How to Restore Undercarriage on '85 4WD ?!
luanncasey
Band Wagon
Hi Guys!
New member of the Honda Civic Wagon Club, so excited to have found it!
I have an '85 4WD Wagon that I LOVE but needs work done on the floorpan to get it back on the road! I'm without a car til then so gotta do it! I've done things like shocks, ball joints, etc. and learned a lot from the shop manual but this is going to be a real challenge, I hope I'm up to it!
There are flat parts that are rusted through, there is bad rust on where the side of the rocker panels curve down and make a flange crimp with the floorpan AND the square metal boxes that the torsion bars are bolted to are crushed and have to be replaced!
MONEY is a big problem for me, I'm a single parent on a shoestring so...
Are there any suppliers that make a replacement floorpan so it doesn't have to to fabricated?
If not, has anybody done this kind of restoration who can give me some guidance?
Thanks so much guys!
Luann
New member of the Honda Civic Wagon Club, so excited to have found it!
I have an '85 4WD Wagon that I LOVE but needs work done on the floorpan to get it back on the road! I'm without a car til then so gotta do it! I've done things like shocks, ball joints, etc. and learned a lot from the shop manual but this is going to be a real challenge, I hope I'm up to it!
There are flat parts that are rusted through, there is bad rust on where the side of the rocker panels curve down and make a flange crimp with the floorpan AND the square metal boxes that the torsion bars are bolted to are crushed and have to be replaced!
MONEY is a big problem for me, I'm a single parent on a shoestring so...
Are there any suppliers that make a replacement floorpan so it doesn't have to to fabricated?
If not, has anybody done this kind of restoration who can give me some guidance?
Thanks so much guys!
Luann
Comments
In your situation, most of us would look for another "shell", another,better body to swap mechanicals into. Or, failing that, a donor car to cut patch panels from. If your car were an '88-'91 model, I could fix you right up.(I have several unrusted parts cars).
I'm not trying to run you off, but check in with your question at redpepperracing.com . That community is focused on 3rd generation Civics ('84-'87) and may have other ideas.
Can you show us some pictures of the damage?
Thanks so much for your reply! Wish there was a supplier but it's not surprising, generally anything worth doing is a long slog in my experience!
Thanks for the tip about reppepperracing.com. I'm trying to get registered there to get on therir forum; they've had lots of spam registrations and they're requiring folks to send an e-mail to the administrator to get approved first so I'm doing that.
I don't have any pictures of it yet, I'll work on that, the lighting is bad so I have to improve that first.
I took a course in welding a few years back so I would learn how to do this work and be able to do this restoration. It finally caught up with me and so I'm without a car until it's done. Thank goodness for the train, I can get to work!
The instructor insisted that you had to do oxyacetylene first with heavy stock and learn how to get a good puddle and then he would teach me Tig and Mig with lighter stock to learn automotive but he never got to it. But hey, I learned how to make a good puddle and great freeze lines he said! So I'm eager to move forward and figure it out. I'm so happy to have found people who love their wagons as much as I do and have expertise to share to help me restore it!
I want to keep this body, lots of good memories in it. My son named it Rockety Trainy Train when he was little so there's some magic for us there. We want to get back to car camping!
My next step is removing the seats, carpet etc. and taking pictures to show what's up. I'll post them when I have that squared away.
Please, anyone who's done something like this, please chime in!
Thanks,
Luann
Bam is 100% true about the finding a shell and he can attest to what I'm currently going through.
My 89 civic si had rust so bad on the driver 1/4 panel you could reach in and touch the plastic panels also going into the suspension.
Once I figured out how bad it truely was it was a no brainer kind of thing.
I too have lots of memories in the car. But I decided for the safety of my kids I would cut my losses. My kids had their hand prints on the back of my hatch painted in.
I found these flat panels online.
http://www.jcwhitney.com/rust-repair-pa ... 00568.jcwx
I found a rust repair place only issue is the year of your car. I think you are in for some fab work.
Unless you can find a junk yard that has a non rusty one near you.