The Fun Never Ends

It's become a regular pattern of life; the moment I'm set up for working and back into the groove with the F23 project something of much higher priority comes along that demands my time or my garage. This year it's been the later. 

My dad's '95 Odyssey.

He picked it up from a friend who was leaving the country for a while for less than a grand. As it turns out it was a better deal that it may seem at first. His current Accord that the Odyssey would replace ran well but needed the A/C overhauled. The van had working A/C and the added utility of being a... van. So for half the price of the A/C repair he bought twice the cargo volume with A/C included.

After several years of faithful service, as often happens the neglect of one of the previous owners caught up with the first gen. "Oddy" and the powertrain began to fail. At first a rod knock which got progressively louder. Then a head gasket failure leading to over-pressurization of the coolant system and a radiator no longer able to hold onto it's cap. The transmission also seemed to be on it's way out. Knowing how nicely the story began I couldn't stand to see mechanical failure total it. The work to set right the damage done would be easily double that of the vans value. If a shop were to do the work that is. 

I would be doing the work then. If that's what was needed to keep another "old school" Odyssey on the roads. $900 later we had a gently used replacement engine and transmission from Japan. Over the course of two weeks, in my free time after work each day I worked on it. The garage was converted from engine build/fabrication mode to engine swap mode. (I keep most everything on wheels for this very reason.) While I had it all apart I took the opportunity to drop both sections of the front sub frame and clean the years of road grime, engine oil and CV axle grease off of them as well as correct a mismatch of components on the steering rack that caused it to hemorrhage fluid. 

As has become the customary procedure when the factory touch-up is available at the auto parts store the valve cover was paint-matched to the body color.

So with that out of the way and back on the road time for the attention to move back to the F23. Solutions to the issues found at last install attempt are already underway. I have now rebuilt or swapped engines in all of the family fleet that are older than 6 years. I should now get some more time to put toward projects! 

Thanks for reading!