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

Closer to home I also bought a slightly larger glass sunroof panel to try on the Prelude in a custom effort to reduce the work straightening the silver car's badly dented roof whilst improving upon the looks of the old sunroof.










It's actually off a 2nd gen Renault Megane 5dr.

& doesn't look far off, though might flatten off slightly too much towards the rear.

Plenty of cars have had slightly flatter roofs than their side 'rails' even if I've never liked or understood such styling (except R16 perhaps), but would want a smooth transition to the rear of the roof and would need clearance to the structure at the bottom of the weld channel.

Would welcome any other ideas/suggestions.
Noticed newer Megane sunroof were narrower than the Preludes original, as was similar sunroof on Mercedes C-class hatchback
.
Ideally I'd keep 2" of frt windscreen header exposed, which won't leave much exposed roof area to work upon/recreate, though plenty to revise underneath without touching real structure under the roof skin. I can make up trims to glue onto the glass to widen it out to the side rails but don't expect I could trim the toughened glass. New mounting brackets will be glued to the glass to match the original Prelude sunroof mtgs. to it's mechanism (slides up & back over the roof). Old Renault mtg. brackets poly-urethane adhesive already removed with Acetone. Shame the ceramic blackout print can't be removed easily if the Preludes sunroof opening turns out to be larger.

Remarkably close to the rather rare glass-roof on my CR-X too.








Makes it tempting to consider replacing the rusty & ridiculously small sunroof on the white 'Mugen' CRX with a similar opening custom effort. Though probably slightly too curved across car compared to the hatch glass...

Also spotted an early Integra / Rover 416i @ the wreckers & grabbed its rust free rear hatch without the standard Integra spoiler holes.

It did fit! Though I had (re)move the rear side interior trim...

While another wrecker had got someones collection of 3 rough CRX, sadly only one was actually bad enough to really deserve wrecking, but enabled me to get some bits for the White example.



Also got Drivers door, kit side skirt, carpet, a rough pair of frt guards & some cabin wiring harness. Unfortunately the rest of the harness had already been cut & hacked about so I'll be combining it with base (twin-carb) ED & Concerto wiring harness to replace the white CRX damaged, brittle & hacked harness.

For the ED Civics I bought the CRX DOHC D16a8 intake manifold since I've 3 heads but no matching intake, & close-ratio gearbox which unfortunately seems rather worn with input shaft movement, and from an '88 model with their much rarer spline count (1 less than '89-01 civic/crx ).

I've been meaning to bookmark this thread for a long time now.  Now, bookmarked.  

I bought a spraycan of Duplicolour white that claimed to approximate Honda's Polar White to repaint the bodywork under the battery tray so that's now done.
New Years eve saw Civic's new flywheel, clutch & rear crank seal arrive.
Originally 7.5 kg, now 3.8 kg
Fitted on New Years day, followed by the replacement G/box.

Figured driveshaft CV joint rubber was going to fail when inconvenient so fitted the one from the '91 Civic (removed when I'd fitted the Concerto drivetrain & it's equal length shafts).

Last foot of the exhaust had been repaired before with a leaking slip joint so I welded that up.. & spotted a tiny hole in the welded seam of the original pipe that grew to 6" as I tried to weld it up. At least it is now back on the car

Overdue update time again.

Nessie the white ED Civic is back on the road!


Naturally the usual worries about passing tests were involved.
Used a resin windscreen repair kit to repair a small chip high on the passengers side that was starting to crack (12mm across) so this it was far less noticeable and scrubbed & polished any suspect areas underneath to identify (hide?) any slight oil leaks. Found the drivers seatbelt wasn't retracting with much strength so took that apart for a thorough clean & de-fluff which improved things. Worried about front shock/spring bushings that often show their workload long before they're likely to fail so order replacements. Realized the R steering rack gaiter I'd already replaced had previously failed because the Pwr steer rack was leaking into it... No time for replacement with test booked so in it went.
Failed on a bad earth connection for rear roof spoiler brake light, my too obviously homemade battery tie-down & poor running from cold start... Auto-choke strangling things for a massively rich mixture that quickly fouled the plugs with a few cold-starts to move it around. Honda's electronic solenoid & vacuum controlled twin CV carburetors made that rather more intimidating, but some fresh plugs, dose of injector cleaner, some enthusiastic driving & a vaguely warm engine saw it's test passed & the car on the road.

I'd already investigated a seal rebuild kit for the steering rack @ ~$100 from the USA but spotted a reasonable looking rack on an Auto sedan at a wreckers for $60 so wasted no time in removing it. Refitting that to my car I realized how much easier Automatic shift cable & removed CAT had made it to get it off at the wreckers.. Steering Fluid drained & replaced with genuine Honda fluid in case any previous use of std. hydraulic fluid had been the cause of those failed seals.
Reminds me I must get or do a wheel alignment check!

Also pulled out the noisy Speedo cable for a good dose of grease. Took a few tries to get that re-engauged properly at both speedo & g/box ends!

I think I've finally figured out the overly choked & rich/smokey cold starts too. Suggested adjustments in the factory w/shop manual didn't look too appropriate but I spotted another grub-screw adjustment just under the thermo-wax choke actuator that was allowing the choke/throttle butterfly to close too far. Fingers crossed.

