Dwebble (The Silver Slug)

greenteagodgreenteagod Moderator
edited January 2021 in Rides & Builds- Civic wagons
All right, so here it is, as I got it. So far the only thing I've done is had the windshield replaced. Lots of cracks, bulls eyes and starburst chips. I probably paid too much for it.

It's got a sloppy shifter, I've got an Energy Suspension bushing kit coming in to take care of that. I was debating on whether or not to install a short shifter at the same time. But I'm not doing any racing in this and I've heard that they're bad on the synchros, so I'll leave that stock.

304k+ on it. Supposedly 50k on the engine and transmission. It does have a good amount of pep still. I'll do a compression test when I've got a spare moment.

One thing I would definitely like to do, as I've been reading up on it here, is a 5th gear swap. 3000+ rpm at mild highway speeds is not fun.

Anyway, on with the pics.

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It's got a busted up driver's seat unfortunately, that has been covered by some gaudy ed hardy looking cover.

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And a cupholder farm

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Anyone got a fender?

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And what the hell, why was a section of the hood frame cut out?!

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Busted panel in back. Would love to get those bigger ones that run the full sides and have the compartments. Those seem near impossible to track down though.

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Water leak somewhere? Wondering where the rusty residue came from.

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The door catch binds up and pops a bit, it seems it's pulling out too far. A bit of bent metal too. Not sure if I can hammer it back or get back there and replace this part or what.

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Yuck! Got some all amber ones coming in. (No I don't, I'm a dummy and ordered hatchback ones)

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These look like they've gone for a swim as well. Have some new headlights coming in. I'll probably pop these apart at some later date and see if they can be cleaned up.

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New Valve cover gasket is on the first things to do list.

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Comments

  • 503Wagon503Wagon moderator
    Do work son!!!
  • Cleaning the seats up a bit. Started on the headrest to see how it would work. It seriously looked like some greaser had been taking a nap for a decade.

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    Then I pulled the cover off and hand washed the majority of it with some good ol doctor bronners. Then tossed it in the washing machine and flipped on the steam cycle.

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    The drivers seat will need some serious reupholstering, but hopefully the rest of the seats turn out this well.
  • simplyhondasimplyhonda Council Member
    Your door thingy is a common problem. Mine is the same way. There is some info buried in this site on some repairs that have been made. Most fail after a while. It can be welded up but likely will break again. My advise is to do what I did and leave it be & learn to live with it. Mine pops every time I open my door, but I don't even notice it anymore. Just part of what makes the wagon the wagon.
    All that being said, looks like you're off to a nice start!
  • RoRoRoRo Wagonist
    ^ i cant remember if i have that same problem or not but its small characteristics like that that make me love old cars, no new car has these making them boring

    but nice wagon, a very good base to start with, nice job on the head rests, cant wait to see the whole interior done
  • I wonder, are there any hinges with integrated stops in them? I have an old '73 volvo. The straps busted on it and bent the door, but the next gen had hinges with built in stops and were a perfect bolt up. I'm not familiar enough with civics to know if we could be lucky enough for that.

    It does look like the straps for later models are fairly beefier. I don't know if access to it is through the car or pull the fender. I'll have to see if there's a diagram somewhere.
  • jpciiijpciii familEE
    Welcome to the site. Looks like a solid car. I'm curious about the weird "retrofit" on the hood cut-out. What's underneath it in the engine bay?
    Yuck! Got some all amber ones coming in.

    I didn't think amber wagon corners were available anywhere. Some overseas markets had clear ones as OEM,.. The only way (that I'm aware of) to get amber corners is to paint a set or to custom fit a set of CRX corners.
  • Who knows, maybe I got the wrong ones and they won't fit =D If that's the case, live and learn.

    Update: Ha! you're right, totally got the wrong lenses. Oh well.

    Regarding the hood, absolutely nothing is under it. I don't know if the guys were just jackasses and cut out the whole damn R12 info panel or what. But there's nothing at all right under that location that would caused that piece of metal to need to be removed.
    jpciii wrote: »
    Welcome to the site. Looks like a solid car. I'm curious about the weird "retrofit" on the hood cut-out. What's underneath it in the engine bay?



    I didn't think amber wagon corners were available anywhere. Some overseas markets had clear ones as OEM,.. The only way (that I'm aware of) to get amber corners is to paint a set or to custom fit a set of CRX corners.
  • jpciiijpciii familEE
    I just noticed - your car has power steering which didn't come stock on the FWD manual trans cars. Was your car an automatic originally?
  • jpciii wrote: »
    I just noticed - your car has power steering which didn't come stock on the FWD manual trans cars. Was your car an automatic originally?

    According to the VIN it's supposed to be a manual. So maybe a dealer option? It's originally from Orlando. Unfortunately I have almost no documentation on it other than the word of mouth that the engine and tranny were swapped 50k ago, but who knows if that's true. On a side note. Mine is a relatively low number off the assembly line for 1990. It's number 000277. I thought that was cool =)

    In other news, since the valve cover gasket was hard as a rock, I'm replacing that. In doing so I decided I might as well actually repaint the valve cover itself.

