...radio:psychedelica...

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Seats out, carpets out. Found 2.45$ in the first car, 3.88$ in the donor car. Seems like I could take a impact wrench, and a mis-spend an afternoon down at a friendly junkyard; merely popping the front seats should take about 10 minutes. 6 cars an hour and a tax-free take-home of 18.99$/hr, without owing kowtow to the Man. A unexploited Freegan cash flow? It would beat picking up bottles alongside the highway (I always hated the ones full of 'truckers lemonade')

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One of the uncelebrated parts of getting old(er) is the realization of how many things I knew I should be doing, but didn't do until too late.

Like exercise, or not staying up too late. Or when taking something big and complicated apart, keeping track of the fasteners.

Its not like I didn't know about the idea. 'Use a egg-carton to keep the screws separated' I read that tip the first time when I was 14, and the book was from 1957. Not that I heeded this of course. I was sure that my brain could keep track of every fastener, even after 12 months of lazy delay. Sure, I had noted the fastener size in my notes at each part of the teardown -- all I needed to do was just caliper the bolts as I put them back in, right? It'd be easy, right?

Dear friends, I was wrong, I was stupid, and I know better now. It would have been faster to use the egg-carton trick. If I had numbered the egg-carton wells and jotted this down on my notes, I would be able to re-assemble with aplomb, dignity, and above all, speed.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." : into egg-cartons. With labels.

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"You gave the wrong URL; your order cannot be completed.

We shall instigate a reckoning; we cannot be held responsible.

We cometh to judge you, we will pluck out your mortals like figs, we will destroy you utterly.

You are not safe, Thou art not safe.

Off with your mortals; there is no escape.

There is no hope for you: you are dead. Come then and be judged, come to destruction --for all your mortals are belong to us."

Hegemony 9:14-20 , The New Drunkards Bible

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Just in case anyone asks, my idea of transplanting engine and sub-frame to make the transplant easier than just the engine alone, is like most of my plans, errant nonsense.

The problem is lining all the bolts up, as there is just enough play between the two assemblies to interfere, and everything is much to heavy to easily shove into position with one hand while tightening bolts withe the other.

But I did get it fastened back together, which took a lot of foolishness involving jacks and blocks of wood.

" The Universe is not required to adhere to our limited understanding of it "

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The bolts that hold the engine stabilizer on the car frame twisted off rather than coming out; this is an expected annoyance.

I reached for a EZ-out and broke it off in the first bolt. Bought a new, better one and broke that off in the second bolt, although I did need to use a two foot cheater to accomplish it, so I am willing to say the $11.99 wasn't spent on a poor quality tool.

Tried grinding them out with a 1/8" carbide burr, which works, after a fashion, but its chowdering up the threads.

Time for a different approach.

I cut open the frame on the donor to extract the 'captive nuts' and take a look at the interior structure.

It contains a clear failure path, and as a Proudly Paranoid Person I am willing to argue its a deliberate failure path.

The box beam that the support hangs off of has a interior, horizontal partition, and the 'captive nuts' -- which are just sections of threaded, heavy-wall tube-- are welded to the bottom of this interior web. This would be fine, except a hole is drilled through the web into the center of the tube.

The top surface of the box beam is convex: the beam, itself is welded up of three steel c-sections, stacked inside each other like cups. The top convexity is about a centimeter deep, and it had a lot of flung up mud and sand captured on it. Not so much water: that drained into conveniently placed holes and fell into the beam.

There are drain holes on the beam bottom as well. The designers didn't make it fill up like an impromptu aquarium, but they never considered the holes that drain into the 'captive nuts'.

The bolts that enter these nuts are long; perhaps 15mm protrudes through the threaded section of the nut and into the well of the tube itself.

Where it swells and rusts in the captive water pockets.

I have never seen a nut and bolt with a better design to guarantee that the bolt freezes solid. I don't believe anything short of actually filling the well with a ball of grease would protect it.

As it stands, I am going to try drilling the nuts out, cutting access holes in the beam top in order to insert fresh nuts on the top of the interior web, and see how that works.

I really don't want to have to weld the frame.

What engineer at Honda was responsible for this portion of the frame?

I suspect the evil holes are actually due to the welding fixture that holds the pieces for the welding machines, and these holes are aggravated by the assumption that 'water can't get in there, the hood is sheltering it'.

Buddy, I picked sand and asphalt out of the deep pocket below the corners of the windshield, and I would have bet money that spray couldn't get up there.

What can go wrong, goes wrong, and what can't possibly go wrong will also go wrong, but in a more insidious fashion. After all, the Titanic's hull partitions would have worked if the break hadn't extended through several sections, and the break wouldn't have extended through several sections if the steel wasn't weakened by the coal fire in the bunkers.

(The coal fire itself, well was that do to with the coal being loaded by hand laborers who were smoking like chimneys or was there yet another layer of failure ?)

...And I wouldn't be struggling with this if I just "Logan's Run"ed the car at 8 years like a good little consumerist.

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Aloona

Status:

Donor motor and subframe completely removed.

Donor car rolled on pieces of steel pipe into the driveway and put aside.

Old subframe removed and broken down into man-portable pieces.

Old engine disconnected, and jacked down to floor level.

Next step: jack the Fit’s body up high enough to slide the motor out, a feat complicated by the low ground clearance of the Fit’s front, and the tall nature of the VTEC engine.

Theme of the day:

"If they didn't want to experience consequences, they shouldn't have decided to live in the future " -- Randall Monroe

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Terms of Disservice

Insomuch as Terms of Service are such vogue right now, I feel my first post should consist of one -- a brief of sorts to arrange the expectations of our relationship.

But this is a blog, and as such, the beginning is the end. This post will be the last part to read.

Unless of course, one would be so lucky as to be a Reader from the very first.

You, Brave Friend, I salute.

And likewise, to any Future One who has worked down this blog, to this paragraph, I likewise honour -- for the labour, not the loyalty.

I am not a Mechanic. I am not a Professional. I am not even a Car Enthusiast: I find them to be difficult and annoying machines, largely necessary, but like a good sewer system, only cause for excitement when not working. (It would have been nice to work a ‘...when backing up’ joke here, but I feel that would strain things.)

I have a 2007 Honda Fit that I am going to put the motor from a 2008 Honda Fit into; along with sundry other parts to replace things that are rotten or decayed.

This is not a How To.

I don’t know what I am doing and expect to spend a fair amount of time frustrated. I have already twisted the heads off a couple of bolts, so I know with mathematical certainty I shall be frustrated.

I am posting this because its good practice to write; its good therapy to write; its amusing to write; and perhaps someone may be aided by my struggles.

For as it is said, if you can’t be a Good Example, at least be a Horrible Warning.