1979 Accord, Prelude, Integra, Z, Civics & CR-X ! & CBR

Some better pictures to display the state of the Prelude's rear panel after I welded up the 7 spoiler holes and fitted my replacement bootlid.


{boot obviously not shut}



Bumper bounced back to roughly its correct shape.
Boot sealing lip pushed in a full 100mm, floor to a lesser extent & rear rails still look to have held up well despite the impact.
So glad to have a replacement rear panel rather than trying to straighten that!

I saw some dark navy blue corduroy upholstery cloth in a 2nd hand shop and was able to resist until I see something better or brighter!?

And visiting a cheap self-serve wreckers having a sale looking for a Civic D16 Vtec ECU I instead came home with a 5th gen Prelude glass sunroof & a pair of 5-stud frt hubs for $30 each.
I already have a set of Honda S2000 wheels eagerly bought for a crazy $50 a few years ago.. but I'm worried 16x8.5" rear wheels might not be legal, so might have to keep my eyes open for slightly narrower interesting/cheap options.

While getting the CR-X front fixed I also went to visit a friend who had started his own car restoration, repair & maintenance shop a few years ago, He'd actually offered me some work there a few years ago but I was busy stuck with other problems & being 85km or at least 1 3/4 hrs drive from me was a sticking point..
He repeated his offer & this time I went for it, working there a few days a week now that another friend was renting a place (relatively) nearby where I could stay. Admittedly not doing anything too significant at the moment, mostly helping out with assembly/disassembly, sanding & paint preparation etc. But great to see & be a part of some major restoration projects with the $ required for parts & labour to get them done on a reasonable time scale.

Another old workmate was also working there & though distracted by the sudden & recent death of his father, he suggested I should be collecting his old Honda Civic he had stopped using a few years ago when it's clutch started slipping. With the Blue Integra disaster I'd suggested I had the mechanical bits to give it an upgrade... & I admit I'd been buying various other bits with it in mind for quite a while now..
So finally I managed to go and see it.






Naturally I'd be glad to have it..

Said I'd been buying some bits with it in mind..



Not that I'd necessarily use any of them as-is..
What colour fabric should I choose if I re-trim the JDM EG6 seats/interior? Red, Blue, Yellow ?

Need some spare door trims to experiment with too now!

Still not convinced about the JDM rear seats/trims yet though since ironically, despite giving more of a 2+2 look with the rear seats folded down, they reduce storage space for bigger objects. The seat pivot point is higher, with a higher false floor & storage bin below to give a flatter floor than the (mostly) folded standard seats (frt pushed up by seat base). Compromise not easy since so much was changed between the two designs.
Stylish rarity Vs Std load practicality...

So further investigation of Civic followed.
Was suspicious of the shape of left rear. Obviously scraped, repaired & scraped again... Exactly the sort of thing I'd usually avoid as too dodgy & difficult to rectify.

The angle mismatch towards the filler door especially worrisome.

Interior trims removed for a look inside.. so a professional effort. They must have 'repaired' far more than required, worse than excessive filler.




Water was also getting into the boot on the right side, found it was coming from the roof!   So seam-seal needs replacement.


Managed to get a good pair of doors for $55, only missing pillar trims & window switches, since the both mine have innumerable small dents & left also looks to have filler & repaint with the rear 1/4..

Some exciting news. Finally got the DC2 Integra certified as road-worthy & back on the road with only complaints about the wipers not wiping enough area & dirty brake fluid. Turned out I'd mixed up the wiper arms after painting.

Found the local registration authorities have started re-using 1979-80 era registration numbers in B&W as an extra cost option.. & with a Black car the temptation was irresistible despite limited funds.

Timing belt replacement followed since I didn't have service history. Looked like it was justified with some wear evident & a tooth out on its timing. Replaced the Waterpump, tensioner bearing & frt crank seal while I was at it but didn't replace the cam seals in the kit since the old crank seal was still soft (& I think I should have loosened the cam pulley bolts while the old belt was on).
It's also idling @ 1500 RPM when warm so I'll have to find out how to adjust that.
Of course ABS light has also started to come on. I've tried bleeding the ABS pump so replacing pressure reservoir seals might be the next option.. short of pulling out the whole system & looking at fitting the newer, more conventional & reliable system from '98-01 Integra.

No chance to celebrate though..
Mum's House, (where I've been staying to help for most of the last 2-years) burnt to the ground while I was away for a few days.

Thankfully she's OK,
'88 Integra & Rusty air-cooled Z-360 didn't fare so well.



Hot enough for the rear 1/4's to sag under their own weight & glass headlight lens' to melt out of their housings.


Aside from many family items & antiques, clothes etc. I've also lost MANY car magazines, books & brochures back to the '50s collected by Myself, Father & Grandfather, & my own collection of 1:24 kits, 1:18 die-casts & hundreds of Matchbox, Hotwheels, Corgi, Majorette, Tomica, Siku, RoadChamps, JohnnyLightning, Yatming & so many other brands of those scales.

Still sifting through the ashes for survivors since I've found some of the smaller cars (that were in draws on the floor) to suggest more are there.. Amazing when so little else remains, though they've been smooshed from one end of the house to the other in clearing the collapsed steel roof & ensuring fires weren't smoldering beneath...

Having driven the Integra around for a while I thought it time I put on the adjustable Tein suspension.


Thinking lower does look better & long front overhang doesn't look so obvious, but soon led to removing the front mudflaps since they scraped upon speed bumps, or bumps taken at speed.

