Atom's PNW RT4WD "Sam"
Atom D&D
New Wagonist
Like I mentioned in my intro thread I've been customizing cars in some form for almost 20 years now and my personal cars have gone through various states of customizing and through a crazy string of events I now am the proud owner of a '91 RT4WD wagon. I LOVE it.
The story:
I decided I wanted to find myself an AWD car to use over the winter after my daily driver got rear ended a couple months ago. I've always had a soft spot for the Civic wagon for it's "quirky-ness". What I seemed to find was the reasonable priced ones were pretty hammered. I live in the far north end of Seattle and just couldn't really find one I could afford in my area. I had to pull savings money to buy one since I'm still fighting insurance over the value of my previous car. I have no issue fixing my cars so finding one in moderate disrepair was ok. I found one on Craigslist in Portland and called the guy on it. He swore he was intending on restoring it and had started putting money into it. He also said there was no rust. Both sounded great to me. I sent a friend over that lived in Portland to check it out for me. It was in pretty rough shape body wise, moderately beat up interior and was in 2WD mode with no tools on hand to switch it back and test the 4WD. After some negotiating I bought the car for $1500. I gave my friend $100 for doing the leg work and fronting the cash down there and I hitched a ride to Portland with a buddy from work. Here's what I brought back.
Every single panel had lots of door dings, the drivers fender was smashed in, giant gash in the rear bumper, top of hatch was creased (I think the hinges locked up at some point) and the drivers front door retainer thing (I don't know it's real name) was ripped out and poorly repaired.
Other than that it's had the front axles replaced recently (receipt was in the glove box) and it came with new struts, new front upper control arms, new front lower control arms, tie rod ends and rear control arm bushings.
The work:
First thing I did was fix the door retainer. Which isn't easy cause the exposed sheet metal is not structural. The strong metal is buried.
Next thing I did was install the struts, front control arms and some eBay coilover sleeves (just for now) cause I think I'm allergic to stock height vehicles. LOL. I also am currently borrowing some wheels from a friends Integra that is in the process of getting a bunch of work done.
I couldn't stand the excessively bashed in parts so I sourced a hatch, bumper and fender from an awesome guy in Salem who drove them all the way up to Seattle for me. Great guy. I just got some prime toned paint and sprayed them. The color was a little off.
It didn't take long for all the door dings to start grinding on me. There was a TON. I'm not sure what this car's been through, but I feel bad for it. Soooooo bodywork time.
I want to wait till spring to paint it complete, I can't stand the primer spots and I'm not trying to spend a bunch of money. What to do??
Plastidip.
It'll do just fine for the winter and I like it much better than the calico look. I also like the way Plastidip worked. I got a little "rowdy" putting it on and got a big sag in one of the fenders and doors. I wound up just letting it dry, peeling it off and re spraying. I like it.
I had a friend make me some vinyl decals to replace my tattered ones.
Next on the list:
It has an oil leak somewhere. The distributor has been replaced and it doesn't seem to leak from there, but after driving I can smell burning oil. Not from the exhaust, but from the engine bay somewhere. A guy I know who works on Hondas all the time says the rear main seals go bad. The car has 240ish K miles on it. I wanna fix that.
Cup holders. I seem to keep getting cars with no cup holders. I'll come up with something good.
Exhaust. I really enjoy building custom exhaust so I'll come up with something better looking.
Wheels. I want something more aggressive with more lip, or just lip for that matter. This I'll need to wait for insurance to finally pay me for my wrecked car.
Cargo cover. I'll probably make serving myself. I use the crap out of my cars and pretty much always have something back there I'd like to keep out of people's view.
Tint. Gonna go with 35% bronze colored.
Seats. The drivers seat has plenty of tears. Not sure yet what I'll do.
I'm gonna be totally honest. Between my wife, two kids, two jobs and my Amazon project I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update this, but I promise to do my best.
Adam
The story:
I decided I wanted to find myself an AWD car to use over the winter after my daily driver got rear ended a couple months ago. I've always had a soft spot for the Civic wagon for it's "quirky-ness". What I seemed to find was the reasonable priced ones were pretty hammered. I live in the far north end of Seattle and just couldn't really find one I could afford in my area. I had to pull savings money to buy one since I'm still fighting insurance over the value of my previous car. I have no issue fixing my cars so finding one in moderate disrepair was ok. I found one on Craigslist in Portland and called the guy on it. He swore he was intending on restoring it and had started putting money into it. He also said there was no rust. Both sounded great to me. I sent a friend over that lived in Portland to check it out for me. It was in pretty rough shape body wise, moderately beat up interior and was in 2WD mode with no tools on hand to switch it back and test the 4WD. After some negotiating I bought the car for $1500. I gave my friend $100 for doing the leg work and fronting the cash down there and I hitched a ride to Portland with a buddy from work. Here's what I brought back.
