Restoration 1978 Honda Civic and mods

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 22nd, 2013, 5:38 pm

Well, some of you may remember my journey to Mongolia from the middle of Europe in a 78 Civic 1200 two years ago. I had made a promise to my beloved one if she'd endured the mighty task I would restore her. I'm the man of my word, kind of.. Anyway as work commitments and other projects leave me not much time I decided to give her into professional hands (it actually started last november)

. I'll try to post a few pics of the progress.

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 22nd, 2013, 5:57 pm

Taking parts off shows all the hidden rust. I never knew about them :( At this stage we agreed that the colour would be something similar to the present one (non original). We could find the colour list for Honda's 1978 year. Amongst them were two shades of green. I decided to go for the lighter green (My other half Eve, was not happy). Also this was the time for an unpleasant surprise. My car actually was welded together from two halves. Across right in the middle... Strange. The other unpleasant event was the cracked windscreen, which they couldn't save.

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 22nd, 2013, 6:04 pm

My mechanic is gathering information.....

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 24th, 2013, 4:32 pm

It is easier to work on these cars with small hands!

Yeah! I don't even have to jack my car, just push him underneath

.
Got a lot of pictures, I'll keep putting them on when I've got time. The sad thing is that I can't even see my car being restored, as I live in the UK and my beloved one is back in my home country :(

These pics were taken after sandblasting...

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 24th, 2013, 4:37 pm

Here we go... some more pics...

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 24th, 2013, 4:41 pm

And when I see something like this I know they are doing a proper job...

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 25th, 2013, 4:39 pm

By the way here is a link for a short video about our trip:

I've just realised these pictures actually were taken earlier than the ones I posted last time.. Sorry.

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 27th, 2013, 4:41 pm

I'm planning a few modifications as well. Got the fly wheel machined (about 3 lbs, 1.5 kg less now). I will put double Keihin carburetor on it (from my trusty Triumph Acclaim). 5 speed gearbox (acclaim again), machined head to make around 1:10 compression, Acclaim header, and some of the exhaust. Adjustable camshaft gear. I contacted Colt Cams for a new camshaft. I can't decide. I did some research on this site and some suggest that to same extent even stock camshaft is better than lets say a stage2 camshaft.
I really would fancy a stage3 but without the extra lift, as I don't want to replace the valve springs (at this stage). I've got new rockers to go in though...
Any help, idea would be much apriciated. I would like a nippy, sweet car without too many alternations...

Some pics...

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 27th, 2013, 4:43 pm

Even more pictures...

erdace · Post by **erdace** » September 29th, 2013, 5:04 pm

I like the colour too. It was the nearest original to mine.

My Civic had quite a few parts - how should I put it- not too good... Windscreen broken, driveshafts rubbish, front suspensions dead, light switch/indicator lever fixed with a piece of wire in Siberia, etc. Made some calculations. Even selling my Bentley-s and Rolls Royce-s wouldn't have been enough to cover the cost of the parts, so I decided to buy another one for parts.
Well, it's not very easy in my country. When I bought mine 4-5 years ago there were 8 or 9 left in the country. My chances were not too good.
I alwas kept one eye on the ads. 2-3 months before we were set to go home to our summer holiday, one came up. I thought if it'd be still available in my time at home I'd have a try.
Anyway to cut a long story short I contacted the guy on a monday he says, I sort of sold it... What do you mean? There is a guy coming to collect it on sunday.- I made an offer 50 USD over the asking price and said I would collect it on saturday. The deal was done. Bought it for roughly 500 USD.

The problem was the new darling actually was in much better shape than I expected. It was really hard to get myself to let it break it up for parts. Also this one is a 5 door (1979 by the way) and automatic. You can imagine what I got from Eve breaking this beauty up for the 'ugly' green one.

My mechanic said everything taken out would be replaced with parts from the green. So if we decide to do something with it, it would be drivable.

By the way, by now I hold 20-25% of the country's 1st gen Civics..
Anyone out there who can say the same

?