knottyy's '89 NW Wagon - Lots O Pics
knottyy
Wagonist
Hi all,
Disclaimer: Ended up writing a lot more than I meant to. Sorry for the book. I'll try and make up for it with a lot of pics to come (sorry to those with poopy interwebz).
Finally picked up a wagon after searching for over a month. Wagons definitely seem to be on the rise, as some people were wanting some ridiculous prices out there. Ended up finding a single owner Fwd '89 in with 182k. A professor at UW and his wife bought it with their wedding money, they stood in the yard and held hands as I drove off lol. The body is pretty darn straight and the engine/tranny seem to be wonderful and it purrs right along. They have all the service records, even the original receipt from Honda of Seattle showing that they paid around $10k. I got a kick looking through all of the old paperwork....even have the receipt for my Sony cassette deck from Magnolia HiFi purchased in '97. The down side was that this car had been sitting for the past few years without hardly any use, and it had kind of rotted into the ground. Water had leaked into the back, and there was a bout 4-5" of nasty standing water in it when I bought it. The interior was nasty from mold, mildew and years of use. A strip of carpet had been cut out in the front passengers floorboard due to mold. Years of pollen had mixed with moisture and turned into putty, caking and filling all seems and cracks. Some of the rubber/plastic has degraded. I wish I would have taken pictures of it when I first got it, but I took it home and got straight to cleaning instead and proceeded to do so for the next 4 days straight. Had to take a knife point to many cracks and crevices to get out all the grown on/in gunk. Followed up with a toothbrush, vinyl brush, foam scrubber, regular wash then Brown Bear drive through wash. I swear to God I've dropped body fat scrubbing on this car so damn hard.
The paint isn't that great, but also not that horrible. Just a lot of nicks and scratches everywhere. I plan on painting it white one day. I would have liked to have found a grey interior, but it is what it is for now. I'm probably one of the least mechanical people on this site, I've just never been into working on cars. Takes me so long and gives me such a headache that it's been better for me to just do my job, make money, then pay someone to fix my stuff. That being said I am going to try harder to do more on this car, and take a more personalized approach. So far I've just done simple things that I can handle with my super limited tool set (scrap spare tools from my step father) which include: Change oil and tranny fluid. Remove and repaint wiper arms front/rear. Fix knock in trunk by splicing a pen and fixing it around the hatch striker (works awesome!). Fix some trim that was falling off. Replace a bunch of burnt out bulbs. Replace the rear hatch shocks with new ones. Remove my headrest covers, wash and put back. Clean the holy bejesus out of the car top to bottom including the engine bay, and shampooing which really really made a difference. Installed a Thule rack with Yakima fairing and Yakima Basketcase cargo carrier. One of the last things I need to do is to find out where this metallic buzzing noise is coming from when I hit a certain RPM...so far I think it may be coming from the exhaust manifold rattling. There are some other little things that need attention, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way that she's cleaned up. Nothing major that I can tell, and as mentioned she drives wonderfully and still has a lot of pep.
My current plans for the future are to drop it about 3-4" and throw on some stylish shoes, something preferably around 16x8 (I like pavementwago's stance). I've gone through the "Post up your suspension setup and reviews" trying to find stances that I liked. I'm trying to learn about dropping options and found some really good info from driftin90 in a thread, and am leaning towards coilovers in the $600-$700 price range. I liked the sound of the Godspeeds that Justin-XXX has, Megan's that others have, as well as Skunk2's that I read a lot about.....thinking I may need extended top hats due to the big drop? Would also like to change out the lca's, add a rear and front sway as well as rear upper/lower strut braces for better handling. Anyone know if the affordably priced ones on eBay are complete crap? Will probably need a camber kit, rolled fenders and I'd like to add a lip of some sort to the front. Want to replace steering wheel with a wood grain someday, as well as possibly my shift knob and e brake to match and other small interior items (the cap to my mirror adjuster is missing so I'm gonna carve a replacement out of wood). Will add a passenger side mirror so I can park without jacking up my rims, as well as a small stereo system so I can enjoy my tunage.
Like I said I wish that I had taken some pictures of the exterior before getting to work, but I did manage to get some of the seats before/after shampoo. This is about as good as I can make her shine after about a week's work.
