Love it man. Advice on the TA bushings; buy energy ones. The entire process is easier than trying to remove old OEM ones and press in the new ones perfectly. You just take a knife, heat the crap out of it, and use it to continually cut out the rubber in the TA. If it stops cutting, heat it back up. Remove all of the rubber from the arm that bolts to the chassis as well. Easiest way is to just torch it off. I heated it up until it was burning on its own for a few minutes and it peels off immediately. Then press in the new bushings once the arm cools completely, push in the rod back in the proper way, and bolt it back up. Ultra easy to do off the car. I did it with my EG rear disc swap when it was off but I will be doing this here soon with my wagon on the car.
Also, ultra jealous you live in Portland. My wife is from Oregon and I love every chance we get to visit out there.
Greg: Thanks, chickens are rad. I have this on my fridge but I'll have to put it on my wagon when its done.
BKMC24: Yeah I'm deeeeeefinantly doing it different next time. Ps move your ass back. Portland is awesome, its where young people come to retire haha.
As for the wagon I sold my R1 so I can fund the project instead of pulling saved money. I put 10k miles on the bike and sold it for $400 less than I bought it for. Boyeah! So motor and paint here we come.
Oh and also I just woke up hence the coffee but check out the mug my wife made.
Ha, I am unfortunately stuck here for another year. I am getting out of the AF and she has one more year of her masters program but after that, we are going to go where she can get an awesome job. Hopefully out there or Utah.
Still waiting on the trailing arm remover. You'd think the thing was coming from the moon with how long its taking. But with or without it I had to get my wagon fix so I took my parts wagon to a two day airsoft event. My buddies were laughing at it. The good kind of laugh, the one you'd expect from a wagon.
Alright. So here is an update, I've been breaking the hell out of stuff. After having a lot of trouble replacing my rear trailing arm bushings I finally bought the remover installer tool. While pressing the new bushings in I noticed the bushings weren't moving but I could still spin the bolt that presses them. I thought that was strange so I stopped to asses what was going on and realized the bushing must be too big for the hole. Maybe I got a crap brand or something. Anyways, it took so much force to press them in that it actually bent my trailing arms. So now I'm in the process of removing the trailing arms when I get to the e-brake as it comes into my drum. My brother who is really handy was looking at it while I was at my sons first b-day, well he got a little aggressive and broke the clip that holds it in. FML. The other snag that I hit was the front calipers. I had gone into a parts store to see if they had any and they did, so of course I did the core exchange and set the calipers in my garage for a couple of weeks before I got to them. It was about that point I realized the brakes they gave me were different, probably from a 2wd. FML again. So now I don't have front calipers. Then the other, other snag I hit was replacing the coil springs, the car I bought was lowered on some ground control coil overs but I wanted at least stock height until 503-wagon comes up with his new lift idea. As I had posted above, I was having a hell of a time getting junk yard springs so I resorted to buying some from auto zone. They were the only place that had them but they were total rusted POS. I ended up buying integra sk2 lowering springs. I got them on sale so I figured screw it might as well try it out. They are much shorter than stock but well see how they perform I guess. Pretty sure I won't use them tho. I still have my parts car but its still running and driving and I can't bring myself to tear into it for parts.
So at this point Bam explained to me how to remove the ebrake cable and once I do that I can pull the trailing arms and fix them. I'm also going to replace the wheel bearings and all the bushings I can since I'm dug in so far.
Pressing the bushing in.
I got one bushing in entirely. The other was bending so much I didn't even get it close. The guy I bought it from said it was OEM, I call bullshit. These auto parts guys don't know SH*T!
The Sk2 integra lowering springs. Didn't need compressors for this.
Here is a comparison of the calipers. I bought some used calipers to replace the ones I lost. The d*ck sent me one RT and one 2wd. WTF. $40 bucks lost. not even worth my time to complain to paypal.
And here is the shreded...... Idk brake clip holder thingy. Couldn't find a name for it in the manual. I have no Idea how I'm going to fix this! Sigh.
So yeah. This project is taking a lot of time but only because I get something done and break two more things. Been pretty demoralizing but now that the suns out I've been getting into it a little more. Plus my wife is bitching that I play to much Total War Rome 2 Haha.
Keep up the good work. I'm going to be doing a full bushing kit sometime here in the future. At least the stuff regarding the suspension as I'm replacing it. So this info is definitely helpful. I could see myself spending two hours trying to pound something out the wrong direction.
Bkmc24: Yeah after dicking around with the oem bushings I'm doing what you recommended. Its just so much easier.
Greenteagod: Pm me before you start, I can explain it in more detail over the phone. You could do it all in a full day or two if you weren't stumbling through it like me.
Bkmc24: Yeah after dicking around with the oem bushings I'm doing what you recommended. Its just so much easier.
You'll need the collar that holds the factory bushing to be pressed in for the energy ones. Thats what makes doing them so easy. You pretty much torch the old material out, clean it up and press the ES one in its place and you're good to go. I'll be doing mine prob next weekend since I have a 4 day weekend so I can post some pics and whatnot if you want.
Thanks, appreciate it. And bkmc24 definitely pics, always pics =D
Question Hill-Billy, is that cardboard tube to hold the hatch up or was that just something that happened to be in the shot? Just curious as I often see people asking about the hatch struts in the wanted/for sale section, but they can be had new for less than $20 a pop. I guess some people don't realize that replacements for those are still made, or they're just on a tight budget.
