$200 EG Sedan project

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$200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:37 pm #361176 Money has been tight lately with dumping everything into the TSX project. Doing everything right takes time and the wife has become cranky having to be up a few minutes earlier each day to carpool in the new Civic. So I've been keeping an eye out for any possible excuse to pick up a running and driving EG.

Craigslist had been my main search tool locally just keeping an eye out. Until Monday afternoon on my lunch break I decided to look in that annoying new marketplace tab they added to Facebook mobile. $400 mechanics special 1993 Civic sedan.
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I went and looked at the car last night, in the dark, which I hate doing. After looking it over I managed to talk them down to $200.00. I was able to get right in the car and drive it home.

First picture!
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Now I looked this car over pretty well last night before even offering $200 because I didn't want to jump into a full on project while finishing the TSX. It does have some issues and it does potentially need a new transmission but we will see this weekend if I can sort that out. My goal here is to restore the car to fully stock 100% smooth operating condition for as little as possible. Then once the TSX is done I will pull this into the garage and take care of that awful Milano red paint.

Obvious problems:
-AT Transmission flares between shifts - it is overfilled with a non Honda ATF. Going to flush it with Honda DW-1 fluid and fix any leaks I find... looks like the seal under the solenoid is bad. Car shifts perfect by moving through manually 1,2,D3,D4 so I'm hoping the clutch packs will be ok when cleaned up and refilled with Honda ATF. If the transmission is toast I will try to find a used trans locally for dirt cheap. Not gonna throw money away rebuilding the AT. Sticking AT for the time being... it seems to be better if I decide to sell the car after fixing it.

-Check engine light: Jumped pin got code 41. Error in primary O2 heater circuit. There is oil all over the O2 sensor connector from leaks. Going to de-pin it and clean everything. If i'm lucky the oil is the issue here. If not I should have a used O2 laying around and I know I have a spare AT ECU so even worst case scenario should be able to fix this easily.

-Oil Leaks: Valve cover gasket, distributor O-Ring, probably oil pan but its filthy under the hood. Need to clean up an recheck once I've replaced valve cover gasket and dizzy o-ring.

-AC is still R12a (not really a bad thing just need conversion kit or to find some R12) but it has no AC belt so I couldn't test the compressor. Honest guess is it is out of freon and the owner couldn't figure out why it wouldn't turn on. But all of the AC parts are still in place.

-PS leaks: pump, hose, rack. Oh well I'll just put new boots and tie rods on the rack and remove the power steering pump and lines.

-Brakes: Work fine but pedal is soft. Brake fluid is dark dark brown and probably half water from 1993. Going to go ahead and do front rotors, pads, and flush the system to fix this and make sure the car is safe. I'll also inspect and adjust the drums, wheel cylinders are only a few $s if they show any leaking.

-Coolant hoses: Hoses to heater core are looped to bypass it. Gotta get these and see whats wrong. Hoping the hose that goes to under the distributor just rotted and busted and this was the cheap quick fix. Replacing the heater core if it leaks is cheap but its a lot of work.

-Body: FUGLY eBay headlights, faded peeling Milano Red paint, small rust hole near drivers side taillight on the quarter panel. I have stock headlights and corner lights to install, will list the ugly ones on eBay for $25-50 and possibly make back some of the $200 I spent. For the rust spot I am going to cut and remove all the rust and use some etch primer to stop it from growing. Also going to put some metal tape over the hole to prevent water from making it into the trunk. A quick trip to the junkyard should get me the necessary sheet metal to properly repair the rust. Just not going to do any paint or body work to this until I finish the TSX. I think a nice exterior respray of Milano Red along with the rust repair should be pretty reasonably priced to do in my garage.

I will update as I look the car over and start making repairs. I'm going to keep a running total cost on the project as well. Can't wait to start messing with it this weekend. I placed an order this morning at work for what I know needs replaced and some ATF to hopefully sort out that transmission issue.
Last edited by EconoBox on Mon Jan 23, 2017 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I figured since I love this forum I needed to own an EG!

By TrailerTrash
- Thu Jan 19, 2017 9:12 pm #361177 Awesome score man! :headbang:

quite a project but i know you aint afraid of that :lol:

ill be fallowing this :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
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Re: I figured since I love this forum I needed to own an EG!

By EconoBox
- Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:07 pm #361178
TrailerTrash wrote:Awesome score man! :headbang:

quite a project but i know you aint afraid of that :lol:

ill be fallowing this :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:


Thanks!
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Re: I figured since I love this forum I needed to own an EG!