My dog is stoked too, cause the rear of the wagon is for him
Front Seats Before
Front Seats After
Rear Seats Before (it's hard to tell how dirty they really were....nasty human sludge grimed in)
Rear Seats After
Gotta replace the muffler sometime soon I think
Thanks for reading! I'll add more when I have more to add. Hoping to get this thing lowered within the next couple of weeks.
Disclaimer: Ended up writing a lot more than I meant to. Sorry for the book. I'll try and make up for it with a lot of pics to come (sorry to those with poopy interwebz).
Finally picked up a wagon after searching for over a month. Wagons definitely seem to be on the rise, as some people were wanting some ridiculous prices out there. Ended up finding a single owner Fwd '89 in with 182k. A professor at UW and his wife bought it with their wedding money, they stood in the yard and held hands as I drove off lol. The body is pretty darn straight and the engine/tranny seem to be wonderful and it purrs right along. They have all the service records, even the original receipt from Honda of Seattle showing that they paid around $10k. I got a kick looking through all of the old paperwork....even have the receipt for my Sony cassette deck from Magnolia HiFi purchased in '97. The down side was that this car had been sitting for the past few years without hardly any use, and it had kind of rotted into the ground. Water had leaked into the back, and there was a bout 4-5" of nasty standing water in it when I bought it. The interior was nasty from mold, mildew and years of use. A strip of carpet had been cut out in the front passengers floorboard due to mold. Years of pollen had mixed with moisture and turned into putty, caking and filling all seems and cracks. Some of the rubber/plastic has degraded. I wish I would have taken pictures of it when I first got it, but I took it home and got straight to cleaning instead and proceeded to do so for the next 4 days straight. Had to take a knife point to many cracks and crevices to get out all the grown on/in gunk. Followed up with a toothbrush, vinyl brush, foam scrubber, regular wash then Brown Bear drive through wash. I swear to God I've dropped body fat scrubbing on this car so damn hard.
The paint isn't that great, but also not that horrible. Just a lot of nicks and scratches everywhere. I plan on painting it white one day. I would have liked to have found a grey interior, but it is what it is for now. I'm probably one of the least mechanical people on this site, I've just never been into working on cars. Takes me so long and gives me such a headache that it's been better for me to just do my job, make money, then pay someone to fix my stuff. That being said I am going to try harder to do more on this car, and take a more personalized approach. So far I've just done simple things that I can handle with my super limited tool set (scrap spare tools from my step father) which include: Change oil and tranny fluid. Remove and repaint wiper arms front/rear. Fix knock in trunk by splicing a pen and fixing it around the hatch striker (works awesome!). Fix some trim that was falling off. Replace a bunch of burnt out bulbs. Replace the rear hatch shocks with new ones. Remove my headrest covers, wash and put back. Clean the holy bejesus out of the car top to bottom including the engine bay, and shampooing which really really made a difference. Installed a Thule rack with Yakima fairing and Yakima Basketcase cargo carrier. One of the last things I need to do is to find out where this metallic buzzing noise is coming from when I hit a certain RPM...so far I think it may be coming from the exhaust manifold rattling. There are some other little things that need attention, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way that she's cleaned up. Nothing major that I can tell, and as mentioned she drives wonderfully and still has a lot of pep.
My current plans for the future are to drop it about 3-4" and throw on some stylish shoes, something preferably around 16x8 (I like pavementwago's stance). I've gone through the "Post up your suspension setup and reviews" trying to find stances that I liked. I'm trying to learn about dropping options and found some really good info from driftin90 in a thread, and am leaning towards coilovers in the $600-$700 price range. I liked the sound of the Godspeeds that Justin-XXX has, Megan's that others have, as well as Skunk2's that I read a lot about.....thinking I may need extended top hats due to the big drop? Would also like to change out the lca's, add a rear and front sway as well as rear upper/lower strut braces for better handling. Anyone know if the affordably priced ones on eBay are complete crap? Will probably need a camber kit, rolled fenders and I'd like to add a lip of some sort to the front. Want to replace steering wheel with a wood grain someday, as well as possibly my shift knob and e brake to match and other small interior items (the cap to my mirror adjuster is missing so I'm gonna carve a replacement out of wood). Will add a passenger side mirror so I can park without jacking up my rims, as well as a small stereo system so I can enjoy my tunage.
Like I said I wish that I had taken some pictures of the exterior before getting to work, but I did manage to get some of the seats before/after shampoo. This is about as good as I can make her shine after about a week's work.
