great story. i had one of these in white too, and i sold it to a chap on here, who despite claims of restoration etc. had it up for sale the very next day for £600 more.
Unfortunatly that's the sad fate of Honda's like this. They get bought by 'enthusiasts' thrashed for a few days / weeks and then put up for sale with a much higher price tag.
This is the fate I was determined to avoid for my car. The thought of someone else getting it and not appreciating it made me feel sick.
GouldyGTR - Nice, and White is the fastest colour for these.
I have always fancied a R32 GTR, Its interesting to hear you liked the VT 2nd to the R32. I like the civic as its a no frills drivers car, which I think is the same for the R32. Subsequent Skylines seemed to get porkier and more computer assisted if that makes sense.
Ok, next update.
So once I had it back, I took it for an MOT where it passed with no advisories which was pretty good.
However, I had 0 cash, zilch, zero nada…..
The car however did have lots of green, by which I mean plant life or similar. So, as it was spotless when I owned it I decided to ‘de-moss’ it.
A very satisfying job.
I also have a suspicion that the car was only ever washed at a £6 hand car wash (grit wash more like…) and the paint had suffered, and would explain why anything lower than the panel surface was dirty and green…
So paint resto was required.
I don’t have any polishing machines, so all is done by hand. It helped that it was the winter as the garage is cold so manual labour helped.
The car had been used daily for 3 years in all weathers, so it’s understandable that things have got dirty. To be honest when I owned it previously it was garaged and I never took it out even if I thought it was going to rain.
This was ridiculous, so this time it will be waxed and undersealed but I won't be as precious about it this time. I plan on using it and enjoying it.
The rear quarter windows were removed, then the moss was removed with baby wipes (they do everything well! inside and outside the car) then T-cut, Auto Glym Ultra deep Shine polish and the Collinite wax.
Window rubbers were cleaned, and treated with Auto Glym rubber treatment, the interior plastics were treated at the same time to cover all tricky areas while the window was out.
Obviously done both sides.
Before
After,
Next, I removed the rear spoiler, used baby wipes to clean the moss off, and also to clean the area around the boot hinges and around the tailgate rubber. I also fitted the rear wiper motor and arm after painting it satin black, supplied by one of the excellent member on the 4GUK forum. Sadly this forum is dying a slow death due to the evil that is Facebook. So if you fancy reading more about these cars the forum is an excellent resource. Google 4GUK and it will come up. There are some epic builds on there.
Before
After
While the spoiler was off I T-Cut, polished and waxed it and treated the underside plastic before refitting. I forgot pics but image a standard spoiler thats really shiny and makes the roof look a bit yellow.
The previous owner said he had never opened the sunroof in the 3 years he had it. So I gently opened the sunroof, cleaned the area around it, polished the pop up spoiler thing, cleaned out the runners and regreased. I forgot the before pic but it was just dirty. Still makes me feel good seeing it all clean and spangly.
I cleaned under the rear lights and between the rear bumper and filler panel, but I couldn’t get pictures.
The bumper paint has yellowed with age, so if I can't restore the paint, I may have to get them painted, same with the front bumper.
Next up, was the front end.
I had been noticing that the front looked on the wonk. The previous owner had to clean/lube the bonnet catch so had had the bumper off at some point. The passenger side headlight was a pond inside and had always leaked, but before, I never used it in the rain. So as it had been living outside for 3 years it had gotten too bad. This job I enjoyed as it had bugged me since the day I brought it back home.
I decided to swap the headlight, clean up under the bumper, front panel etc, loosen the filler bar and re-align everything. New headlight courtesy of another 4GUK forum member as a good price.
Import plate on (since changed back to UK style) and things don't look 100% straight.
I also got to use my inspection pit for the first time since moving in. So nice not having to lie on wet ground and leaves any more.
Bumper off and it’s collected quite a pile of leaves since I was last in here.
Some detail spray later its good again. I stone chipped it all when I owned it before, and it’s held up rather well.
Comparison between the old and new headlights
Headight in and aligned. Seems it’s been out before as using the marks left by the old bolt positions it was way off. Part of the reason I think the front looked out of line.
Some fiddling and measuring the gaps around the light with the bonnet closed are the same as the drivers light and just under 1mm out at the point the light starts to curve downwards. You'd never notice.
Filler bar loosened, re-aligned with a magnetic spirit level.
Bumper re-fitted, this was tricky to set up as it’s gone a bit wobbly on top edge with age. It’s better than before I started though.
All done, much better.
Both headlights putting out decent light now.
The eagle eyed of you may notice the indicators are clear again.....
This was an expensive learning curve. Indicators for these now go for almost as much as I initially paid for the car in 2007….
Years ago I painted them amber with glass paint. The last owner had the car hit while parked so had to source another. This one was pricey and had a small hole in it. The hole was covered up with amber tape and the whole unit re-painted. I stripped this with acetone and white spirit and was a bit miffed when I discovered the hole.
I started to strip the driver’s side and for some reason the plastic lense reacted badly going really cloudy. It won't polish or wet and dry out. It’s buggered basically. I painted it amber again out of desperation. I've asked about and looked on the net and I am still none the wiser why it happened.
Then I found a pair of indicators in Thailand. I won’t say the cost, but in hindsight I would never had spent £5 on glass paint 5 years ago.
No pictures as when it happened I wasn’t in the mood to capture it.
More updates soon. Thanks for the nice comments.
Stu.