I Upgraded His Car While He Was On Vacation

plof from the writing team is about to go on vacation for a week and Honda Canada has graciously offered to lend him a 2024 Civic touring now of course he doesn't get to keep it unless he spends a lot of money and plof here does not like to spend money unless it's on his PC but that got us thinking now that he's added taste to Modern features like remote keyless entry power windows and a quiet comfortable ride it's going to be such a disappointment for him to come back to his reliable box thankfully Alex here has generously agreed to help me bring his old Civic up to speed by the time he returns though you can't have something for nothing and to keep the rest of the company from getting jealous his upgrade is going to come with a catch oh boy these are really big chunks like I catched this segue to our sponsor pulseway they're the headache free it monitoring and management software with instant alerts Auto remediation plus server and mobile device management try it for free and get 40% off all plans including month-to-month options modern cars are packed full of cool features and shopping for them can be a lot of fun but with a block of cheese costing an arm and the interest on it demanding one of your legs these days there's a pretty good chance that you're going to go straight from the online configurator to figuring out how to keep your beater alive for a couple more years but that doesn't mean that you need to live without modern amenities last time we added Android auto and a backup camera to ploof 2004 Civic and this time we're going to be adding new headlights acoustic dampening power windows and remote keyless entry all for less than one monthly payment on a 2024 model at that budget things are obviously going to get a little bit DIY and janky and we're going to get to that in a moment but first we want to make his old Civic smell like the new Civic it's about to become with a cabin air filter if you don't remember the last time you replaced one of these by the way do it now while the exact mechanism for this might vary a little bit it's pretty standard to find the filter inside your glove box or rather in behind it let me just get this out ah there whoa hey and all we got to do is open this little panel boy here and Boop ew is that a bug how did chunks this big get in it though to be clear I'm not judging him I don't think I ever replace this on my old Civic with all of that said the activated carbon filters that we went with were only $13 which is a pretty small price to pay to not be inhaling that diesel particulate from the coal roller in front of you next up is something you might not think of as a tech upgrade unless you watched the recent veritasium video on the development of the blue LED that's right headlights now our first plan was to just buy some cheap LED lamps Chuck them in there Polish the housing and realistically that would have made a world of difference but it also would have risked blinding other drivers on the road and we really didn't want to recommend that so we're going to upgrade to some Zen on lights instead the only challenge is that in order to use these we needed to remove the front bumper in order to remove the existing headlights we were concerned that would take a very long time but as it turns out it was held on by two bolts and a bunch of zip ties thank you pl's car's previous owner what we need to do now that it's all taken apart is remove the lenses from the lights using this box and a heat gun which has been sitting here for about 15 minutes now I think let's see if the adhesive is sufficiently loosened shout out retrofit lab by the way for these replacement lights these look flipping like Space Age Technology compared to what's in there hello how you doing woo this was the point where we realized that our projector lenses were for a JDM Civic so we ended up needing to modify the housing slightly with a step drill the cover is also so needed a little bit of trimming but we expected that once we knew what we were doing the second conversion only took about 15 minutes after getting the lens off and looked a little something like this it's pretty sick oh my God now it's time to turn our attention to the oldfashioned window rollers and the lack of power locks and while we're in this panel anyway is a perfect time to throw in some sound deadening for about 100 bucks in an afternoon of work you can sound deaden your your trunk and doors which makes a huge difference to the comfort of your ride the best part is that not only is this going to help with road noise but it'll help improve the performance of your existing audio system without needing to perform any other upgrades and somewhat unintuitively it'll help improve the performance of your HVAC system because it happens to be an insulator Dynamat is a really great premium option but Jake and Alex have both used cheaper stuff in their car and found that it works nearly as well for about half of the price so we're going to be using this mat and the first thing we need to do is clean any surface where we're planning to apply it using isopropyl alcohol and a rag or in our case quite a few Rags because pl's trunk was quite dirty next up figure out where you're going to apply it if you have an unlimited budget then by all means put it everywhere but otherwise Alex recommends just kind of giving her some little