My dog is stoked too, cause the rear of the wagon is for him
Front Seats Before
Front Seats After
Rear Seats Before (it's hard to tell how dirty they really were....nasty human sludge grimed in)
Rear Seats After
Gotta replace the muffler sometime soon I think
Thanks for reading! I'll add more when I have more to add. Hoping to get this thing lowered within the next couple of weeks.
Comments
why do you need to run eg forks to make them fit??...i had a friend who put his crx coilovers (function n form type 1) on his wagon with the stock front forks...only thing he had to change is the rear lca because he had an 88 model. is this only with rokkor coilovers that you have to run the eg fork??
I ran into a similar issue with the front forks for my '90 wagon. I found a set of struts with H&R springs at the wreckers from a '90 Civic Si and thought they would bolt onto my wagon. I didn't grab the forks though. When I went to take my front suspension apart, I realized the base of struts are larger than the wagon struts. I will have to go back and grab a set of forks before I install them into the wagon.
black_89gt - Thank you very much for the info, looking at the Rokkor site now.
I don't have rear speaker pods so I'm trying to figure out how to go about mounting the 6.5's in the rear somehow. I am going to go and find some fabric or carpet to wrap the box I built for an MTX 12" sub, and I also have one of these on the way.
For now I settled for installing the fronts. My originals were blown and sounded like doo-doo.
Problem is the speakers I bought didn't fit, they wouldn't sit flush cause the magnets were just too damn boss!
So I had to cut the backs off the guards. Get out the way ho.
Added a ghetto "weather guard" but made things sound like crap so I took it out
Shizzam! Speakers installed. They sound great!
Then I figured since I was in there that I would try and tackle my window issue. It rolls down ok, but not so much on the way up..especially towards the top. Took the door panel off and cleaned it, then took out the window and cleaned it as well (notice that gnarly strip of filth at the bottom due to a faulty outer window molding).
Speaking of faulty window molding, this is it. It looks like someone tried to pry in at some point and bent the spine of the molding. I need a new one, or to try and straighten this one but I couldn't figure out how to get it off. Do any of you know how I can get this thing off??
Here it is from the outside/topside. Notice the bend in it going to the left? It creates a big gap between itself and the window, which sucks of course.
I oiled up the window levers before putting the window back in place
Threw things back together and the window worked great! Couldn't have done it without info I read here on HCW.
So I was at Costco the other day with the girlfriend getting toilet paper and other randoms, and I came across rubber floor mats. They weren't bad, so I went for them!
Little modification and they fit perfectly
Even the backs looks good
Another thing that has really been bothering me since buying this car is the speedometer cluster cover. I'm not sure if it's from the mold that grew inside the car from the standing water or what, but there were all these nasty spots all over and it drove me crazy
Removed the gauge cluster thinking it might be on the inside.....wrong. Only on the outside. Oh well gave me good access too clean it. Tried Windex without any success. Tried toothpaste with better success, but still not close to perfect
Frustrated I went to O'Reilly auto parts and bought a headlight repair kit by Turtle Wax and rocked that on the mammajamma. Bam! Success!!
I also took out this little orange filter thingy that was dimming my overhead gauge lights till my LED's get here. Kinda neat as it's super bright now.
I also got a new wide angled mirror from eBay. Call me weird, but I had a Wink mirror on my old Jetta and didn't care for it that much.
Before
After
And for nostalgia's sake, here's a shot of the original manual, warranty book, key, even receipt for my car's purchase from Honda of Seattle in 1990 with a sticker price of $10,000. Pretty cool:)
I decided on Godspeed Type-RS coilovers, and plan on buying them as soon as I figure out what spring rates I should run. It was between them and Progress coilovers, but the guys at Progress told me I wouldn't be able to go as low as I wanted with their gear. Think I've decided on wheels as well but will wait to show it in picture form when they get fitted. If anyone knows anything about the best spring rates to get with Godspeeds, please let me know. Thanks!
in for more...
no not you Bill ..
welcome to the family Knotty... :!:
Wow!!! $10,000?? That is the Honda Fit current price!
