Kwaree Blog

Replacing The Exhaust On A 1999 Honda Civic DX

Oh, this is a good one.

So I was sitting here yesterday, nice and peacefully, working away when I received a phone call from my better half. She told me that the exhaust on her 1999 Honda Civic had fallen down and was dragging on the road. I asked if the open side was facing the front of the car or the rear. I wanted to know, because if it was facing the rear, she could drive the car, but if it was facing the front, she couldn’t. Being the smart lady she is, she had already looked and it was facing the front. Oh, lucky me.

The minute I got off the phone, I quickly put my cape on and ran downstairs to load up the car. I put my floor jack, a blanket and some string (I couldn’t find any wire) in the back of the car. I also grabbed some cutters. I raced down the road and drove for about two miles. Luckily, this all happened just as she turned off the main road, onto the back road we almost live on.

When I arrived, she was sitting in the car, chatting on the phone. She kind of gave me a smile and a wave. Man, remember the good ol’ days when people were hysterical when they were stuck on the side of the road? Not any more. Now, people pull out a lawn chair to grab a quick tan.

Anyway, I pulled my jack out and jacked up the car. I noticed that there really wasn’t anything to tie the pipe up to. The pipe was cold, so I just wrapped some string around it and pulled it towards the nearest fixture. I let her drive my car back to the house and I drove hers.

I have to tell you this…when I was pulling up the road at about 3 miles per hour, her car was very loud. It brought me back to the days when I used to drive cars like this…on purpose. What a silly time of my life. I felt like I was 16 again. I pulled in the driveway and was very happy to turn the thing off.

Earlier in the year, we made a decision that we weren’t going to fix the next big repair on this car. We were going to somehow get the car to the dealer, trade it in and buy a new one. There was a little part of my brain that wanted this to happen. I thought I had better at least look under the vehicle to see if this was going to be a big repair or a little one. One never knows with exhaust systems.

When I peeked under the car, I saw that the pipe between the one that comes down from the catalytic converter and the muffler pipe had broken in half. The pipe actually looked fine, it was the weld that rusted right through, or the area right next to the weld. While laying on the ground, I yelled out, “I can fix it!!!” I didn’t want to fix it, but I wanted the world to know that I, in fact, could fix it.

A few minutes later, I found myself on the phone ordering a new pipe, gaskets and bolt kits from NAPA auto parts down in Colchester. Everything came up to around $129. Not bad.

I told Laura about it and she thought that was just great. She really doesn’t drive the car all that much anymore, so the longer it lasts, the better. As I was sitting there telling her about it, I said, “I think it might be a good idea if I make sure I can get the old part off before I really commit to fixing this thing.” She agreed and we hit the garage.

I must tell you that working on a car in a garage is a little better than working on a car on a gravel driveway in the cold (like our old place). For some reason, every time something goes wrong with a car, it’s always during the winter. I have flashbacks of me changing the transmission of my Honda Prelude in the middle of a very cold February out in the driveway – in the dark. Those were the good ol’ days. I can still remember what sand and gravel feel like stuck to the back of my head. That really was a horrible, horrible time. Last night, working in a garage with warmth and a nice drop-light was certainly welcomed.

I had a little trouble getting the bolts off the exhaust joints. In the front, they were totally rusted on. In the back, they weren’t rusted at all, they just wouldn’t turn for anything. Good thing I had my trusted reciprocating saw. I cut the first bolt off and tried to get the second. When I realized the saw wasn’t working for the second bolt because I chewed all the teeth off the blade, I used my trusted grinder. What a treat. I buzzed that sucker right off and down fell the front part of the pipe.

The back was another story. I tried to grind the bolts off the back and they were giving me a really tough time. I got the bright idea that if I just cut the pipe and pulled the whole muffler off, I could work a heck of a lot easier away from the car. I did just that. I pulled the muffler off and clamped it down in new Wilton 5″ multi-purpose vise. I easily ground the bolts right off and was left with a nice easy project. I went inside and told Laura about my success.

This morning, I ran down to the auto parts store to pick up the parts. I came back, jacked her car up and replaced the pipe. It took about a half hour and that was because most of the time was taken jacking up the car and putting safety blocks under it. That’s always such a necessary pain in the butt. The pipe looks good though and the car is nice and quiet now. I am quite proud of myself.

Now, if that rusty front pipe goes, time for a new car. That pipe is attached to the catalytic converter and those bolts are really on there.

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Our First Real Snowfall

They said it was coming. At noon, I didn’t quite believe them, but sitting here right now with wet pants on, I’ll take their word for it.