By EconoBox
- Fri Jan 20, 2017 2:28 pm #361179 The engine bay is completely covered in grease, oil, transmission fluid... so I decided before doing anything I should break out the pressure washer and purple power and give it a quick cleaning.

Before:
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After 1 quick cleaning with Purple Power. I did this in the dark last night so I'm definitely going to clean more this weekend when I'm off work but I got a lot of the heavy build up off.
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Once I cleaned the bay I started looking everything over and I noticed that the O2 sensor connector wasn't plugged in all the way... well that solved the check engine light issue. :?:

I also went through the shop at work collecting all the half empty bottles of Honda ATF DW-1 that were laying around. I was able to come up with 8 full qts free of cost. Went ahead and did a drain and fill last night to see if getting OEM Honda fluid in the transmission would help out with the issues it was having. Fluid that came out was black, drain plug magnet had small filings on it consistent with normal automatic trans wear - no big chunks of anything. I'm registering the car today but I drove it about 2 miles around my neighborhood and the transmission didn't slip or flare at all. Of course I need some more drive time to verify it and I'm going to perform another drain and fill tonight once I put some miles on it to help finish cleaning out whatever other fluid had been in the transmission.

The first batch of parts for the car gets here today. Gaskets, front brakes, brake fluid, spray paint (for valve cover).
I'll post all the prices and information and keep a running project total as I get everything installed!

Current project total: $214.49
I forgot my receipt at home I will itemize the project total with that later!
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Re: I figured since I love this forum I needed to own an EG!

By EconoBox
- Mon Jan 23, 2017 2:06 pm #361185 This weekend the goal was to get the car legal to drive and do some maintenance to it. I went ahead a bought a new key for the car also since the old one was so worn it no longer operated the doors or ignition properly.

New transmission dipstick to make sure fluid is at the correct level, and to replace the worn out rubber piece that was letting the dipstick touch moving parts inside the case. The new dipstick is much different than the old one. Not sure if the one it had was wrong or just an old part number.
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Replaced the Stant oil cap with a brand new OEM Honda one, no reason other than it was ugly.
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Pulled the valve cover to replace the valve cover gasket, tube seals, and grommets. Good news is the inside of the engine is clean and sludge free... bad news is I had to sit and scrape off all the RTV they used on the old gasket set. Also went ahead and used some wrinkle black spray paint I had laying around to paint the valve cover.
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I took a picture while the valve cover was off and all masked off and it was blurry and too dark to see anything so here it is installed. Still have to sand off and polish the writing on it. I need to get a better picture.
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The other plan was to flush the brake fluid and install new front rotors and pads... that didn't happen.
The rotor set screws were totally seized. Tried using my impact driver and it destroyed the bits. Went ahead and soaked them in PB Blaster and will re visit them in a couple days.
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The next task was to clean out the interior of all the previous owners junk.
Before getting started I went ahead and took a drive down to Wendy's for lunch and found out the cup holders were broken... so here is the old school Honda cupholder. Anyone who has owned and EF or has gotten a cup to big for the EG cup holder has done this.
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Cleaning out the car lead to a few cool finds!
Found the original owners manual for the car
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Found a spare P06 ecu under the passenger seat. Opened it up and it looks like it may just have a bad capacitor no damage or obviously failed components. Gonna go ahead and solder in a new capacitor set and test it. If it works I'll be selling it to recoup some of my 'investment' in this project.
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Parts purchased so far:
Front Rotors: C-TEK 121.40023, $12.29 each
Front pads: Powerstop evolution pads with hardware 17-273, $30.79
Valve Cover gasket set: 12030-P01-020, $29.28
PCV Valve: 17130-PM6-003, $14.75
Oil Cap: 15610-PC6-000, $7.67
Dipstick: 25610-P4R-A01, $25.17
Distributor O-Ring: 30110-PA1-732, $1.54
Transmission Solenoid gasket: 28320-P24-J01, $18.35
AC Compressor belt: 38920-P01-003, $11.48
Key: 35117-SH3-013, $1.31
Total after tax: $176.47

I also registered and titled the car on Saturday at my local DMV.
I am not including this whole amount in the project total because if I planned to flip the car I would have skipped this step and just done mechanical repairs as needed.
Tax, Title, Registration, New plate (minus plate credit from previous turned in plate), plus fee for using credit/debit card. $151.03

I will add the Title fee and tax to the total project cost: $14 state sales tax, $75 title transfer fee.

