My (insert clever project name here) introduction/build thread!
therichisgood
New Wagonist
So about a month ago now, give or take, I picked up my 1991 RT4WD. Coming from the Volkswagen world, there has always been a bit of a friendly rivalry between the Honda guys and us around here so it's a little weird to have a Honda key dangling from my key chain.
Nevertheless though I love this thing and plan on hanging onto it.
Now about the car... as mentioned it's a 1991 RT 5(+1) speed manual with 142xxx miles. I live in Canada so this car is actually an import but it was done so back in 91. How do I know? I bought it off the (kind of) original owner and have about a 2 inch thick folder with literally EVERY receipt for every dollar spent on this thing since new, along with all of the importation paperwork. Normally an imported car is a deal breaker for me for a bunch of reasons but I couldn't pass this up being as clean and well documented as it is.
So what happened was, the original owner a few month back, decided to trade this in for a brand new car at a higher-end dealership. The sales manager knowing this wasn't just an everyday Civic "bought" it so it doesn't sit rotting away at the back of a lot, lost in the surrounding crowd of Audis and BMWs. He "owned" it for about a month before I picked it up and that was that. It runs a drives great with only a few little kinks to get worked out, but all of which I plan to iron out being the perfectionist that I am.
Here is the latest shot of it from just the other day.
Nevertheless though I love this thing and plan on hanging onto it.
Now about the car... as mentioned it's a 1991 RT 5(+1) speed manual with 142xxx miles. I live in Canada so this car is actually an import but it was done so back in 91. How do I know? I bought it off the (kind of) original owner and have about a 2 inch thick folder with literally EVERY receipt for every dollar spent on this thing since new, along with all of the importation paperwork. Normally an imported car is a deal breaker for me for a bunch of reasons but I couldn't pass this up being as clean and well documented as it is.
So what happened was, the original owner a few month back, decided to trade this in for a brand new car at a higher-end dealership. The sales manager knowing this wasn't just an everyday Civic "bought" it so it doesn't sit rotting away at the back of a lot, lost in the surrounding crowd of Audis and BMWs. He "owned" it for about a month before I picked it up and that was that. It runs a drives great with only a few little kinks to get worked out, but all of which I plan to iron out being the perfectionist that I am.
Here is the latest shot of it from just the other day.
Comments
Blown speakers = not being able to turn the volume up past 1
Scored these on CL for $20
I knew this was gonna be an issue
No problem, bust out a hole saw
Like a glove
Everything fits back like OEM
But as for this thing being optioned out, I wish! It's just run of the mill, nothing special except for the fogs and AC.
I really wanted those rear speaker pods too but after seeing how much they cost, I'll be holding off until the more important stuff is taken care of. Plans for this thing include getting it cleaned up to my standards, suspension and wheels probably in that order too.
I noticed some water leaking into the hatch area when it rained. After some research I figured the tail light seals were gone.. Sure enough they were. There was water IN the tail lights even, this is what came out of just one.
67cents and a trip to Michael's later
Tail lights removed, old gaskets peeled off and everything cleaned
Traced
Old VS new
The mating surface being all filthy-like
Nice and clean
After reinstalling both tail lights I noticed the left rear brake light bulb socket was corroded so I'll be replacing that next time around.
I was in the middle of a minor tune-up the other day and when changing the spark plugs noticed oil on the top half (ceramic) of two of them. After some research it turns out that the culprit would be the tube seals. I ended up buying an entire kit consisting of the the tube seals, valve cover seals, all of the press-in mounting seals and a couple O-rings which I'm not sure are for.. Anyway so since I had the valve cover off, and the paint was a little flakey, I figured I'd repaint it.
Here is the before. Not THAT bad but still a bit of an eye sore in an otherwise clean engine bay.
Hit it with some good 'ol aircraft aluminum paint stripper.
The OEM paint was literally falling off.
After going over it with a toothbrush and brake clean, it was ready for a new coat of wrinkle black.