Already considering fitting those cheap adjustable springs/shocks I'd intended for white CRX.. 31 yr old originals feel a little soft after Koni/Tien on Sir CR-X & DC2....
Custom mounting brackets required to fit a DC2/4 rear swaybar....
Need to find & fit a slightly bigger, better & more 'factory' looking sunroof....

After cutting off miss-placed lower radiator locating pins & making up 'saddle' brackets for the radiator to fit into I again tried fitting the thicker alloy radiator into the Civic only to realize there is no way it is going to fit in the narrow gap between the front panel structure and the front subframe (for frt tie-rod and engine stabilizer mts), short of bashing a weld-flange out of the way or fitting an aftermarket subframe. So that's now stored away in case another car can use it and the eroded area of the old radiator cap sealing surface was instead replaced with JB-weld epoxy.

For more cheerful progress I decided to fit a rear sway-bar to the rear of Nessie. I'd already fitted lower rear arms with the required mountings & had a sway-bar from a Concerto or 2nd Gen Integra whose mounting points corresponded with pre-punched holes in the Civic's rear frame rails, though those rails had not received weld-nuts nor reinforcing plates I expect they would need inside the light gauge rails(1mm or less) to spread the loads & prevent fatigue cracks. Short of cutting holes my only access into the rails was a 30mm hole hidden behind the bumper so I folded up some 1.5mm steel to the maximum size available & welded mounting nuts to those with 30cm of wire stuck to the end so they could be poked into the rails ready for sway-bar mounting.

And mounted up. Still wonder if thin spreader plates outside would help spread the loads even with the thin sway-bar. Later Civic's & Integra's used a different arrangement to mount the sway-bar closer to the suspension arm mountings.. So their bar would take more creativity to mount upon this car.

Other task progress has been Prelude fuel tank. The replacement tanks wrecker punched drain holes were bashed mostly closed & welded closed with my MIG welder (left open & empty without sender or pump for a month or three).






Brazed over the welds to ensure they were sealed,


filled & painted with a fuel resistant polyurethane paint.


And an experiment with a badly damaged ED Civic/CR-X steering wheel which somehow had a huge chunk of its foamed rubber rim missing/worn away. But I like these wheels with no awkward to hold spokes in the usual locations, a slightly smaller diameter for the pwr steering models, and a recessed hornpad to make the most of the dished design & lead the eyes into the dash. The missing area replaced with a few layers of sikaflex windscreen adhesive. Thumb tabs also added for interests sake.


The surface cleaned up afterwards with a belt sander & now ready for when I feel enthusiastic enough to sew leather around it.

Part 2 of Integra exhaust was to fit the cheap Chinese/American manifold I'd bought last year





And all welded back together with my MIG welder (No stainless wire unfortunately), with added 60mm length, rotated end mounting flanges & relocated O2 sensor.




Stainless steel blued up immediately with use, though being a lower quality grade surface rust probably won't be too far behind without regular polishing.
A bit noisy though, the intermediate gasket blew out & de-laminated pretty quickly. The mounting flange was now warped, if it weren't beforehand. So a bead of weld was applied followed by grinding & hand sanding to improve flatness. Not having a replacement gasket the old one was wrapped in 0.5mm Aluminium flashing sheet & refitted.


Heat shield mounted with some screws into metal tabs I fitted to manifold/head mtg studs. Clears the secondary (A/C) cooling fan too.

It's been a while since I looked, obviously more than std steel but not ridiculous.. Though I was under the impression it worked better with a different gas. And normal steel would rust more quickly alongside stainless making my welding with std steel wire sound worse now that I think about it...

Hope the new metal I added is a low-grade stainless... leftovers from 2000 Prelude exhaust I adapted for the JDM Prelude.

Part 3 of Integra's exhaust system would be the muffler, and perhaps surprisingly after 26 years mine was still intact, just boringly doing its job far too well for interest after the sonorous leaks in the main pipe were repaired.

I'd read some where about Americans fitting 2007 Civic Si mufflers, the closest relative we received in Australia was the 2007 "FD2" Civic Sport, superficially a bland sedan, though a least the "Sport" badging meant more than alloy wheels & a rear spoiler.

Unlike the majority of their brethren arriving from Thailand these were actually Japanese & fitted with the K20 DOHC iVTEC engines (even if they only claimed 114kw). So when a friend was throwing out a rear muffler from one with a dented chrome tip I grabbed it. Noting that although looking similar to the normal sedan mufflers it had much larger tip trims & was from a different supplier.
Overall size & the pipe into them looked similar to the Integra but for the twin tips and different rear hanger locations. Stainless steel construction should be an advantage so I was happy to give it a try.

Inappropriate old mounting hangers cut off and new ones welded on.

After I tried to fit it in place however it was obvious the pipe into the muffler was shorter than the Integra so the front of the muffler & rear sway-bar weren't going to be friends.


So exhaust pipe lengthened 45mm just before the muffler.



Then after another try of course I found the Integra exhaust pipe, & thus its mounting flange & socket were 3mm larger diameter & wouldn't bolt up so I had to cut off & replace the muffler pipes mounting flange...



But it's now on & I'm very pleased with the results. Twin exhaust tips rather than one better match the clearance notch in the rear bumper and the muffler offers much more variation in sound according to engine revs without being obtrusive at lower revs, and reveals the 5k cam-lobe changeover that Honda tried so hard to smooth out before they realized many preferred to hear it with the Type R (though for this muffler it's mostly a resonance period).

Guess I need to try & replace that chrome tip now.