Janes epic journey continues!

G.dedmore

Hello all, So i recently picked up a new laptop so i figure i might as well start my first build thread.
Im about 6 months late on starting this so ill try to keep it as in order as possible.

The story starts in august of 2014 after my Ef sedan got hit by a Dodge pickup and put me in the market for a new car.

honestly i never really liked the wagon style. i was a sedan guy. but i was looking for something with 4wd and i love hondas. now the reason i didnt like the wagons so much is cause everyone around here has them all super clean and lowered to the ground. then a friend of mine told me about the RT wagons. i was looking for something a little more forest worthy. so after scavenging craigslist for a few weeks i came across this add with a pic that just had me instantly jaw dropped as i had never seen anything like it!

i was instantly sold. it could have had no motor and i would have still wanted it.

the guy wanted $3000, OBO for it how she sat. but as many of you may already know i could tell this thing has had ALOT of work put in it so i called him up.

ended up talking him down $500 due to lack of interior which was awesome so i picked her up for a great price of $2500

considering all the wagons i was seeing on craigslist before this one was going for upwards of $3500 i felt real secure that i got a great deal.

while doing all the paper work the guy i bought it form, Known on here as 503wagon, told me about this forum.

Bammmm so janes all mine now. i didnt get any pics of my first ride in it as i had no idea i would be making a forum...

When i bought Jane her hood didnt open. so that was my first fix. got the hood to open from the lever properly.

next i figured id work on the interior. she was pretty much gutted aside from the headliner, front seats, dash and door panels.
(I had pictures of the inside but my phone got stolen and i lost my first couple weeks of pictures ...)

got the dome light hooked up with a LED bulb (Hella bright) and picked up a 5 panel mirror since Jane only came with the driver side mirror, also hooked up a new deck since the stock Honda radio was toast


Also fixed the cigarette lighter so i could charge my phone, gotta love the junk yard

fafter i made the interior a little more comfortable i went ahead and wired in a 12" sub and ordered a couple of in cab sway bars/upper strut bars
i felt the difference in the turning right away. i didnt add any sway bars underneath the car cause i want to have more flex. i got these bars pretty much just to help keep the body stiffer.

then i went ahead and painted over all that ugly rust on the rock slides, bull bar, window trim. and some other rusted spots.
first i sprayed all the rust with some rust killing spray i found at cost less. then i primed and laid down the black. she looked real good.
sorry i dont have before and after pics.... gotta love theifs stealing your phone.

with all that work i figured it was time for some play time. so me and a buddy took her to the Woodland bottoms.
a little pose

ended up not making it through the river. water made its way into the distributor cap and put me in limp mode half way through. i was in deep enough for water to flood my cabin. after taking the cap off and drying it off she was running like a champ again. lol. pushing jane through sand in knee deep water wasnt very fun tho haha
jbottoms was a success so i figured id go to some mud up on larch mountain in camas. jane got real dirty like the dirty girl she is.


so all of this was probably my first month and a half of owning her. i gotta head to work so ill keep the journey going when im off!

LowFlyin'

Looks like the site autosized them.

Glad you are enjoying the new (to you) Wagon and welcome to CW.com

BillBoard

ahhhh Jane is alive an well.... I spent some time inside of that bish.

G.dedmore

jane got Rrreeeeaaallllllll dirty after the wheeling trips, she barley got away from a hooker deal gone wrong in a forrest.

pulled a couple corners off the bumpers front and back. but after doing a little more diggin on this site i found that her bumpers where already falling off before i had her haha. damn janes been around.

you can see the back bumper hanging.... nothing a couple zip ties cant fix. i want to build tube bumpers for it in the future anyways.
pushed in the driver side of the front. now its not as flush as it was.



Aside from the little beating Jane did awesome on the mountain. she did some hill climbs i never would have thought possible. i've never gone wheeling or anything until i picked this car up so it was all new to me. but me and jane were keeping up with my buddys truck no problems. those rock slides really do wonders.

did i mention i was delivery driving chinese food in her for a while? i racked up about 12,000 miles on Jane since ive had her. a little after my first oil change my brakes started feeling weird. i i had fluid so i was kinda scratching my head. then after i was getting out of the gym i was leaving the parking lot and all of a sudden my brakes went right to the floor. no brakes. ripped my e-brake (which also sucked really bad at the time) and just barley stopped myself before running the stop sign into traffic. got her to the part store couple blocks down to address the problem and get some parts. i nought some brake fluid and through in and pumped the brakes, next thing you know there was a puddle under my front driver tire and my rear driver tire.

both lines were both spraying fluid so i found my problem. the front line looks like it got pinched by the spring at somepoint. but the rear was obvious. sitting on the ground the lines had only a little slack in the rear. when i jacked up one corner of the front the rear lines would get tight and have no slack. everytime i flexed out wheeling i was stretching out the lines. thank goodness i lost my brakes in the parking lot and not on the mountain.

