Received the factory manual yesterday and whoot! it matches my car!
About an hour of scanning over and I worked it down to the AC-Diode..

Going to pick one up friday and see if it does the trick.. Turns out of the diode fails shorted it backfeeds another circuit..

 

^^^What he said! GRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

Pics of the diode??

I'm not doing much in cosmetics right now, the freeking spring rain is killing me in Oregon..

I fixed half my short and have it narrowed down, now if I could get the honda part number for the diode the Honda counter guys says doesn't exist and my Honda manual shows a picture of, he claims its the AC relay but I've already swapped it with another relay and that part is fine. The Diode looks like a relay but its a darker color.. Gotta try cross referencing off the part number on it..

 

Round 9 -------------- $1549
Still poking the electrical gremlin with a sharp stick. Not winning so far..

Car has had an issue losing coolant, pulled the front bumper to start fixing the cosmetic stuff up and tangle with that.. Well its got a crack in the plastic tank. so ordered a new radiator from Rock auto with hoses and high flow thermostat for right at 125 bucks. shipped. Crack in the middle of the tank on the side where the radiator hose and filler attach. Would not leak till the car was at full temp. nice little spray once the system came up to pressure.

 

BTW the front bumper took like 10 minutes to remove, I discovered you can use a flat blade screwdriver to punch the plastic retaining plug/rivits through if you line the blade up with the notches. (I have a bag of a couple hundred so its not worth fighting all the old ones.. While I was in there found another broken plastic bit that I will need to put it together right and make things line up better. I'm seriously going to try 1/4 turn DZUZ fasteners to replace all the plastic rivets. Make it so I can remove the nose easy. I will post some pics on that as well as the front bumper details once I get going on it..

 

Round 10 -------------- $1949
Paid 400 to have a shop swap the radiator out for me and pressure test the system.

Two days later,,, Well it just got more expensive.
Blown head gasket. $1200 ish at a shop or $300 and bloody knuckles if I do it myself.
Also have the option of just buying a used engine and swapping the long block ($300 to $1000). Got some thinking to do yet..

The blown gasket was pressurizing the cooling system and blowing the coolant out.
Then it overheated .. So if your losing coolant and don't find a real leak, but the overflow bottle is staying full,, well the next step is a pressure leak down test on each cylinder at TDC with the radiator full and the cap off..

Put a real temp gauge on your fit, the red overheat light means the warp core just melted..

 

When gasket blows on aluminum block/head it may be better repair to replace long block (because BOTH head and block will warp against each other

 

yep thats part of the decision process, I may pull the head check the top of the block and go buy a low mile used long block , may save me time and money in the long run..

 

Nice thread... for those watching new car vs used car cost per mile, do you have a total amount spent (not including consumables like gas, insurance, etc) and total miles driven?

 

Well I pulled the head,,
Round 11 -------------- $2200
Head gasket kit $125
Machine and test the head $85
Misc tools $75
Saving 2000 dollars in labor,,, Priceless yet painful.

Additional Thread on the latest work..

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/1st-...ml#post1368738