Project Steph's 1978 Honda Civic 1200

[amifsud]

Here you go Steph, I finally found and fitted my gauge rings. I only bought them a year ago.

[Steph]

Well done Adrian. For a second there I thought you were posting pictures of my interior, then I realised it was yours!

Love your steering wheel. Your interior is soo tidy, it's a credit to you. Seeing it has strengthened my resolve to fit my deluxe gauges.

Steph

[ASM]

Steph Yo're still on 'matic, that car is a manual! Allthough i think the speedometer is for a hondamatic? When are you going to switch?

[Steph]

I have no plans in the near future, and I may never switch. :dunno

[Thor]

Why should she change, these Hondamatics driven in an appropiate way are no slouches in daily driving.

Yes, you have to develop a different technique, but I enjoy them, and with no significant performance loss in DAY to DAY driving. I'm never last across the lights in one. It's all down to how you use the brakes

[Steph]

... and slowly bringing the revs up with the foot hard on the brake. That way the tool next to you wont cotton to the fact the mild mannered person in the car next to them is about to launch from the lights and take 1st position from them.

OK, I admit it, I've done it, but mainly where the road turns to one lane ahead, and I'm sitting next to one of those ridiculously, oversized 4-wheels drives that have never so much as touched a dirt road, much less needed to engage 4-wheel drive. Some of them are ginormous, and easily 4 times the size of a 1st gen Civic.

[amifsud]

I've got a manual gauge face somewhere, just haven't got around to changing it.

[Thor]

Steph
foot off the brake sideways is faster than bringing it upwards

[Steph]

Over the past few weeks I've been doing a few minutes work here and there on finishing most of my interior. I removed the carpets and put down a double layer of underlay, and then put in an as new carpet I bought for 99 cents on line auctions. It ended up costing me $18 all up including postage! I love on line auctions. The guy I bought it from said it was in good condition, but it looked almost new when I got it, and a really thorough going over with the vacuum made it look like new again by raising some flattened pile around the driver's foot area.

While I had the carpets out I took the opportunity to run some good quality speaker cable back to the rear of the car, and installed my 6x9" 3-way speakers in some angled boxes I bought off on line auctions. The angle of the box allows the sound to bounce nicely off the rear window and forward, so it doesn't sound muffled like they're buried in the back, which is what I feared. I also installed my 8-track, as well as the biggest battery I could fit in the engine bay. It's a 9 plate 340 amp battery that manages to clear the master cylinder by about 2 or 3mm. It took a while to find one that would fit and give plenty of power. I noticed Jay had a whopper of a battery in his car, so I did a bit of research and found out batteries play a big part in a sound system, as they are the power supply, unlike a home stereo which has the power supply built into the amp where the AC is converted to DC, whereas a car stereo just draws the current directly from the battery. I still need to find a decent sized capacitor to supplement the power supply. The change from my old battery which was only about 2/3 the size of this one was very noticeable sound wise, and I immediately noticed the bass sounded far more solid and I could turn it up louder without it getting all wooley and distorted. I'm really impressed with the Honda/Pioneer 8-track, because I really expected it to be quite average, but with the new battery it totally surprised me and put out a really nice sound. I've also noticed the engine cranks over faster too. In all fairness the old battery was 5 years old, so it was getting a bit tired, and it served me well lasting 5 years with air conditioning installed.

I also installed the overhead console with a 1st gen Accord clock fitted in it, which took me quite a bit of time because of my procrastinating over how to get the power wires up from the radio power feed to the roof without any wires showing. I wrote about the install in the electrical section, and I'm really happy I managed to nut it out in the end, especially considering I had been thinking about it for weeks, but in the end doing was the only way to find the solution, but I usually prefer to plan things beforehand, as otherwise I get outside my comfort zone.

Anyway, the interior looks really nice with the black carpet, roof lining and now the overhead console installed. The Accord clock is a great feature, and it'll be a nice to be able to have the small luxury of a digital time display to glance at when I want to know the time. Now all that's left to do is fit the deluxe gauges and the interior will be fully optioned. The only think I want now is a fog light switch to round out all the accessories.

[Steph]

I finally fitted my NOS license plate light and hatch lock the other day. Now the back of the car looks like new. The only problem I have now is I don't want to drive my car in the rain or get it wet. I've even been structuring my days around the weather. I knew this would happen once I had the car repainted and installed all the good bits. Now it's switched from my daily driver, to my pride and joy. Twice this week the car got wet a little as it rained on me while I was down at the shops. Both times I got home and used a bunch of towels to dry it off in a hurry, making every effort to make sure I didn't miss any spots where water could store and promote rust. I even opened the hood and checked for any water that had made it under there. This is the downside of owning a clean, rust-free car... especially when you have an obsessive compulsive side, which I have... hey, this is starting to sound more like a blog entry than a project entry... oh well, sue me. :P