    Stripped it down with some kleen strip from home depot. The kind in the orange can. It does a really good job. I'm tempted to get a few gallons of it and keep a bucket handy just for dunking parts whole.

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    Masked it all off.

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    And painted

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    Then waited

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    I'll trim up the lettering tomorrow when it's had more time to dry.
  • Oops, high humidity and a temp of about 60, paint didn't dry yet, and while I was scraping the lettering, the back of my finger drug across a bit of the surface.

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    Had push the upper layer back into place and hit it with a bit more wrinkle to try to cover up my boo boo. Lesson learned =D
  • Looks pretty good my friend... I am in Austin and just joined this forum.. we should meet up sometime.
  • CharbCharb Administrator
    Am I the only one not seeing pics up top?
  • crxbradcrxbrad Band Wagon
    Charb wrote: »
    Am I the only one not seeing pics up top?

    Nope.
    I see no pics up top.
  • No pics here in Spanaway either :hopelessness:
  • Fixed. Reuploaded the pics to my own site as I'd resized them thinking they needed to be resized for here. They display full size in preview, didn't realize the site does auto scaling based on browser width. Either way, tweaked the urls, so you should see em again.
  • Final pic of the valve cover before reinstallation. Paint fully cured and I took my double cut file to the lettering to smooth it out. Sanding always makes the edges too round for my tastes.

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  • Hay man you can fix that seat. YOU CAN DO IT!!! The paint came out nice.
  • Thanks, yeah I'll be doing some reupholstering on it. Probably just in the patch method, because I think that looks sort of cool. I actually have a bunch of fabric coming in, so if ever I decide to do more I'll have a crapload of it. It was on sale. Pimpin the paisley.

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    If I can cobble this armrest thing in there I'll do the cover of it in this stuff as well. 10 yards of it coming in. So I'll have plenty to spare. I was going to do the drivers head rest but it cleaned up so nicely. I'm gonna keep it original.
  • Valve cover looks good! I need to do mine... All the black is gone haha.
  • Valve cover gasket installed. Ordering new NGK plug wires. Two of these are split and one has the rubber gasket all swollen up on it from where it was in a constant oil bath.

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    Also got a new headlight installed. Took a while to find out how to get to that 4th bolt underneath, but finally did.

    Before:

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    After:

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    I'm probably gonna pop the originals apart and clean them up to keep handy as a spare pair. The glass is still good on them.
  • Nice man! The valve cover looks great! and the new headlights look so much better. Definitely keep the originals so we can try to restore them.
  • btbammerbtbammer Wagonist
    Lol I feel ya. My girls white wagon is a 4spd automatic and its so annoying at 70mph! Lol.

    How much was the bushing kit?
  • btbammer wrote: »
    How much was the bushing kit?

    Actually haven't done it yet because it turns out it's the U-joint in the other linkage that's causing the problem. I'm waiting for one of those to arrive, then I'll do them both at the same time. Then I'll see about rebuilding the joint on the old one just to have a spare or to see how it can be done. I'll be sure to post pics when I get on that.
  • Oooo, new spark plug wires arrived. Gonna go get some new plugs as well and then install.

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    Also managed to sort out those crap hole carbon fiber pedals.

    Now rockin em as they should be.

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  • Looking good man, it is coming along.
  • Welded up a busted exhaust hanger. Noticed a leak in the muffler at the seam. Might just JBWeld that mofo. Not that exhaust welding is that exciting, or that I'm very good at it or anything. But I'll get a pic tomorrow during the daylight.
  • Hooray for ugly welds. Probably should have pulled the whole hanger and ground off the excess crap first and then welded it. But this should hold. Can't believe the minimum of weld penetration that whoever did this exhaust got. Makes me fear for the rest of the system.

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    Love how there's the bit of old hanger to the left, like what the hell was even going on there?
  • Degreased the engine a bit today and found this. Interesting.

    Also did a fender mirror install with some help from killa_ef_uat. Will post some pics of that later.

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  • Some simple knock off fender mirrors. Haven't found some proper honda ones yet. If I do, sweet, if not. Oh well.

    Knocked some holes in there with a unibit. Got em lined up pretty well using the calipers. Yay for busted calipers!

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    Doing a little test fitting

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    Took a little grinding on the reenforcing bracket that bolts underneath, but nothing too terrible. Then fit it on up. Also did a mirror delete along with it.

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    Aww yeah, frog tape reflection, sweetness!

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  • Sweetness! I'm glad we got the fender mirror mounted and the mirror delete installed, looks straight from Japan lol ;) Pretty damn jealous of your ZC engine, especially since my D15 is not at 100% right now. We need to hit the junkyard to get some goods soon! Give Niku a belly rub and a head scratch for me haha.
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