Current Project Total: $479.96
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Tue Jan 24, 2017 2:24 pm #361186 Yesterday after work I had to finally put gas in this thing. It had a little over half a tank when I bought it.
Its only $21 for a full tank of 87 in this thing! Can't wait to measure the mpg at the next fill up, will help me be able to tell if anything is messed up as well.

Well after driving the car almost 200 miles now I've pretty much figured out literally everything wrong with it mechanically. None of which are shocking issues for a 24 year old car that has been poorly maintained.

Brakes: They 'work' but the pedal is very soft and the front rotors are definitely warped. I may need wheel cylinders, shoes, and hardware in the rear drums as well but I won't buy that until I inspect them. Cluster says the car has 175k miles so at the least they will need adjusted. Already bought front pads, rotors, and found a spare unopened bottle of fluid in the shop at work.

Suspension: Shocks and springs feel good the car rides fairly well. I do know I need trailing arm bushings and probably wouldn't hurt to just buy a kit to replace them all.

Steering: power steering reservoir had no fluid in it. Rack end seals are blown out, inner tie rods are worn out and loose feeling, hoses have residue that looks like they may leak as well. Going to go ahead and buy a re-manufactured rack (comes with inner tie rods) and new outer tie rods from whatever auto parts store locally has the cheapest. Debating whether its worth replacing the hoses and re sealing the pump to fix the power steering completely. Even without power steering it only takes one hand to steer and park this car.

Engine: Still have minor oil leaks to address. Looks to be oil pan gasket. Other than that its just a wimpy little D15b7 but it starts first crank.

Transmission: Seems to be shifting with no slippage. It is shifting a bit rough still. The 2 most likely causes for that according to the Honda service manual are throttle cable mis adjusted or having the wrong type ATF in the transmission. I'm going to readjust the throttle and kick down cables to factory specs and do another drain and fill now that I have let the fresh Honda ATF mix in with whatever other junk fluid was in the transmission. Hopefully nothing clogged up any internal screens and I can get this shifting a bit smoother.

Tires: Tread seems good on all of them, they hold air and ride ok. They are mixed matched brands all around. I'm sure once I replace brakes, steering rack, and bushings the tires will lead to vibrational or other ride quality issues. Like I said I want to fully restore this EG to all original before considering doing anything else. So I'm looking for a set of 13inch LX steelies with hubcaps. 13 inch tires run me like $35 each brand new. The 14 inch wheels on here now are probably EX steelies.

AC/Heat: Heat doesn't work. Previous owner looped the hose from under the distributor to thermostat housing bypassing the heater core. Need to buy the hoses but I'm guessing it was a quick fix to a burst hose and not a fix for a failed heater core. AC had no belt on it but compressor spins freely and clutch works when voltage is applied. Pushed down on the schraeder valves and there was still refrigerant in the system but they stuck and leaked. Going to put some R134 adapters on and pull vacuum and see if the system can hold vacuum. I will go ahead and do all new seals, a dryer, PAG oil, and charge the system with R134 but if everything is leak free the AC should still work in the car. Will fix it if I find a problem I'd like to have working AC.

(update) also got stuck in my first bumper to bumper traffic and found out the radiator fan does not kick on. Temperature started to creep up when sitting for extended periods and cools right back off as soon as I move. Gonna diagnose this issue first so the car doesn't end up overheating.
Last edited by EconoBox on Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:37 pm #361207 Last night I decided to break out my old chipping and tuning kit. I use to chip and repair OBD1 Honda ECUs for extra $$$ years ago and I still have the equipment and stacks of ECUs I acquired over the years. Never really made an effort to sell any of them, just kind of kept it to word of mouth with a handful of loyal local customers. Finding the P06 under the seats made me break out everything so I can test and repair it if necessary. Overall the ECU looks good. Looks like one of the capacitors has just started leaking so I will probably replace all the capacitors and covert it to a manual VTEC ECU to sell on eBay. Also going to go through all these old ECUs and start listing them for sale as well. Also had my stock 06 TSX ECU and an 07-08 Automatic TSX Ecu. I got those listed last night and already sold the 07-08 ECU for a quick $75.00, which will cover half of the steering rack cost!