knocks and finding the spots oh yeah where it really resonates and focusing on those first we pee F the adhesive backing off just be careful with the aluminum can cat you and I guess it doesn't have to be like perfect perfect right I mean it's pl's car we put this boy in here and give her a little rolly roll to make sure she's stuck down in tricky spots I like just the back of a trim removal tool it's worth noting that getting into the trunk to do this is entirely optional now it's time to address one of pl's biggest pain points with this car the lack of power locks and we're going to be using this kit from audiovox that attaches to the locking mechanism or at least that was the plan my notes say honestly kind of janky seems like it'll work cost $100 we CT scanned it we CT scanned it and I don't really know how much I want to use it anymore like if you look first of all everything in there's plastic mhm and uh this is the shaft that does the actuating yes as we go through it here o it's got air bubbles in it 40% of its air we have seen in some reviews that they have a bit of problems with failing it's pretty clear why the installation at least on the front doors is a literal nightmare to deal with you'll have to stick it in behind this panel here and we got somehow bolted into here and then attach this Rod to the stock Rod here so you can retain the stock locking mechanism at the same time which will require a bunch of custom bending to the rod that's attached to the actuator a lot of work for something that's potentially going to break within a couple of months so the proper way to do this would have been to just go to the junkyard and get the door cards and basically the entire door from a Civic that has Central locking and power windows but that was going to be kind of expensive so that's why we wanted to try and do it the cheap way which has burned us do you think you can do it oh yeah it can be done how much overtime do you want to pay us how bad are the back doors are the back doors back doors are dead simple it's just the front I'm leaning try and if it kind of sucks then maybe he should have paid for his car to be fixed by someone qualified or just paid for a better car I mean all of this seems like plof problems right now the other big thing we promised plof was power windows so we'll show you that on the other door but which um this is what like just Vapor Barrier yeah it's a vapor barrier so it kind of keeps moisture in the door not in your car we're just pulling it off like yes but at the same time like look at how much is left of this one oh it's been cut yeah this car's had a lot of people in it already with that out of the way it's time to look at our power window kit which we got off Amazon for 100 bucks it comes with a variety of different toothed gears you pick the one that works with your car door and then insert it into the end put in a little locking screw and find a spot for it [Music] somewhere now we're at the point in the video where Alex's expertise ends and mine begins it's time to paint I do have enough expertise to know that this is not prepped well enough no it's really not this scuff sand is good enough to make sure that our primer coat is going to adhere to the previous paint but it is not enough that we're going to get a perfect you know mirror finish on the car realistically though it's going to be better than what he started with yeah has not hard another thing that Alex knows very well is that the first step of painting is to put that painting equipment away and focus on prep even though we don't need this to be the most perfect job in the world we don't want to paint over his tail lights so with a combination of masking tape paper and plastic will be blocking off all the areas that we don't want to paint now this is not the right tape for this I asked for contouring tape I ended up with this so enjoy your paint job Nick also uh we were planning on taking these out but they are also among the things that are non original and they are just silicone in there all to hell it's horrible they are not coming out I think one of the most important things for painting is accepting early on that it isn't going to be a perfect job when you do that though you just you know completely different set of expect ations it's more [Music] fun now I'm sure at this point at least a few of you have noticed that we are standing next to a DIY paint booth you're probably wondering why we're not using it well in a perfect world we would I've got a HEPA filter in here and positive air pressure that prevents any sho from landing on the piece of work that's being painted while it's drying which results in a much better looking job unfortunately this is for my motorcycle it is not car sized so sorry bloof hey at least we didn't do it outside like we were planning yeah are you guys ready for the moment of truth I think so how many feet feet cuz it's not going to be a 5ft job 12 that's pretty good I was expecting 20 this morning I'm feeling better we're referring of course to the distance from which you'll be able to make out the obvious imperfections in the workmanship I mean overall not too bad but there there are going to be some flies in this ointment 1.8 to 2 mm nozzle good gravy this stuff must go on thick hold on let me have a look at my primer screw it we're using your primer this is my primer okay damn boy she's thick it might