Project Steph's 1978 Honda Civic 1200

[moldy]

Hi Steph - you don't know me yet - but I'm down in Tassie. I just haven't been active on this forum for a while because I'm overseas at the moment. Just wanted to say that the car looks great - it's great to see another super looking civic down under. By the sounds of it, I'll be bugging you for lots of advice when I get back to my car in August.

If you're interested, a pic of my civic is here: viewtopic.php?t=10371

Richard.

[Steph]

Heya Richard,

I know who you are, as I've read your 'project' thread before, with particular interest in how the 'Civic' stripes turned out on your car, seeing we both have the same colour etc. I just had another look and I have to say, I'm seriously thinking about following suit. I look forward to hearing more from you soon

Steph

[Steph]

Pulled my front wheels off today, and then I de-greased the wheel well and used a high pressure cleaner to blast all the muck out. I'm not sure if Honda applied a coat of sealant/body deadener to the wheel wells, or whether it was just 32 years of accumulated road grime, but it sure was thick whatever it was. Once I managed to blast it all off I was happy to find that there wasn't a hint of rust in there, and the original paint was still intact and looked good. From there I painted on body deadener really thick in the hope of reducing road noise. I eventually plan on utilizing all methods of reducing cabin noise, and this was the first stage. On the weekend I'll do the rear wheel wells and fit my new wheels at the same time. Oh yeah, I painted the calipers so they didn't look daggy through the 8-spoke Watanabe rims.

Steph

[bob78cvcc]

Looking good. Makes me want to paint my drums and calipers & support beams too.

[freakynami]

Looking good indeed, very fresh look coming together there

[Bill]

looking good! keep up the good work, it is very inspiring!

[Steph]

Thanks guys :D

Today I had the rear shocks, rear drums, wheel bearings, brakes hose, well basically everything replaced with new, as well as new steering rack boots and tie rods fitted, plus a wheel alignment. It was really difficult to find suitable rack boots, as all the universal fit versions didn't have a balance tube nipple fitted, and they all seemed to be cheap and nasty, quality wise. In the end I found a product called the Rakboot which was made of excellent quality material, as well as having the nipples fitted, so I bought those. For those of you who don't already know this, the rack boots have a balance tube running between both boots, because when steering to either side, one boot expands while the other contracts, so the air from the contracting boot is transfered to the expanding boot, thus creating a closed system, and eliminating the need to draw dirty air in.

http://www.productsthatwork.com.au/prod ... t-info.php

Tomorrow I'll clean and paint my rear wheel wells, and then finally fit my new wheels

Steph

[Steph]

FINALLY!!!

I suspect that because of the heat we endure in summer, the springs over here sag about an inch more than those found in cooler climates. If you compare the gap between the tyre and the guard with that of Jay's car, you can see there's about an inch difference.

Here's Jay's fitted with the same size and profile tires as mine.

[Mike S]

Well, you've come a long way from when you were seriously considering 15 x 6.5 V-teks with 195/50-15 tires!

Wheels look great. Period appropriate and no bling.

MS

[ASM]

Those wheels look great Steph. You're getting together a real stunner there!