Godspeed Type RS Coilovers came through. I'm stoked because I asked to switch up my spring rates to 8kg / 10kg and they just threw those in along side the standard 7kg / 6kg springs so I have two sets now. Bonus! Godspeed says that you need to have a tuner shop install the coilovers to retain the warranty. A friend of my brothers is a mechanic at Mercedes Benz of Seattle and is MOOG certified so I am hoping to try and get him to do the install for me. I have been looking into places in the Seattle area that will roll/pull fenders as but he says he does that as well so I'm really hoping it works out. I dropped a chunk o change on new wheels last night, along with an SPC rear camber kit and they'll be here by the end of the week. I will wait to show pics of the wheels, but I'll say for now that they are 15x8 +10 all around. Will probably buy a Skunk2 front camber kit if need be, but just holding off to see if it's necessary first. I bought a crappy set of strut & tie bars from eBay thinking in the back of my head that it was a bad idea. http://www.ebay.com/itm/170837076471?ss ... 1497.l2649 Well turns out I was right, they came today and the first bar I tried to install (rear strut bar) was a bit too long and wouldn't fit. I only went for it cause I thought I had seen eBay aluminum rear strut and c pillar bars on peoples wagons here on the forum, but I could have been wrong. If anyone has any good suggestions for strut/c pillar bars please let me know. Will be looking into Suspension Techniques sway bars due to a recommendation from Beastmode (thanks for your help homie!).
I'm waiting on some LEDs for my dash so that I can get my gauge cluster looking clean and bright, and also waiting on a fender mirror as my wagon didn't come with a passenger's side mirror and I wanted one for parking. I'll be sure to update once I get my coilovers on, and of course when my wheels come in and all that. Trying to figure out what tires will work best, and so far thinking around 175/50. Ok, time to go eat some dinner......yum.....enchiladas:)
Just got a my tracking info for the wheels and they will be here on Friday. STOKED. Just trying to figure out what tires to get, and where to get them. I've read that Discount Tire Direct is a good choice. I've read that either 175/50 or 195/50 would be good for my 15x8 +10's. I like stretch, but not to the point where the lip of your wheels is sticking out tough and the tires isn't even spreading to the edge of the rim, so 165's seem a bit too small. If you guys have any recommendations on tires I'd appreciate it. Another forum member told me that Falken Ziex 512 are good for stretching. I have been on tyrestretch.com for the past week looking at different setups trying to get an idea of what I think looks good....such a helpful site.
Here is a picture of the back of the gauge cluster. Circled in red are the bulbs you want to change. There are 2 different sizes, and they both sit in quarter turn housings.
The larger ones take the 194s and the smaller ones the 74s. Just pull out the old bulbs and then insert the new ones. I ended up having to take a sharp knife and bending out the metal contacts so that they would hold the new bulbs. One fell out of the housing inside my cluster and it was fun to get out. Once you have the new bulbs inserted into the housings just put them back into their place and you should be good to go. Sometimes the bulbs only work one way, so you have to take them out and turn them the other way and they'll light up. You can decide whether or not it's worth it to remove your gauge cluster to do this....it is easier if you do but possible with it still bolted down.
Here is a picture of some of the bulbs I used
The first two bulbs are OEM bulbs in 194 and 74 sizes. The second two are eBay 74 replacement LED bulbs, the last in the Toshiba V-2 quarter turn housing. I ended up replacing the eBay bulbs with Samsung 3x LED 74 sized bulbs from autolumination.com which are a lot brighter and hopefully will last longer...sorry they are not pictured.
I mentioned 2 bulbs earlier that I said I would detail later on. These 2 bulbs are the smallest and found mounted in a white plastic strip on the top of the gauge cluster. They're mounted into housings and cannot be removed from what I can tell. They are Type B (T4) bulbs, and I got replacements in Super White....same hue as all the other LED bulbs I bought. Here is where they are located.
And here is what they look like. The OEM on left, and the LED on right.
If you'd like to, you can remove an amber strip of plastic that sits underneath the white plastic strip that holds the two smallest bulbs. This amber strip filters the light from the two smallest bulbs, which over the face of the gauge cluster. You can see pictures below of the difference of keeping it on or removing it. I chose to keep it on. Please note that Reaccion changed swapped out this piece from a '92 Accord which was blue in color making the OEM bulbs appear more white. So, you can keep OEM bulbs and change to a blue Accord strip or just simply change the bulbs to LED super white like I did. Here is the amber strip I'm talking about.
