Civic 1986 with heating and aged mechanical problem

I have a 1986 Honda Civic, Automatic Transmission, fully loaded, it has few problems when ever the AC is turned on the car heats up. I have been to car mechanics and after few repair touches they say now it will be ok. But the problem persists.

The other problem is that due to i think age factor the speed of window opening and closing has reduced a lot...

So if any one has a practically applied tip for me please advice.

SKI

Reply to
ski
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Check the engine side of the radiator. Is it corroded or eaten away? May be time for a new radiator. Is the A/C fan kicking in?

Apply some silicon lubricant to the window slides. There's also a lubricated arm inside the door that dries out.

Stewart DIBBS

Reply to
Stewart DIBBS

I have a 1986 Honda Civic, Automatic Transmission, fully loaded, it has few problems when ever the AC is turned on the car heats up. I have been to car mechanics and after few repair touches they say now it will be ok. But the problem persists. The other problem is that due to i think age factor the speed of window opening and closing has reduced a lot... So if any one has a practically applied tip for me please advice. SKI

SKI, These sorts of issues are common with cars that are over 15 years old. When I took a trip to Los Vegas via Interstate highway 58 which caused me to have to travel thru the Mojave Desert (Death Valley), I saw at least a dozen old cars next to the road with steam coming out of the radiators. The best solution would be to trade the car in on a newer car. If you plan to keep the 1986 Civic, you could install a new thermostat. It may or may not help. If you have the system recharged with freon--that might help since the compressor will not have to stay on as long. Also, open the cap on the radiator at least once a week when the engine is cold to make sure it's full. If it's not full, you may have a leak in the cooling system and that could be the source of the problem. I wish that I had a magic solution but there is not one--other than buying a newer car. Jason

Reply to
Jason Johnson

and how many were hondas? i drive that way every couple of months, have done so for nearly 10 years [family in vegas] and i can count the number of broken hondas on the fingers of one hand. in fact, i've done it on a half empty radiator, and the car /still/ wasn't overheating. in july.

jason, with respect, "buy a newer car" is not a solution. new cars break down. in fact, new [post 2000] hondas are really nothing special in the reliability department at all. there's a thing called a "bathtub curve" in reliability stats. it means there's a comparatively high probability of failure when new, then it drops off significantly, finally rising again towards the end of the design life. if this vehicle is still in the low part of the curve, it's got a lower probability of failure than a new car. at least, when the current problem's been fixed at any rate. which is what the op's asking about.

Reply to
jim beam

replace the thermostat with new oem. use good quality coolant [do not dilute with tap water, use distilled] and a new radiator cap. /after/ you've checked for head gasket and other leaks.

Reply to
jim beam

In article , jim beam wrote:

Jason Johnson wrote: > In article , "ski" > wrote: > > I have a 1986 Honda Civic, Automatic Transmission, fully loaded, it has > few problems when ever the AC is turned on the car heats up. I have > been to car mechanics and after few repair touches they say now it will > be ok. But the problem persists. > > The other problem is that due to i think age factor the speed of window > opening and closing has reduced a lot... > > So if any one has a practically applied tip for me please advice. > > SKI > > SKI, > These sorts of issues are common with cars that are over 15 years old. > When I took a trip to Los Vegas via Interstate highway 58 which caused > me to have to travel thru the Mojave Desert (Death Valley), I saw at > least a dozen old cars next to the road with steam coming out of the > radiators. and how many were hondas? i drive that way every couple of months, have done so for nearly 10 years [family in vegas] and i can count the number of broken hondas on the fingers of one hand. in fact, i've done it on a half empty radiator, and the car /still/ wasn't overheating. in july. > The best solution would be to trade the car in on a newer > car. jason, with respect, "buy a newer car" is not a solution. new cars break down. in fact, new [post 2000] hondas are really nothing special in the reliability department at all. there's a thing called a "bathtub curve" in reliability stats. it means there's a comparatively high probability of failure when new, then it drops off significantly, finally rising again towards the end of the design life. if this vehicle is still in the low part of the curve, it's got a lower probability of failure than a new car. at least, when the current problem's been fixed at any rate. which is what the op's asking about.

Jim, I did not write down the types of cars that I saw but did note that all of them were very old cars. I did not see any newer cars. I saw some signs indicating that air conditioners should be turned off to keep cars from overheating. I kept my AC on and the temp. guage ever went past the halfway mark--I have a 99 Accord EX. I still believe that cars that are 15 or more years old are more likely to have cooling system problems than cars that are less than 7 years old. The reason is usually due to the build up of rust. I once flushed out the cooling system of an old Chevy and was amazed at all of the gunk and rust that I flushed out of that car. As you know, many people NEVER have had the cooling system of their cars flushed out. I doubt that rust is much of a problem with the alum. engines. Old cars are also more likely to have rusted out radiators that leak. Jason

Reply to
Jason Johnson

I chalk it up to design, mostly. Sometime in the early '80s automotive engineers seemed to get the picture that drivers wanted more robust cars and started putting effective cooling systems in them. I'm sure that was aided by improvements in fuel economy and the demands of aluminum heads (cylinder heads, not engineers' heads). Anyway, I've never had a post '80 car that ever overheated unless there was something definitely wrong - radiator, hoses, fan, water pump.... Any trace of rust in the cooling system is a very bad sign. I once broke my own rule of not buying any car with signs of cooling system rust (car lust is a terrible thing) and ended up with a car that had irreparable corrosion in the fittings and a nearly inaccessible freeze plug that corroded through.

Overheating is fairly straightforward to troubleshoot now that the system is made to work with enough margin. If the coolant level is dropping, find and fix that first. If the temperature rises relentlessly you can be sure the radiator is not conducting the heat away - repair or replace. (I've never seen a radiator flush do any good at all, but I've tried numerous times. It cleans the superficial stuff out, but when I tore down the radiator in our Volvo I found the lower third of the tubes were blocked solid with hard water deposits.) If the temperature rises at idle and drops when the car starts moving, you have a flow problem; coolant flow if the temperature drops in a few seconds, air flow if it takes a couple minutes to return to normal.

If the temperature rises rapidly and the coolant is disappearing, it looks bad for the head gasket(s).

Mike

Reply to
Michael Pardee

In article , "Michael Pardee" wrote:

"Jason Johnson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@66-52-22-30.lsan.pw-dia.impulse.net... > In article , jim beam > wrote: >

Mike, You take care of your cars--many people do NOT take care of their cars. This is especially true for people that have NO mechanical knowledge. I once dated a woman that never had the oil changed on her car before I met her. I checked the oil in her car and the oil looked like tar. The coolant looked more like rusty water than antifreeze. There are thousands of people like her. People like us rarely ever have problems with our cars since we take care of them. It's my guess that almost everyone that I saw in the desert with steam coming out of the radiators failed to follow a maitenence program related to their vehicles. Cooling systems can not handle desert conditions unless they have been properly maintained. However, Murphy's law will kick in for all of us--even if we do keep our vehicles well maintained--that is esp. true in related to electrical problems. Jason

Reply to
Jason Johnson

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