This was my first car. It's a 1985 Honda Accord LX. It came with an automatic transmission and and a 1.8-liter carbureted in-line four that made an eyeball-popping 86 horsepower! Although, I believe it made more around 90 (super-beetle territory) because the exhaust, after many years enduring Minnesota winters, separated itself from the base of the engine. It sounded pretty cool, and it was LOUD!
I had it for about two years. When I got it, it had 150,000 miles on it and ran just about as well as it looked. Although reverse engaged with a shudder.
Then, about a year-and-a-half later, it started crapping out on me. I had to have it towed a couple of times, and then have my mom pick me up from wherever it was that I broke down. Hooray for AAA, because the towing was free! My mom apparently thought all these breakdowns were somehow my fault and would get mad at me if I needed picking up.
Well, turns out the culprit all along was the carburetor. It would get flooded, causing the engine to die if the revs were a certain amount. So, until I could get this fixed, I'd shift into Neutral and keep it up around 3,000 with my right foot while braking with my left.
After I got sick of doing this (which wasn't very long after I started), I decided to get it fixed. The only options were to overhaul the carburetor, or replace it. After some shopping around, I categorized my options according to price: overhaul–$400……replace the old one with a remanufactured one-$400 + labor……replace the old one with one from a junker- $35 + labor. Hmmmmmmmmmm. I wonder which one I'd choose....
Well, the labor cost me $52, so the grand total came to $87.00. Well, that leaves me $313.00 to spend on.....ummm...another car a short time later.
The car soldiered on through the winter, as it had tried -and succeeded- to not get sold. Well, around springtime, the car started acting up again. The engine was now continuously flooded, and it was misfiring, which a passenger thought "sounded cool". Sounded like a pain in the ass to me.
Upon returning to the mechanic, who had gotten to know me on a first-name basis by now (living down the street contributed somewhat to that), he told me that my fuel system was corroding, which was causing the carb problem. Only solution: a complete fuel system replacement, including that carb overhaul I had decided not to do the previous fall. Cost: a hell of a whole lot!
I decided to drive it around still, as I really didn't have enough money to buy another car. At least, not the car(s) I wanted: a Subaru XT-6 and Legacy Turbo. One day, while on the highway, I took an exit too fast, and while stomping on the brake pedal, it shot back up and hissed. This spooked me, as I had never experienced something like that before. The car slowed at its estimated rate, and I continued on my way unscathed, all the while trying to figure out what exactly it was that had happened. The mechanic didn't know what it was, either. Little did I realize that this would foreshodow much more sinister events to come....
I drove to the bank one Saturday, and after depositing my paycheck, I decided I'd leave the parking lot. That would seem awfully foolish a short time later. I started the car, and as I pulled out of my spot, the brake pedal shot up and hissed again. Then the engine died! "Awww, sheeeitt!", I thought (and yelled, too, as I am not sure of which one I actually did.) I started 'er up again, proceeded to brake, and the same exact thing happened again.
"Well, thank goodness there's a service station right next door." I thought. That seemed foolish a short time later, too. I walked over there, looking for a phone, and discovered the station to be abandoned. "Dammutttt!" I thought.
I walked about a mile to a gas station, only to find some guy hanging around the payphone and digging through the trash can next to it, all the while looking around, as if someone was watching him. No thanks.
So, I walk about another quarter mile to another gas station and voila! I find a phone I can actually use! So I call my mom, who is, of course, furious at me because I broke down on purpose. In the middle of her babbling rant, I discover that my little brother had come home from school because he was throwing up. "Greeeaaaat!" I thought to myself. She tells me that it's my tough luck and that it's my own fault because I still had the car. As if I could sell it!
Well, she comes and actually picks me up. I dreaded the thought of walking all the way home, only to get a call that the car had been towed from the parking lot (not at my request) and that I'd have to pay for that towing, as well as a subsequent tow to my mechanic. So, my mom actually helped me out on this one, and wrote a note saying not to tow, and that someone would be back to pick it up later. I put it on the dash, so it would be easy to see. Once I gathered all my belongings, I left in my mom's Explorer, with her at the helm.
After I got to the house and unloaded the car, I made my way (on foot) to my mechanic. I told him what had happened, and he tells me it sounds like the master cylinder. "Damn!", I thought, "What the hell is that?"
For those of you who are as knowledged about cars as I was at that time, the master cylinder controls the brake assist. You know, power brakes. The kind my car had was a vacuum-assist. And, after the master cylinder quit, all the vacuum assist went into the engine. This, of course sucks all the air out of it. And, being carbureted, that's really bad!
I went back to the bank that night after my dad came home from work. I started it up, and showed him what was wrong. As this was going on, a man comes out of the bank. Turns out that guy, who was cleaning the building, was also a mechanic. Joy! He and my dad start talking cars, as they both have a passion for them. The cleaning guy checks under the hood, and comes right back up, saying he has no idea what's going on in there. That's totally understandable. If you've ever looked under the hood of an '85 Accord and weren't knowledged in the ways of Japanese cars (as most mechanics where I live are), you'd have no idea where anything was, either. The engine is basically a mass of wires and hoses and an air cleaner. All of these things are black with years of scuzz, too.
My dad ends up driving the damn thing home, using the (frozen) parking brake cable to help stop, as applying the normal brakes only serves to kill the engine. Affixing a Vise Grip to the brake hose alleviated the sucking problem. Only now I had no power brakes. So I had to press down really hard to get them to work. I didn't mind. It gave my legs a good work-out.
We finally put an ad in the classifieds that got answered. "For sale: 1985 Honda Accord. GA car. Shiny silver gray metallic paint. AC CD PS PW PL Auto. Needs master cylinder. 170K Miles. $1500 obo. While I was at work, my dad gave me a call. 2 guys were at the house looking at the car. They were offering me $500 for it. "I'll take it!" I yelled. My dad told me to come home and talk to the guys that were going to buy it.
I arrive (in my dad's Explorer) to find two guys sitting on the porch. My parents explained that they had said that it was too nice a day to spend inside. They had come in a CRX. So it seemed that they liked their Hondas. They explained that they had been taking auto repair courses and that they wanted my car for a project. A fixer-upper, if you will.
So, a few minutes later, after I got 10 $50 bills, off they went (slowly) with all the stuff I could find that went to the car (including the factory tape player and repair manual). I could only find the crappy spare key so I gave them that when they bought the car. A few weeks later, I found one of the original keys, and drove over to their apartment complex to give it to them, since there was no apartment number. I asked a man walking out of his room "Do you know these people?" and showed him the piece of paper with their name & address on it. He replied "Do you know how many Mohammeds there are in this building? I said "Umm...eight?" I don't think he got my joke. Anyways, he took the key and said he'd give it to the manager for me. And that's the end of my story.