Every single panel had lots of door dings, the drivers fender was smashed in, giant gash in the rear bumper, top of hatch was creased (I think the hinges locked up at some point) and the drivers front door retainer thing (I don't know it's real name) was ripped out and poorly repaired.
Other than that it's had the front axles replaced recently (receipt was in the glove box) and it came with new struts, new front upper control arms, new front lower control arms, tie rod ends and rear control arm bushings.
The work:
First thing I did was fix the door retainer. Which isn't easy cause the exposed sheet metal is not structural. The strong metal is buried.
Next thing I did was install the struts, front control arms and some eBay coilover sleeves (just for now) cause I think I'm allergic to stock height vehicles. LOL. I also am currently borrowing some wheels from a friends Integra that is in the process of getting a bunch of work done.
I couldn't stand the excessively bashed in parts so I sourced a hatch, bumper and fender from an awesome guy in Salem who drove them all the way up to Seattle for me. Great guy. I just got some prime toned paint and sprayed them. The color was a little off.
It didn't take long for all the door dings to start grinding on me. There was a TON. I'm not sure what this car's been through, but I feel bad for it. Soooooo bodywork time.
I want to wait till spring to paint it complete, I can't stand the primer spots and I'm not trying to spend a bunch of money. What to do??
Plastidip.
It'll do just fine for the winter and I like it much better than the calico look. I also like the way Plastidip worked. I got a little "rowdy" putting it on and got a big sag in one of the fenders and doors. I wound up just letting it dry, peeling it off and re spraying. I like it.
I had a friend make me some vinyl decals to replace my tattered ones.
Next on the list:
It has an oil leak somewhere. The distributor has been replaced and it doesn't seem to leak from there, but after driving I can smell burning oil. Not from the exhaust, but from the engine bay somewhere. A guy I know who works on Hondas all the time says the rear main seals go bad. The car has 240ish K miles on it. I wanna fix that.
Cup holders. I seem to keep getting cars with no cup holders. I'll come up with something good.
Exhaust. I really enjoy building custom exhaust so I'll come up with something better looking.
Wheels. I want something more aggressive with more lip, or just lip for that matter. This I'll need to wait for insurance to finally pay me for my wrecked car.
Cargo cover. I'll probably make serving myself. I use the crap out of my cars and pretty much always have something back there I'd like to keep out of people's view.
Tint. Gonna go with 35% bronze colored.
Seats. The drivers seat has plenty of tears. Not sure yet what I'll do.
I'm gonna be totally honest. Between my wife, two kids, two jobs and my Amazon project I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update this, but I promise to do my best.
Adam
Comments
When I do paint it I'm thinking of going a bit darker. Volvo has a metallic brown that is really nice. I think they call it Java Brown or something. I painted the BBSs I had on one of my other wagons that color.
Really hard to see in this pic since the color was messed with a bit.
Next on the list is exhaust I think. I hate getting the car to a point where it looks decent and having the ugly arse exhaust cobbled together hanging under the back.
Adam
I also wiped up all the floor pan with bleach and water. The PO was a HEAVY smoker and everything was coated with smoke and ash and just stunk and was filthy. I had to do something.
Then I Frankensteined together some Prelude seats and my RT seats (I know the pics are bad. Sorry, it was getting late and I just wanted to be done.
I feel much better about things now. The ashtray didn't take well to the dishwasher. I'm gonna need to spray some more color on it. Now I really need to find some decent floor mats. Does anyone know if some other Honda mats are close enough to pass? (Yes, I've tried searching)
Adam
Adam
Adam
Looks proper!
Adam
Now you just need to lift it!
Adam
Between the Prelude rails bolting to the sides of the pan, the RT bolting to the bottom, the need to keep the auto seatbelt parts and doing it at home in my living room with hand tools it seemed like the best route. I'm sure it's possible to do it differently if you wanted go keep the Prelude pan.
No guesses? I'm just curious to see who's watching.
Adam