Got some stuff done. Wryann at VIP helped me out. So when I was trying to push the OEM bushing in I bent the trailing arms so what I did was pull them off the car and use a spring compressor and a torch to bend them back. It worked amazingly. I thought I took pictures but I can't find them. The other problem I found was that the wheel bearings were shot. Wryann couldn't find replacement Hubs so he actually had to press the old ones out. He said it was a bitch but went smoother than he thought. Also got a hold of some refurbished front calipers and painted them.
Here is where I'm at now. I'm looking at putting the whole rear end back together but the trailing arms are missing some paint and have a little rust. I'd like to hear your guys' opinion on how to keep it from rusting. I've heard a million different opinions just googling but nothing wagon specific. Paint type, prep, etc. Whatever you got hit me with it.
Nice work, has me debating on whether or not I should have tried to tackle the rear bearings while I had my stuff apart. They sounded good though, but piece of mind you know. Either way, keep the updates coming!
As far as trailing arm paint, not so much an issue down here in Texas, the rust thing. But I'd hit any areas I could with a wire wheel to knock off the rust. Wipe down with denatured alcohol. Hit it with some self etching primer, then paint whatever final coat you like on there.
I've had good luck with the rustoleum etching primer and then just some rustoleum black on top of that. And since it's somewhere that doesn't get seen all that often, you just need to make it look as good as you care for.
Every lip at the yard was trashed. I got a hold of one but I'm not sure if I can make it pretty. I also pulled my nuckles today so that I could check the wheel bearings, ball joints and also replace the lca bushings buuuuuut I found this. My CV boots are one light breeze away from falling apart. Good news though, wheel bearings and ball joints are money!
Anyone have an opinion on what boots to use? I noticed they have ones that slip around the axle and glue, are those any good?
I picked mine up from oreillys "Masterpro" was the ones I believed it was the come with a lifetime warranty for as long as you own the vehicle. It's pretty hard to screw up an axle. Though I guess it could be done. But yeah to what bam-bam said.
I sanded and started repainting my strut fork at work. We got a call and when I was driving back into the bays a co-worker moved the forks out of the way. He didn't move them far enough and I ran right over the top of them. Here is the dramatic reenactment.
I would think I could get these off any Civic but not sure. Off to the junk yard tomorrow after shift I guess.
Alright got the front tore apart. Replacing the lca bushings, swaybar bushings, lower ball joints, inner outer tie rods, axles and repainting anything I touch.
Comments
Also, ultra jealous you live in Portland. My wife is from Oregon and I love every chance we get to visit out there.
Greg: Thanks, chickens are rad. I have this on my fridge but I'll have to put it on my wagon when its done.
BKMC24: Yeah I'm deeeeeefinantly doing it different next time. Ps move your ass back. Portland is awesome, its where young people come to retire haha.
As for the wagon I sold my R1 so I can fund the project instead of pulling saved money. I put 10k miles on the bike and sold it for $400 less than I bought it for. Boyeah! So motor and paint here we come.
Oh and also I just woke up hence the coffee but check out the mug my wife made.
So at this point Bam explained to me how to remove the ebrake cable and once I do that I can pull the trailing arms and fix them. I'm also going to replace the wheel bearings and all the bushings I can since I'm dug in so far.
Pressing the bushing in.
I got one bushing in entirely. The other was bending so much I didn't even get it close. The guy I bought it from said it was OEM, I call bullshit. These auto parts guys don't know SH*T!
The Sk2 integra lowering springs. Didn't need compressors for this.
Here is a comparison of the calipers. I bought some used calipers to replace the ones I lost. The d*ck sent me one RT and one 2wd. WTF. $40 bucks lost. not even worth my time to complain to paypal.
And here is the shreded...... Idk brake clip holder thingy. Couldn't find a name for it in the manual. I have no Idea how I'm going to fix this! Sigh.
So yeah. This project is taking a lot of time but only because I get something done and break two more things. Been pretty demoralizing but now that the suns out I've been getting into it a little more. Plus my wife is bitching that I play to much Total War Rome 2 Haha.
Greenteagod: Pm me before you start, I can explain it in more detail over the phone. You could do it all in a full day or two if you weren't stumbling through it like me.
Question Hill-Billy, is that cardboard tube to hold the hatch up or was that just something that happened to be in the shot? Just curious as I often see people asking about the hatch struts in the wanted/for sale section, but they can be had new for less than $20 a pop. I guess some people don't realize that replacements for those are still made, or they're just on a tight budget.
Word. I'll do a DIY if i can remember lol.
Here is where I'm at now. I'm looking at putting the whole rear end back together but the trailing arms are missing some paint and have a little rust. I'd like to hear your guys' opinion on how to keep it from rusting. I've heard a million different opinions just googling but nothing wagon specific. Paint type, prep, etc. Whatever you got hit me with it.
Thanks guys!
As far as trailing arm paint, not so much an issue down here in Texas, the rust thing. But I'd hit any areas I could with a wire wheel to knock off the rust. Wipe down with denatured alcohol. Hit it with some self etching primer, then paint whatever final coat you like on there.
I've had good luck with the rustoleum etching primer and then just some rustoleum black on top of that. And since it's somewhere that doesn't get seen all that often, you just need to make it look as good as you care for.
Going to try and get the brakes finished but an 87 integra just popped up at my local yard and I'm going to snag the lip off of it tomorrow.
Anyone have an opinion on what boots to use? I noticed they have ones that slip around the axle and glue, are those any good?
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1168512,parttype,2288
I would think I could get these off any Civic but not sure. Off to the junk yard tomorrow after shift I guess.