I just got in from using the new snowblower. What a trip. We have about three inches of snow right now and I swear it took me about 23 minutes to clear off the whole driveway. What was I thinking at the last house? Oh wait, I know what I was thinking; we had a gravel driveway. Oh yeah.

Of course I really didn’t need to go outside today to start clearing the driveway, especially since the snow is coming down very heavily. I could have waited until the morning. I just wanted to get dirty and see how the snowblower held up. I never used a real snowblower before and I admit, I am very pleased (those old electric ones don’t count). This one is a monster.

I thought it would be a nice idea to take a few pictures of the snow coming down, every two hours. I got three and then realized that anything further would be like taking the same shot over and over again. Tomorrow, I am going to get some pictures of me in action, clearing off the driveway. Oooo, yeah.

12PM - no snow

2PM - snow coming down

4PM - about 3 inches

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The Ice Has Turned into Harder Ice

I went outside last night to chisel out the cars. They were covered with ice. I got on all my old snowboarding gear…jacket, snowpants, mittens, etc… I was as warm as a bedbug on the floor of an overheating pickup truck.

I started up both cars and let them run for a good long time. I didn’t think I was going to get them uncovered. Then, I saw a little speck of water and I had hope. After a while, I had thawed both cars out completely. I had to use a pick ax to move the cars out of their initial parking spots. I was even sweating a little bit.

Today, I went outside to try to fix up the driveway a bit for the tile dude. He is going to need some space to work out there. He needs to cut some boards and mix some thinset. It should be interesting. I got a nice area cleared out down to the gravel. The sidewalk is still about three inches higher than normal, but I threw some driveway gravel on it for traction. It was pretty warm today, so some of the mess melted. The sun does a good job of hitting the dark gravel and melting whatever is around it. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 45 degrees, so the ice should melt even more.

I tried my old driving back and fourth along the driveway trick. It didn’t work out too well. I almost got stuck once and then the car just drove on top of the ice. That didn’t do too much good.

This afternoon, I had to run out to the store. I backed up all the way to the street. I made the mistake of stopping while half way out into the road. I gave it some gas and felt the car sink into the ice/snow. I had to get out of the car and bolt downstairs for that damn pick ax again. I got the car out quickly, but it would’ve been embarrassing to be “that guy” to the cars driving by. Luckily none did.

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A New Front and Side Walkway – Topping the Driveway

I am not a huge fan of properties that look too perfect. I really like to keep the natural look of the area mixed in with whatever I am doing.

We live right at the bottom of the Shawangunk Ridge. We can see the cliffs if we walk to the end of our driveway and look to the right. The native stone for the area is Shale. It is a pretty good looking stone…blueish grayish.

As you can see from this photo, we were in dire need of a cleaned up front walkway. I had considered putting in pavers, but thought the style might stick out too much. They were also expensive and it would be a sin to throw out all of the existing blue slate that already made up the sidewalk.

I decided to go with what was already in place, but cleaned up quite a bit. The driveway was already made from Crushed Shale, so I ordered 10 yards to be delivered from a local guy. People love to use crushed shale around here because it packs down really nice and is perfect for driveways.

I took up all the existing slate from the walkway and stacked it in piles on the front lawn. I made sure not to keep it there for very long because I didn’t want to kill the grass. I got my hoe out and dug out all the weeds that had made a nice home for themselves over the years. Then, I layed down Landscaping Fabric to block any future weeds and grass. I saw that there was already a thick gravel base, so I didn’t need to add too much to that. I put a thin layer of crushed shale on top of the landscaping cloth and then put the slate back on that. Then, I filled in between all the slate with more crushed shale. Over the weeks, it will pack down from the rain and hold the slate nice and tight.

I made sure that the slate and gravel was high enough towards the steps to cover up the footings at the bottom of the steps.

I also spread most of the gravel out to put a nice new layer on the driveway. I needed to raise the end of the driveway up about a foot from a different project I will talk about later.

I needed to made a side walkway to go to the basement door around the side of the house, but I had run out of landscaping fabric. The benefit of using landscaping fabric is that there are very small holes in it that lets the water run through when it rains. If you are covering large areas, this is important so you don’t create run-off. In this case, since the side walkway was only going to be about a foot and a half wide, I picked up some heavy black plastic from the hardware store and cut it to size. I layed that down and put a thin layer of gravel on it and then placed the slate on the gravel. Just like the front walk, I filled in between the slate with more gravel.

Now, it looks like a nice, semi-natural walkway around the house. Nothing too obtrusive.

And there you have it, a nice new front walkway, side walkway and driveway, all for less than $300.

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