My 89 RT4WD Rust Bucket Restoration
navogaw
Band Wagon
February 16th I picked up my new baby for a grand total of $750. She is a 1989 light blue RT4WD 6 Speed (Super Low Gear) wagon. The car has so much rust, but I am determined to save her.
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or www.civicwagon.org
So up until the point of getting my wagon, I have been driving a 1998 Civic Hatch. I am still gonna be driving her until my baby is up and running. My plan for this build is to get my wagon back to how she was in her prime. There is a ton of rust on rear of the car, including random rust spots on almost every single door and a completely rusted out passenger fender. Nobody understands why I bought this car cause it is so rusty and "ugly", but they just don't see the beauty that all of you and I see.
I just want to state that I have absolutely no mechanical or bodywork experience, so I will be learning along the way.
Well here she is, the first day I bought her. (It was unbelievably cold this day)
Exterior Parts that I need to find include:
-Rear mudflaps (Car came with both front and only 1 rear)
-New Passenger Corner Light (mine is cracked)
-Passenger side mirror (came with a block off plate)
-Genuine Orange Turn Signals (Came with cheap black signals)
-Passenger Fender (Mine is so rusted out)
-Trunk Emblems
-Front Lip (Probably get one off an accord or something)
-Trunk supports
-***RT4WD Stickers for trunk and side moldings*** If anyone knows where to get these I would really appreciate it.
-**Rear Lip (If anyone knows what rear lip off of other cars fit that would be awesome. I am trying to only use genuine car parts and not Ebay cheap shit)
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I removed the front and rear bumpers, along with the trunk to start. The front bumper isn't that bad compared to the rear. It just has a couple gouges and 1 huge crack. The rear bumper is another story.
As I'm grinding away in the really rusty left corner around the taillights, I hit a massive spot of bondo.
The rust turned out to be a lot worse than I thought. I wonder where else I am going to find bondo. -.-
I don't know why I didn't take pictures of the rear bumper, but it had big holes poked in it all over it, a deep burn where the it arches over the muffler, two massive cracks on top, huge high spots and low spots, and the top left portion underneath the tail lights was completely warped. (Hmmm there is something about this left part around the tail lights)
Well I will admit that I am very OCD, so my bodywork has to be perfect. This is it after a basic sand, a thin fill, and a coat of filler primer.
It is looking so much better than this, everything is almost completely perfect. I will post pictures of it finished with a coat of primer. (I won't be painting anything until it is warm outside because even in my garage with a heater it is still around 40 degrees)
He even threw in a front mudflap for free. I also scored four of these.
The mudflaps + Center Caps costed me $80. I thought it was a great deal
I also drove another three hours and picked up an almost mint trunk. Gotta love craigslist.
Spent all day clearing out the garage as much as I could, (my grandmother refused to get rid of a lot of stuff though, even if it was junk or trash). This was the best she let me do.
On the plus side, I did find a vantage skateboard
:P
Good work.
So I posted a want ad for wagon parts since I checked EVERY SINGLE JUNKYARD within reasonable driving range from my house. A guy texted me saying he had some parts for sale and said I should drive up 3 hours to Maine to check it out. Well I did and it turned out to be one of the greatest scores ever. The guy had 2 daily wagons and 2 part cars. He said I could buy anything off the 2 wagons I wanted. Well lucky for me one of the part cars had a mint front end and a stripped the entire thing along with the rear bumper. I also found 8 more center caps but decided to only buy 4 since he kinda wanted a pair. He threw in a pair of 1990 turn signals and I bought an owner's manual as well. This amazing day only ended because I ran out of money. He said when I get more money I can come back and buy more stuff (Like an OEM roof rack, more mud flaps, different panels, and a bunch of other stuff. The entire find costed me........
Wait for it....
$200. EVERYTHING is completely mint.
2 Days earlier I went junkyard hopping and picked up an OEM DA Integra front lip (It is in the picture below the fenders). I'm gonna customize it to fit my wagon's rear bumper.
Oh and yes the corner lights won't fit my wagon and yes they are sort of different colors, but they were free.
My wagon is gonna be like Frankenstein with it's blue hood and roof, gray doors and trunk, and red fenders and bumpers :hopelessness::p
So this is just one of the parts cars.
This is after I stripped the fenders and bumpers. But the entire thing is jam packed with suspension parts, multiple seats, multiple wagon interiors, and other engine stuff. The other parts car is just like this. There was also a big pile of leaves behind the wagon that I sifted through and found a bunch of headlights, tail lights, a couple of the corner pieces that go under the tail lights, an extra mint fender, 2 other rear bumpers, one other front bumper, and one of the sets of center caps.
So I'm currently at a sort of small standstill till I can afford my welder, an air compressor, paint gun, paint, and an engine hoist (yes i'm pulling the engine and am gonna paint the bay along with the entire car). I have a couple colors in mind that I am thinking of painting her, but i'll keep those secret for the time being :devilish:.
After obtaining the hoist, I had to put it to use so I set out on pulling my engine. After doing 3/4 of the pull myself, my buddy helped me with the last 1/4. Note that neither of us had ever pulled an engine before.
It wasn't the prettiest pull ever, but we were pretty proud of ourselves. This thing is diiiiiirty. It is the original engine so it has 26 years of shit built up on it. The next step was to get the engine back to my house. Being without a pickup truck, the next best thing was my hatchback.
Being that my car was already of lowering springs, the extra weight made her sit wicked low.
The ride home was pretty hilarious
Once home I got to work at taking the A6 apart.
I CAN"T GET THIS DAMN TIMING PULLEY OFF (or whatever it is called). I need air tools or something, but any ideas without air tools would be great.
Does anyone have a diagnosis as to why my valves look like this? I think the white residue is from coolant burning up or something. Any ideas would be helpful
Got some engine degreaser and gave it a quick scrub.
I thought of an idea I am gonna try out to get all the grease and shit off it. I'll keep you all posted.
Oh and expect some welding updates as I teach myself how to weld and try to fix my quarter panels
I decided that I didn't want my antenna since I HATE the radio with a passion, so I shaved it.
Next I shaved the rear wiper and welded up the rear badge holes. I also discovered more rust under the rear bumper support that I had to take care of :mad:.
This rust was particularly annoying because it ate through into the trunk, so every time I tried to weld, the trunk sealant would catch on fire :numbness:. But eventually got all the rust welded up and ground off, then I hit it with some primer.