All this stuff has just been sitting around I'm going to use any money made from selling all of it towards this EG. When the P06 I found in the car sells I will deduct the sales price from my project total.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:22 pm #361208 The sedan had the stock Honda cassette player and paper door speakers from 1993 still installed in it. Unfortunately the stock head unit's display no longer works and the surrounds of all the speakers have long since rotted away. This makes for an awful 30 miles commute when I finally got lucky enough to find the station I wanted it sounds so bad I don't really want to listen to it. Also I don't happen to have one of those tape to auxiliary cables we all had 10 years ago.

So I went ahead and spent more money on a stereo for the Civic than I spent on the Civic.
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I need to total it up with the crimp connectors I had to buy but it was around $230 for all four speakers, wire harness, head unit. I also have the Alpine Type-R sub and amp setup still laying around from my old hatchback so I'm going to install that as well. Also have a bunch of leftover Stinger sound mat (basically Dynamat) left from the TSX and my old RSX that I'm going to roll into the doors and trunk to help eliminate some road noise and rattles.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By teal_dx
- Mon Jan 30, 2017 6:03 pm #361221 This might be the best deal I've ever seen on this site! Especially because the o2 sensor and transmission were 'free' repairs.
I looked for a clean 92-95 sedan before my daughter was born and gave up after looking at too many overpriced cars with rust. That car would have sold for $1500+ in Ohio. :werd:
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:54 pm #361225
teal_dx wrote:This might be the best deal I've ever seen on this site! Especially because the o2 sensor and transmission were 'free' repairs.
I looked for a clean 92-95 sedan before my daughter was born and gave up after looking at too many overpriced cars with rust. That car would have sold for $1500+ in Ohio. :werd:



Thanks Teal-dx. I was really excited to buy it. I had sworn I would never buy another EG sedan unless it was a real EG9 SiR but this was too good of a deal to pass up. I may end up selling it to be honest just to make some $$$ to put toward a real EG9 that I'd rather buy than waste money replicating. But in the mean time this will make a really nice daily driver and once the TSX is painted I will address the one small rust spot on this car and get a fresh coat of paint on it. I still have a gallon of Lexus black cherry pearl paint a friend gave me a couple years ago. I think it would look great on this car. And buying reducer, clear coat, and using all the leftovers supplies from the TSX I think I can manage a full color change for less than $300 out of pocket... not including labor which is a couple weeks of work. Luckily EGs I can take apart without breaking things :headscratch: .

Bad News: After driving 260 miles on the last tank of gas I realized I was only getting just shy of 26 mpg in the car, which is the same as my TSX (thank goodness I'm just wasting $20 of 87 to find that out). Leading me to re-visit the oxygen sensor issue I though was repaired by plugging it back in. The O2 sensor heater is intermittently failing. When it fails the car suddenly has no power until the check engine light comes on sending that car into limp mode. I went ahead and disconnected the O2 sensor now to remove the sluggishness at the expense of fuel economy. I have picked up a Denso OEM replacement sensor from NAPA for $50ish after tax. The new problem is the old O2 sensor is well and truly stuck in the exhaust manifold. Will take pics as I fight with it later tonight to get this installed.

Still haven't addressed the radiator fan not coming on. It's really a non issue since It's so cold out I haven't had any issue unless I'm in dead stopped traffic for a significant amount of time. Hoping for the time being I can just jump the wires until I track down a fan switch at the junkyard. Buying a replacement fan isn't the cheap fix :lol:

Hopefully I'll have some updates for you guys tomorrow. I'm trying to fix the O2 sensor, radiator fan, and build a birch wood false floor for the trunk to be able to install my Alpine Type R subwoofer and finish up this stereo install.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Thu Feb 02, 2017 7:01 pm #361229 Ok small update:

Replaced the O2 sensor it was failing and intermittently causing a check engine light (Code 41).

The previous owners had tried to replace it and couldn't get it out (just a guess cause it was rounded). My O2 sensor socket wouldn't get it off, just made it worse, even after some PB blaster and a torch got involved. So I went ahead and knocked the end of the sensor off and used a regular 6 point 22mm 1/2 socket on a breaker bar and it came off first try... should have done that first.

Enjoy my instagram picture (follow me @courtesyflush_tsx , for picture updates)
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Now that I have the new O2 sensor in and there is no longer black smoke coming out the exhaust I am able to confirm that the car is consuming oil and smoking on startup and at high RPMs. The PCV valve is totally gummed up and not functioning (Already have a new one just didn't put it in yet). Between the failed crankcase ventilation and the smoke I'm leaning toward replacing valve seals but I'm going to try to perform a leak down test once I get the TSX into paint. I'm holding off for now since I know once I diagnose it I will want to fix whatever is wrong and that will delay me more on the TSX project.