Here is a shot of my gauge cluster with the new LED bulbs and the amber strip removed. You can see that it really lights up the cluster, although in person it's not quite as harsh looking as in the picture.
And here is my cluster with the LED bulbs and the amber strip still in place, filter some of the light from the two overhead bulbs.
I decided I liked it better with the strip, without the more glaring overhead lights coming down. Seems a bit cleaner to me with just the gauges lighting up on their own. While I was at it, I also swapped out my two overhead interior lights. The main one I switched to a 24 LED bulb panel that I got off eBay for $12.
This thing is freakin bright!!!
Here is the trunk light which I also bought from autolumination.com.
And the final touch.
Wheels come in tomorrow. Went out looking for tires today. Hoping to get coilovers installed this weekend, so I can move on to the wheels, tires, camber kit and fender rolling. Drop it like it's hot.
Thanks for the info. I've been told 512's stretch good. The guy at Discount Tire told me that I should go with the Kumho Escta's as they'll be better if the roads are wet at all. Said it'd be around $400 for all four 195/50 Kumhos. Asked if they had 175/50 and they said no. Thinking I'd have to buy those at a place like tirerack.com and have them shipped? Some of the only tires I can find in 175/50 are Nexens. I dunno, maybe I'm not looking in the right places. I have been looking at tyrestretch.com all week and liked the look of some of the 195/50's on there: http://tyrestretch.com/8_195_50_R15/8_1 ... _2.jpg.php I don't really like when the edge of the rim is all poking out and it seems like the tire isn't pushing to the edge of the rim....just seems like a jacked up rim waiting to happen to me. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm still learning about all of this.
It's a silly "carbon fiber" bar...cause I'm just so darn cool like that...
I also managed to get the front one on.
I had to bend this little metal piece up to get things to fit correctly.
Now my car goes like 180 mph... you should see it.
My wheels came in yesterday. I had a hard time choosing which wheels I wanted, but in the end I decided to go with the ones that felt the most fitted to a car from the 80's. They kinda reminded me of Delorean wheels, and I LOVE me some Back 2 The Future. I even have a tattoo of Doc on my left thigh so you know I'm serious.
YAY NEW SHOES!!!
A lil preview
I'm still trying to figure out which tires to get for these. From everything I've read and been told, I should be looking for a 175/50r15 to a 195/50r15. I went around to both Les Schwab and Discount Tire today, and when I asked for a 175/50 they BOTH told me that they didn't exist. I showed them several pictures on my phone of 175/50's mounted on 15x8 and they basically told me I was stupid to try and do that. I thanked them for the lecture and left planning thinking I would just buy my tires online or go deal with Pavements guy out in Auburn. I've been on tyrestrech.com, rimtuck.com and willtheyfit.com lately trying to equate this whole thing out. I want some stretch, but not to the point where the lip of my rim is just sticking out there like a sore thumb. From everything I've studied so far, I like the look of Toyo Proxes TR1 tires in 195/45. They have a lip protector which seems to stick out more and fill that gap by the lip which I don't care for, plus they have a nice round stretched look that is not rubber band, but not beefcake. The guys at Discount suggested Kumho 195/50s but all the pictures I see of them on 15x8 wheels look like the sidewall barely stretches and is more vertical than anything. Funk dat.
If you guys have any suggestions for wheels for 15x8 +10 wheels with a nice even stretch (not crazy no 165/45s please) I'd love to hear what you have to say. I am new to buying tires for wide wheels so I'm not sure what stretches well and what doesn't, although from what I've read Toyo, Yokohama, Nexen, and Falken are good ones. But who knows...the interwebs is big and contains lots of bs....so who knows if what I read is accurate.
Scheduled to get the Godspeeds installed on Monday, and will order tires on Tuesday when things open back up. Hopefully receive them by Friday and get the installed. I've purchase a rear SPC camber kit, and will purchase a Skunk2 front camber kit if need be. I'm not sure if I'll need it yet, if you happen to know one way or another please let me know.
I'd like to thank beastmode, TheGman, Pavmentwago, Reaccion, ledler0321 and NJCIVICWAGON1. They have been helping me get some info straight, and I really appreciate it. I wouldn't have my wagon where it's at now without their help. I have a long way to go, but I am enjoying the transformation as it happens.
Everything looks great man! We should have a local meet with a few of the guys near by. Maybe by that lighthouse? lol