It also meant fitting some cheap camber adjustment arms to save my tyres. Rear proved no problem, however starting upon the front I finally found out why that was squeaking so annoyingly; LF upper wishbone bushes had failed. Reassembled awaiting replacements..

Found Concerto/ED Civic used slightly narrower bushes...

Bought the bushes from the blue Integra that had provided last weeks bumpers.

Removed the RF upper wishbone to fit the cheap adjustable wishbone.


Not good quality though. Body mountings 3-6mm too close together. They bolt up around the bushes fine but being too close between the two arms the strip between the bushes pushes their mountings in odd directions that would make fitment difficult even though they might flex enough to fit correctly once tightened up.
So original wishbone was re-fitted with the new bushes on the left side, & not without difficulty since I had pulled the front knuckle out of the way for access & inadvertently pulled the driveshaft out of its inboard CV joint cup.. & it didn't want to go back in. So I had to undo & pull back the rubber gaiter to get its sliding guides back into place in the cup & gaiter refastened in-situ under the car 5" over my chest.

Will see if wishbones can be bent for appropriate fit before I try them again. Simpler & far less flashy eccentric aftermarket mounting bushes for the standard arms now look like a better budget adjustment over a limited range, even if they absurdly cost more!

Also added a 10mm strip of red reflective tape along the lower crease of the rear bumper to accentuate its shaping slightly. And found I had to add a return spring to the solenoid I had fitted to open the rear hatch, without the spring to push the solenoid back out to its extended length it was triggering the dash warning light to falsely claim the hatch was open.

Removed & adjusted the cold idle control valve on the throttle body, re-sealing it upon assembly which has brought down the idle speed (cold & warm) to a respectable level.

Gave it an oil & filter change, which is now leaking! Filter seems tight so guess I should get another. Will loosen & re tighten first.

Removed front subframe & drilled a pair of holes either side if the problematical left lower suspension arm weld-nut (lower right of picture).
I managed to fasten the loose nut inside the subframe to its bolt with a finger through a drain hole, so I could weld through the holes to the sides of the weld nut. Having it out naturally I could not resist sanding it for a coat of some black enamel 'anti-rust' paint I had.

Subframe back in, anti-roll bar, suspension arms, shift-linkage, exhaust system, rear engine mount re-fitted. Unfortunately I'd pulled the front hubs outward too far during the exercise & pulled the cv-joint out of its cup .. & it wouldn't go back in. I had to undo its rubber gaitor & battle the grease to get the cv joint sliders back on to the cup. So not an enjoyable exercise, but done eventually.

The headlining needed minor repairs for wrinkles in the vinyl & scratches. I tried some flexible urethane adhesive to fill these but it was difficult to apply neatly & didn't adhere quite as well as I'd hoped & could be rubbed off. I tried some vinyl repair adhesive but that tended to shrink as it dried. A friend who does vinyl repairs filled the crevices with sodium bi-carb (baking powder), solidified with super glue to provide a hard surface that could be lightly sanded & painted.
Enlarging the sunroof also meant relocating the interior light... & I didn't want it further back so decided upon LED strips held in silicon tubes sewn on both sides of the headlining. I didn't want them to be obvious so painted the white background to match the headlining, it was still more obvious than I wanted so painted a strip of paper to cover the LEDs inside the silicon tube.




And new 2-piece sunshade made from 2mm thick 3-layer plywood, soaked & dried while bent over a form to match the slight curvature of the roof, arched to prevent it sagging in the middle. Aluminium an alternative I considered but for cost available.. especially when the wood-grain was still clearly visible after several coats of paint. So I covered them with some thin adhesive vinyl, reflective on top to block heat, 'leather grained' & painted underneath to match the headlining. 10mm Aluminium strips attached to the front edges of both pieces & 6mm fabric 'ribbon' used to join the 2-pieces & fasten the rear to the sunroof frame.
Old vs New, mounted in the frame - also sliding further rearward over the sunroof motor & slightly re-bent cable pipes.

More action.
Aside from other work I ended up helping Wrecker friend some more. He'd got himself a DC2 Integra like mine cheaply after the previous owner had tried to replace the starter motor & failed, jamming an inappropriate (!) Non-VTEC B18B starter into place & rounding off fastening bolt-heads so he couldn't get it out, before giving up & selling it.
A 6-point (rather than 12) socket removed the problem bolts & I wound up re-fitting its old starter that seemed to be working fine... An old aftermarket Alarm with no sign of remote controls then had to be removed before it could be started & returned.


I like the colour but comparison shows the advantage of removing the rear spoiler & wiper from mine.
Wonder if he'll actually keep it long & hope it finds somewhere safe to hide, since he'd already got himself a cheap Renault Megane 5dr Turbo about to go on the road, and immediately afterwards a cheap CRX 'Del-Sol' Targa that's much more of a fun toy car.

His Integra then swapped its place on my drive for the sad Prelude he'd promised previously...










It's a JDM import with the desirable top-spec. H22 Vtec motor, 5-speed Man, 4 Wheel Steer with various notable accessories like 9-speaker stereo. Elec. folding mirrors, frt fog lights, cruise & climate control, floor mats, window visors. Safety obviously not such a concern without bumper reinforcements, airbags or ABS. I could do without the the rear wiper & spoiler, & a glass sunroof would be nice.. 
Though that's of little concern considering the other work it now needs. It's complete exhaust system has been removed & lost including CAT & sensors & it was moved about with a forklift damaging the fuel tank before another car was sat upon its roof. Aside from big new dents added to the RR 1/4 & FL guard.  It's also suffering rust under the LF windscreen trim & (original!) windscreens cracked.



So a replacement drivers door & passenger frt guard were first on the shopping list for $110.