Just put in a fresh tank of gas we will see how the mpg is this time around. Oil consumption and the bad tie rods are still going to negatively effect it.

Also need to post up my receipts got lazy and didn't keep track of cost on the last few posts. Trying to keep an idea of where I'm at just to see how cheap I can make a mechanically perfect car (not worried about paint any time soon)
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Wed Feb 08, 2017 2:17 pm #361253 I'm slowly fixing and cleaning everything I see wrong with the car. It's a good thing I bought this car just for the reason that I think this is fun :woot:

The overheating issue was the fan switch connector. The tab that locks the electrical connector on was broken. I de-pinned it and replaced the connector and problem solved.

Still having an issue with terrible gas mileage and the car smokes at high RPMS and sometimes after sitting for a bit. Slowly working my way through all the issues and I'll eventually get it all fixed. I really think the mileage is a combination of all the issues with the car so I will eventually get it sorted out.

Issue with the car feeling really sluggish was the throttle cable adjustment... seriously. Pedal to the floor was opening the throttle about 50-60%. That's adjusted nice and tight now (factory spec 10mm deflection) and opens 100% now. Really made a huge difference.

I'm going to take a few days to work on the TSX and get it into paint before the next project on the Civic.
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By TrailerTrash
- Sat Feb 11, 2017 12:13 pm #361259
EconoBox wrote: It's a good thing I bought this car just for the reason that I think this is fun :woot:


I hear that dude :lol: i love all this stuff fixing this fixing that. buying a car 2nd hand is like buying a new adventure for yourself lol and it can be well worth the effort :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Mon Feb 13, 2017 4:41 pm #361267
TrailerTrash wrote:I hear that dude :lol: i love all this stuff fixing this fixing that. buying a car 2nd hand is like buying a new adventure for yourself lol and it can be well worth the effort :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:


This is definitely an adventure in the wrong way to fix a Civic :lol:
There is very little that is actually 'wrong' with the car. Most of the problems are just things you'd expect on a 24 year old car. But the things that caused them to sell it are all user error. I'm sure having fun finding them all.

Small update.
Saw a set of NOS (new old stock) vintage red floor mats for the sedan and I couldn't pass them up. Some people may know for the 1992 model year Honda released a sedan with a 'red' (they called it Vintage Red, but it's really wine colored) interior. It only came on the LX model with Rosewood Brown Metallic paint. I've always liked that interior and despite not having it I decided to snag up these red floor mats. I may go the red direction or black but either way these were something I had to have. Got the full set new in box! Didn't snap a picture of the rears but they are in the box.

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Re: $200 EG Sedan project

By EconoBox
- Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:43 pm #361310 I'm really mad with myself for giving into the temptation but... I bought a K swap for the Civic.

The Civic is now getting 28-29mpg if I drive like a grandma. It uses a couple quarts of oil every week, the axles started making noise the other day, the solenoid on the shifter broke so the car doesn't lock into park when it's stopped, they replaced the cat with a cheap weld in one and the exhaust rattles because its all been welded into one piece, the engine leaks oil on the side of the head gasket, and the distributor has some funky issue where the car is sluggish until 4,000 rpms and then suddenly springs to life like it has VTEC. I don't want to spend $800-1000 doing a head gasket, head rebuild, timing belt, axles, exhaust... etc.... and still have a slow daily beater. Basically the $200 Civic runs a drives perfect but makes a couple noises I'm using to talk myself into a K swap :lol:

I was talking to a long time customer about it , hoping he had a clean SOHC laying around. Then he mentioned an 04 RSX Type-S sitting out back of his shop that he is J swapping. The previous owner hydrolocked the K20a2 so it has a JDM K20A (not Type-R, just a base RSX engine) mated to the Type-S 6 speed with less than 100k miles on both. He cut me a deal I couldn't pass up including pretty much everything I need to do the manual conversion and swap... except for mounts. I didn't snap any pictures yet but I went a test drove the RSX it's in last night and I will take some pictures once the engine is out of the RSX and headed to my garage. I'll also post up a parts list and price once I make sure he has nothing else I need laying around.

He thinks he will have time in the middle of next week to pull the swap out a deliver it to my house. I'm trying to finish the TSX so I'll probably wait until the TSX is at least painted before diving into the K swap. This will be a 'budget' K swap but I'm not going to cut corners.
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