to see if it is the head gasket would be to look at the oil. I usually look under the oil cap. It will look milk/peanut butter. With a helms manual by your side, I am confident that you can do the head gasket by yourself.

 

When its running it idles and drives flawlessly besides the messed up clutch pedal (which im hoping just needs to be bled) Oil looked fine when I checked it maybe I should of checked to see if it changed color after driving it?

The cars been beat on pretty hard, Im considering spending the repair money on a complete h22/h23 swap or something which would probably last longer.
Im just worried that it overheats not only from the head gasket but from the fan not running as well.

 

A simple leak down test will confirm IF the head gasket is bad.....or get the fan fixed (fuse, relay, fan motor-whatever the tests confirm is bad), it has to be fixed either way, and see if the overheating goes away.....