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Longish story:
There's a guy that comes up to the shop pretty often with his 93 Prelude Si. It's a cool car, I've always had a soft spot for preludes (my uncle had an 89 4WS model). Back in October, he was having overheating problems, so he replaced the leaking radiator and the thermostat. He couldn't get the car to start afterward, and ended up keeping my best friend in the shop until 4am, missing my halloween party, and they still couldn't start it. I went up the next day, first thing I checked was the thermostat ground, and of course it wasn't connected, and then started right up. Now I'm his go-to Honda guy. He's been running it daily (delivering pizza) ever since, and recently had more problems with rough idle and overheating. Every few days I get a call, and it's pretty much definitely a blown headgasket. He brought it in this weekend, and I did a compression check: 180 180 170 60. Hmm, pretty obvious I thought. While I had the hood open, I noticed the coolant was empty, and the radiator hoses were literally collapsed, and when I opened the cap they inflated to normal size, so I figure the coolant is going into the motor, via the gone/leaking HG, and creating a vacuum in the coolant system. So now he wants to rebuild the motor in addition to replacing the HG. Actually, he wants me to rebuild the motor, since he is impressed with my CRX, and now my best friend's Mazda I just finished.
Now this guy is pretty creepy. He's probably 35 and is always coming up to the shop, and around campus, hitting on all the 18-20 year old girls and stuff. There's a lot more about him, but this post is already too long. He's creepy, I don't really like him. Anyway, it turns out that the prelude isn't his only car, he also has a BMW 3.18, and two jeep cherokees, all with minor problems. One of my good friends is looking for a car, he really wants a CRX, but around here, it's either rusted through, or it's 5 grand with a b16 swap and bodykit. He really likes the prelude, so he was going to offer the guy some money for it, then we would swap the motor or rebuild it, and of course I wouldn't charge him anything to do the work. So given the problems this car has had, and the obvious work it's going to need, I was going to quote the guy a price on the rebuild that he won't want to pay, then convince him to sell the car. I don't have any idea what it's worth, and when I try to check with the blue book site, they don't even give a price for poor conditions. The body is fine with only a little quarter panel rust, and the interior is nearly perfect, other than being a little dirty and faded. The car has aout 140k on it. We were hoping it would be under a grand before getting the parts for a rebuild, and hoping the whole thing for my friend would be around 1500 when everything is done. So what are these cars worth? How much is normal (but a little on the high side) for a stock rebuild? Also, it's the only generation of Prelude I haven't been in/driven, how do they compare? I've been in the Si/SH of every generation, and I've always been impressed.
There's a guy that comes up to the shop pretty often with his 93 Prelude Si. It's a cool car, I've always had a soft spot for preludes (my uncle had an 89 4WS model). Back in October, he was having overheating problems, so he replaced the leaking radiator and the thermostat. He couldn't get the car to start afterward, and ended up keeping my best friend in the shop until 4am, missing my halloween party, and they still couldn't start it. I went up the next day, first thing I checked was the thermostat ground, and of course it wasn't connected, and then started right up. Now I'm his go-to Honda guy. He's been running it daily (delivering pizza) ever since, and recently had more problems with rough idle and overheating. Every few days I get a call, and it's pretty much definitely a blown headgasket. He brought it in this weekend, and I did a compression check: 180 180 170 60. Hmm, pretty obvious I thought. While I had the hood open, I noticed the coolant was empty, and the radiator hoses were literally collapsed, and when I opened the cap they inflated to normal size, so I figure the coolant is going into the motor, via the gone/leaking HG, and creating a vacuum in the coolant system. So now he wants to rebuild the motor in addition to replacing the HG. Actually, he wants me to rebuild the motor, since he is impressed with my CRX, and now my best friend's Mazda I just finished.
Now this guy is pretty creepy. He's probably 35 and is always coming up to the shop, and around campus, hitting on all the 18-20 year old girls and stuff. There's a lot more about him, but this post is already too long. He's creepy, I don't really like him. Anyway, it turns out that the prelude isn't his only car, he also has a BMW 3.18, and two jeep cherokees, all with minor problems. One of my good friends is looking for a car, he really wants a CRX, but around here, it's either rusted through, or it's 5 grand with a b16 swap and bodykit. He really likes the prelude, so he was going to offer the guy some money for it, then we would swap the motor or rebuild it, and of course I wouldn't charge him anything to do the work. So given the problems this car has had, and the obvious work it's going to need, I was going to quote the guy a price on the rebuild that he won't want to pay, then convince him to sell the car. I don't have any idea what it's worth, and when I try to check with the blue book site, they don't even give a price for poor conditions. The body is fine with only a little quarter panel rust, and the interior is nearly perfect, other than being a little dirty and faded. The car has aout 140k on it. We were hoping it would be under a grand before getting the parts for a rebuild, and hoping the whole thing for my friend would be around 1500 when everything is done. So what are these cars worth? How much is normal (but a little on the high side) for a stock rebuild? Also, it's the only generation of Prelude I haven't been in/driven, how do they compare? I've been in the Si/SH of every generation, and I've always been impressed.
Wives are funny that way sometimes... In the back of my mind, I still harbor fantasies of doing that swap and having the Wagon From Hell.