so figured id just replace all the lines since the passenger rear was leaking a little it to. so after 100$ in new lines and 2 hard lines to address the rear brake situation i was on the road again stopping normal.

what i did was just get 2 hardlines and bent them in a S shape so that if i ever flexed to much the hardline would take the stress vs. the soft. heres a pic.


after all the madness of mudding i cleaned her up a little bit. (gotta look good on the strip)

also my buddy sold me a decent roof rack for 10$! score!

and did i mention H.I.Ds?
And so Jane sat like this with no updates just daily driving and delivery driving for about another month or so and then tragic stuck.


my clutch pedal broke while i was on delivery at work..... :mad:

this wasnt the first time it happened to me. my old Ef sedan i ahd before this one did the same thing.

so it was off the junk yard.
i ended up finding a good set of pedals in a 89 civic hatchback. and also got a cool big racing clutch pedal out of it!


after that hassle it was back to normal... for about a month at least. then it happened again.
so this time i didnt hit the junk yard i figured id just fix the problem.. and hopefully for atleast a couple years.

the problem was i have to push my pedal prety hard due to the stage 3 clutch. so the the framing for the pedals couldnt take it. it would literally rip apart at the seams.

so i clamped the pedals back to original point for full travel. then i had my buddy who is a welder help weld them back and strengthen them.


what we did was welded the original points back. then we took this piece of scrap metal we had lying around and welded it like shown. we figure this added beam of support would help the little tiny tube that originally holds the clutch pedal to the rest.

you can see the original support beam we welded back together in this blurry photo here


since i did this weld i havent had a problem with the pedals. i did brake a line but oh well.

so as far as daily driving The D16 is a champ and im sure all the work that 503wagon put into the block really helps!

i didnt really do much to jane for about a month after this fix as i was saving to move out.
so in the time i moved out of my parents house. at the time i was 19. just turned 20 in may 2015. so i turned my attention back to Jane

with the new house came a garage! no more working in the pouring rain!!

with the new work space i went to town on jane,

i started with a valve adjustment. she was pretty loud and it helped alot.
the adjustment went well so i moved on to bigger things.

i wanted to make her a little more safe and also make her look more sexy so shell get more love while shes out Hooking necks.

i had a alot of play in the suspension especially the front. both my tie rods were shot along with my front and rear UCAs, also the passenger side trailing bushing was beyond shot. it wasnt doing anything. however i quickly found why 503wagon never changed it. the the fixed nut broke so there was no taking the bolts to change it out easily. so i had to get creative. ill go over that in a minute. with all the bad bushings and arms i was eating through my tread of my front tires real quick. so i went online and ordered everything i needed. ended up ordering my front and rear UCAs, front tie rods, and i splurged and got some wheel spacers too. it made jane look alot beefier. oh and who could resist a shiny new air intake to replace that ugly stock plastic. (again i was slacking on before&afters. )

i did get some pics of the installs tho!

i got my spacers first and slapped those on.
they didnt go on perfect at first they where rubbing against my brake caliper bracket. so i just grinded the edges down a bit till there was no rubbing. (no pics of this)

then i got my tie rods and rear UCAs so i got to work. i did get pics of these


my front UCAs were taking forever so i figured id take jane for some fun that didnt last too long. started off a great photoshoot...


but then shortly after i fell off the high ground and into the ruts. Jane is lifted but those little 25" tires just dont have the clearence

thank god i have friends. one of my friends buddys came to rescue me in the chevy



those Front Ucas took forever and a half to get to me so while i was waiting i got rid of some more ugly chrome.

laid down the primer

black... how original right? lol looks good tho
shortly after i got all these on i got my front UCAs. you can see my black piaas to. i had got them a little muddy again at this point. just feel ilike i got to many pics already lol


so by the time i got the front Ucas i had retired jane from the delivery life. i ended up picking up a 1990 accord lx. i also have a 90 accord ex that has been in the garage along side jane. that one is a slow going project. but anyways Jane drinks gas like a alcholic drinks beer. so i had to figure get a better daily but its great cause now i dont have to put so many miles on jane.

oh yea and cant forget to show off that shiny new intake!
ii dont think i mentioned i put the front upper strut bar on too along with the back.

i like shiny :smug:

always gotta test out the new installs so i went down the street to my little playground at vancouver lake. jane was itching to get dirty again




after changing all these bushings and arms and what not my suspension was pretty good there was just one last problem... that POS rear trail arm bushing. and also the alinement was pretty bad. but i didnt want to waste my money on alining something that was gonna have to get realined. so i wasnt gonna get it alined till i changed the bushing. which was alot more work then i had thought. but was worth it..

anyways im done for now so when i get back on ill get started on the fixng of that trail arm! at this point it is march and im trying to get everything ready for the NW Honda fest meet in april.

G.dedmore

Billboard, OOOhhhhh Yeeaaaaaa Jane is alive and better then ever doing things she would never had dreamed of!