Not-so big plans with Feriko – the first steps to better health.
Feriko turns out to be in rough condition.
I knew before handing over, but it doesn’t want me to stall on maintainence, it seems.
Shortly before arriving in Penang, a relative of mine kindly assisted to have basic repairs done on Feriko. When taking the car back home, the clutch began smoking and couldn’t put the car into gear, stranding him. Waiting for the clutch to cool down allowed the car to limp itself back.
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| Decently frayed clutch |
Happily, a good friend recommended some Honda specialists and we managed to have the Civic mended, at a decently affordable price.
I’ll come back to this later.
In my eagerness to get the car into a nicer outlook that I wanted it to be, I bought a number of mostly cosmetic parts.
One of them was notably this: a replacement Bluetag. When I went to check the car and the listing, Feriko was missing the tag to denote the chassis number.
You could sometimes buy the tags from donor Civics, but never will you ever find a replacement for your exact car. However, there is a company on Shopee (and eBay) that will allow you to custom order a replacement tag.
I will admit, it doesn’t look exactly 1:1 as a real tag – I feel the text indent is too bold, but its a sweet replacement since my original one has been lost to time.
The tag can also be ordered with custom text like I have mine, and the shipment comes with supporting rivets to put in the tag.
I had a few shipments from Japan that held many brochures of different cars from Japan. One of them was this – a Civic Ferio brochure.
Not to mention, apart from buying back a replacement and rarer OEM leather steering wheel, I found a rarer and desirable MOMO Ghibli 4 Honda steering wheel.
MOMO sells a similar wheel, but the horn button is a differentiator. It doesn’t stop some people from interchanging them. But, I’m happy I picked this up for way under market value.
In the background (top right) rests my new OEM shift boot and somewhere off-camera is my shift knob. As I’d come to find out, I bought a EK4 SiR shift knob. Oops.
Below is the original one that came with the car – it is not to my tastes at all.
Among my auction haul was a Honda Access ETC reader. I have no verification that it’ll work, but I bought it for the hell of it.
A friend of mine did hand me his old ETC reader, but it is fed by cigarette lighter and if there is anything I know about driving a 1992 toaster, that cigarette lighter is an important lifeline.
The day came to come pick up Feriko, and straight away some new (and disappointing things came to light that I’d forgotten about.
So a common fault on the EG generation of Civic are the brittle door handles. At some point, the door handle had broken off. The driver-side door trim was previously sticking out only a bit, yet it is now almost taken off with lots of tape placed to keep it on. I have no idea who did this and why instead of affixing it, but whoever tried to place it back had tried to hot glue the trim back.
What the hell.
Another issue as seen in the video: Pretty bad power steering leak. I can tell you it was dripping like no tomorrow and it was leaking on both ends. Hurray.
In the future when I parked up, I had mistaken the power steering leak for a different issue, and it was definitely creating a huge puddle only 10 minutes in. Really a cause for concern.
Two things with the exhaust: The flex pipe has a tear (presumably from one too many speedbump shunts) and the muffler is lousily welded on. No wonder it sounds awful. It gave me a good headache shortly after I took over.
The last clip is what happens here. Feriko, seemingly unwilling to leave, stopped placing power to the wheels. The car had luckily and unluckily stranded itself on an exit, blocking several cars from leaving.
Good thing was the car broke down not so far from the workshop, so it was pushed back to the shop to take a look.
A bearing in the CV joint had bent itself out of place, and the shop in a very surprising pace, took apart the suspension geometry to remove the CV joint and the bearing.
About an hour in, Feriko was back running as it should be again.
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Now for some accessories to be put up – namely the MOMO Honda wheel and new shift boot and knob. The originals were not secured and looked very tacky. The leather steering wheel had also peeled itself off overtime. It needs a rewrap, but having bought a replacement, I won’t be scheduling it anytime soon.
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| Looked pretty good starting from this point. |
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Quite good by now.
Still on the same day, I brought the car to a Honda specialist for VTEC actuation issues.
Roughly around where VTEC would would hit, the car would refuse to go any higher in the rev range – much like a rev limiter.
We ran the car several times – changing the ECU and verifying diagnosis lights.
Further testing showed the Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS) to be faulty, replacement and testing found the check engine light to be gone and VTEC restored.
Happy that the specialist had a spare VSS, thank you!
The day after I had Feriko have her windows tinted – weather is generally awful and her aircon wasn’t so effective, therefore looking into a tint.
Collecting a day later, there’s definitely an improvement, but still stuffy if in the sun for prolonged periods. I’ll have the system checked past my trip here.
Took a good friend of mine around the Batu Ferringhi roads and a few other stretches. The backdrop at the Teluk bahang Dam remains beautiful.
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The rear badging is unfinished – something I fixed later down, seen below:
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| A front lip from Shopee – no point investing in a genuine if its going to smack into every uneven road surface 😐 |
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| Ferio epoxy emblems for the rear trim piece for the rear door. The real ones with this emblem are insetted and don’t look like this – I have my sights on a set that I hope to change to |
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| An extra set of the epoxy emblems for the rear to better replicate the original badging. Still, its not the originals, and the Civic badge doesn’t stick well. Looking into getting the correct ones. |
So, scrubing the wheel down as it was horribly dirty. Every time I drive, my hands would be stained, which I assume came from the wheel being extremely dirty.
Having tried to scrub said dirt off, I must have taken off a good amount of leather from the wheel. Doesn’t look as appealing with how decolored it is – I don’t want to rewrap it, so I’m open to other methods of restoring the wheel.
On this day, the clutch pump had failed on my way back, biting point getting lower and lower.
The day after, one of the mechanics who helped with the clutch came over to assist with replacing the clutch pump top. Not sure where in Singapore can you get this sort of assistance.
No extra mods from here on out – Feriko will see more restoration before I return.
Some more restore work done past my time in Penang as I write this a month later:
Recon’d steering rack and gear lever bush kit, with the added parts I had brought for them to use (Bushings, Buddyclub short shifter). I’m really looking forward to how the shifting actuation feels.
I had also requested to have the air-conditioning checked – above is the condition of the evaporator. The gunk would also suggest I don’t have a cabin air filter inside.
I’m looking to unironically switch Feriko back to a OEM exhaust setup, or at best using the stock muffler.
A friend is letting go of his stock muffler from his EG3 hatchback. I am told the hangers are universal across the hatchback and sedan, and the midpipe is best and can be custom.
Via this route I will lose all noise from the car – sample photos from above will suggest almost zero exhaust noise and all induction. I’m currently okay with it, having not done it yet, although everyone who was heard of my idea has told me I’ll regret it.
I probably will, but to hell with it, who runs a stock exhaust these days 🤣
That’s all regarding Feriko, she’s in better health than before, and I’m looking forward to spending this newfound “affair” with her whenever I return to Malaysia again. Sorry Elanmi 🙇
~Efini
Read More: MY Archives: Bullet – Honda Civic (EG) hatchback
