Hello! Yes, I'm new here. I have a decision that I've been avoiding for at least 6 months and I'm looking for advice.

I'm fairly new to Hondas, I've owned/own a few, but haven't worked on them much. I had a '94 CD5 EX coupe about a year ago that I fell in love with, but it had more problems than I was willing or could afford to deal with and I had to send it on its way.

The one I need to make a decision on is the one I've had the longest. I have an '88 EF hatch that I've had for maybe... 5 years? It's been a huge pos since I got it. I'm sure its had multiple owners over the years and its been "modified" and I had the pleasure of undoing some of those mods. It's not a clean example of what I've come to consider my favorite gen of Honda hatchbacks. Having said that, about 6-8 months ago I was driving it as my DD and I was turning off a main road onto a side street and there was a bump in the road right at the corner, one of those bumps you might see from vehicles with excessive weight that squish the pavement and create nice humps, usually at intersections. Well I went over it, it really wasn't that big, but it gave a firm thump when I went over it and my tach dropped off the planet. Now like I said, this thing has been a big pos since I've had it and I've learned a lot about the quirks of Hondas through this machine. It used to shut off randomly while I would drive it which ended up being the ignitor or something like that inside the distributor, so I thought it was pulling that crap again. I coasted it to the side of the road and gave it a crank and the engine spun real quick which its never done. Obviously something unusual was up, so I didn't crank it again. I popped the hood and it was obvious right away due to that it hasn't had an upper timing belt cover since I've owned it. The timing belt snapped when I went over the bump and when I cranked it it was only spinning the bottom end, hence it spun faster and easier. I pushed it home, which was probably farther than most would have been willing to do, but in reality it was about a 30 min jog and I had a police escort for the last 5 minutes and didn't know it, he was behind me for a while. I wouldn't have considered doing that had it not been a little pocket rocket of a car. lol. I parked it in front of my house and its been sitting ever since.

I don't know what to do with this thing. I'd like to be driving it rather than driving what I am now, which is my '77 F100 which is my project truck and was not ready for DD duty when that happened. Is my engine guaranteed to be toast? I haven't taken anything apart to inspect since I don't have a driveway and I don't want to get crap from people for taking my car apart on the street and making it obvious that it doesn't run. What sucks is that prior to the timing belt braking I had decided to go ahead and sink a little bit of money into it to make it safe and reliable for a change and use it for constant DD use. I went back and forth between vehicles and never fully DD the hatch since it had so many bs things wrong with it. Someone took out the stock seats and f'd the mounting brackets that are welded to the floorpan to put in racing buckets I'm assuming, the battery is in the rear as well. The steering rack was toast and it wouldn't keep an alignment etc etc. I went ahead and got the rack replaced, I got a guy that works as a contractor where I work that's a pro welder and he came over and welded in donor brackets I removed from another hatch, I put on some good tires, put in a donor distributor to solve my headache with the engine dying randomly, replaced the main replay so it'd start when it should, just on and on and I was pumped that I got it in good mechanical order and then like a month later I hit that bump. Rather than dumping more money into a car I honestly didn't plan to keep forever like I plan on keeping my F100, I decided to put more money into my F100 than I had wanted to at the time in order to make it street ready and consider it well spent.

Sorry for the long post. I guess its like this. This car in reality, to me anyway, in running order, is probably worth what I paid 5 years ago. $600. It has a d15b1 and a 4 speed. I put more into it recently than I bought it for. Do I sell it as is and just take the loss on what I recently spent to make it my DD? Do I crack it open and see if the gods have spared me and its literally just a new belt at a bare minimum? Do I get a donor engine and teach myself how to pull an engine and swap a new one in, mind you, I don't have tools for that. Do I find another cheap car to use as a DD or just wait it out with my F100 and finance a newer car next year? Many options, not everyone would do the same thing. I'm open to ideas and in no hurry, its not going anywhere and I'm not in dire need of a vehicle currently.

Thanks. I appreciate any input.

 

Replace the timing belt and do a compression test and a leakdown test. If you don't have the tools, you can rent them from the parts store. If your compression is low/zero, you have bent valves. If that is the case, pull the head, and at a minimum replace the bent valves. If your budget is a little larger, you may want to replace other parts like valve guides and seals, and have the head checked for flat / machined as needed. Buy a new head gasket then put it back together and drive it. You could get out for only the price of a belt if you are lucky, or you may be out a couple hundred if you bent all your valves and go for the full head job.

 

Thanks for the response. Could it be more than bent valves, like valves punching holes through pistons or is that not likely to happen? Honestly, I wouldn't mind throwing a couple hundred bucks at it if it gets it back to proper working order. I have a timing belt for it that I got the week this happened, I just never got around to slappin' it on since I decided to put money elsewhere for the time being. If I can save this engine and use this car again then I can save more money for the engine swap to my truck... yay. I'll update once I get everything squared away with the belt and do the tests on it if it turns out I'm stumped at that point.

 

Valves through pistons aren't impossible, but are unlikely if all that happened was the belt broke.

 

Just updating this in case anyone has a similar experience and is contemplating things. I kinda forgot I had an account here.

I ended up just dailying my F100 and didn't get around to fixing the Civic until recently due to various life issues, so it's been sitting a good 1 1/2-2 years in front of my house. I replaced the timing belt and did the water pump while everything was open. I took a chance and just fired it up and it's back to the same ol' pos that it ever was, running good. I guess I got lucky with the head. I need to kick all the cobwebs off the thing and get it back into it's daily position for a while.

Cheers!

 

 

No, sir, not anywhere close to dfw. A 5 speed would be neat over the 4 speed, but other than that if I were to do anything else under the hood I'd just swap engines. This thing barely gets out of its own way. I'll probably use it for a little bit once I get a couple small items on it sorted out and then it'll be sold and the funds used for my other projects. I forgot how much I hated driving this car. lol You know your 31 year old car is in sad shape when you prefer your truck that's 42 years old.