be a 20ft jump this like high Build primer is something that I have never used before and have not researched at all because for my project I'm doing all the finishing first before I Prime now most of my painting experience is painting houses not cars this is my first time spraying a car so if you're an expert thanks for your comment telling me all the things that I could do better when I do my bike I'll be sure to do all those things all right let's see how it goes oh boy well it's a good thing PL doesn't care about his car looking good I wish I'd used the other primer but we're committed now well even if it's not going to be pretty it's not going to come off so that's [Music] something all right whether it's the settings or the material we're using or the technique it's not that even but on the plus side it's a product that'll adhere better than the last time we painted a Civic and it's probably more even than rolling it on at least our customer is not [Music] picky we're back from luses and the paint job looks uh better than I expected after the first layer of primer at least but we have a lot to do first of all secure the light ballast aim the headlights the locks we need to get those working right now they are just not working at all but the two systems individually are working I don't know we have an electrical engineer here we also need to clean up the wiring install the back seat top up the oil do the door cards trunk liner the other stuff that needs to go into the trunks the rear lights those need to be hooked back up random trim pieces those all need to get on outside trim needs to go on hub caps ensure that it won't catch on fire just you know do a little look and make sure that everything is fused properly and a bonus eqing the stereo plof we'll see you soon [Music] I am nervous but I am excited tell me when oh my God what an absolute unit can I look yep you can look what it's beautiful isn't it I love purple how did you oh my god purple and gold flake that's amazing I thought it was going to be like pink and green or something I love how textured this is too what did you guys use we got some filler primer yeah and the filler primer you're supposed to to use 20 psi of line pressure okay and Linus only has nine so that's why it's textured you know what it adds to it yeah did you look here ooh they look much more clear than they usually work beyond that look in oh the hid Zeon Zeon what right are these things going to get so I can be like the on the other side of the road that blind me I can blind them back no we just aimed them like up no down you I want to blind people okay well yeah that's good you should calibrate them I mean all right I got Racing Stripes oh yeah where's the amazing look at this wa it can lock and unlock okay I'm going to try it the locks worked what the it's all four too yeah so now when like some spooky homeless guy walks by I can just lock all my doors yeah probably I I don't know how much I trust it if I'm honest yeah oh my God you actually I mean it's look it's very slow to go up yeah we need to grease it a bit okay but but it works this much better okay so that's how it could be amazing do you want to open up the trunk and just have a little look sure what's in the trunk why not much all of the panels it's all dyn what killat we're cheap killat we're cheap all right let's take her for a ride and see if you can notice any nvh difference oh my God okay it's hard because I haven't driven in it almost like 3 weeks how does it compare to the 24 Civic it's actually pretty similar and I thought that that sounded a lot better than this thing so Kudos it seems to have worked it'll probably be more noticeable when you're on like a slightly rougher road yeah or even just like the highway and I'm doing like 100 or something like that I am genuinely like thrilled honestly I thought for sure it was going to be like a hot pink and like a lime green so honestly I love purple this feels this is great it Sparkles so much too does it really I'm excited this is the time I've seen it in the sun and it's great it's beautiful what a magnificent Beast you guys have created with what we've done I'd say those power windows super easy they just worked and they weren't super hard to install I would do that those locks oh my God I hate them and I think they're going to just stop working at some point in the near future don't do that Dynamat just do it and this paint job even though it was two car payments instead of the one for the rest of the stuff what Man worth it it looks amazing I have zero complaints you know what everyone people saying stuff like oh you're going to hate it blah blah blah have me worried but uh no you guys crushed it the headlights you almost forgot about the headlights they look amazing well I don't know yet but one is dark out now I'll be the one blinding people just like this blinding segue to our sponsor pulseway is the old ball and chain dragging you down talking of course about your desk experience it Freedom with pulseway remote monitoring and management software they offer realtime alerts and notifications so 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Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 1,195,911

Keywords: Honda, Civic, Power Windows, Power Locks, Sound Deadening, Dynamat, Kilmat, Xenon Headlights

Id: uUkEbcVU9eM

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2024