Project Steph's 1978 Honda Civic 1200

[TREVORM]

lets here it run :D

[steve.ewing@ottawa.ca]

Very tidy.

[Steph]

Yesterday I felt the urge to do something, as I've been couch-bound with an injured back, so I dosed up on some pain killers, and finished painting my RS steering wheel. Months ago I sanded and resealed the wood with a marine spar epoxy, as well as bead blasting the center spokes, so all that needed to be done was to paint the spokes. I had planned on painting them the standard dark greyish colour, but finding a suitable paint that matched the colour proved too difficult, so I opted for silver instead. I had some VHT silver brake caliper paint left over, so I used that. I had to use the heat gun to heat it up and cure the paint, which only takes about 5 minutes of blow-curing... (that's a play on blow-drying... get it?... hmmm, tough crowd). I kept checking it wasn't getting too hot by touching the metal from time to time, as I didn't want to burn or overheat the paint.

Anyway, afterwards I put it all back together, and finally I had an RS steering wheel ready to install.

I want to thank Angel (ac1) for giving me the 78/79 wheel center, which is in, as-new, perfect condition. Thanks Angel! :D

The photo doesn't show the colour of the wood properly, because it's got more of a golden colour to it, as I used a golden-oak stain before sealing it.

[Steph]

and finally mounted and taking the place of my Nardi steering wheel...

One thing I noticed straight away, it makes the gauges heaps easier to see.

[amifsud]

I just saw the gauge rings mounted on your dash, and it reminded me to fit mine. I bought them a while back and never got round to fitting them. Now i'll just have figure out where I put them.

[Steph]

Hey Adrian, they just pop in, it's like a 10 second per gauge job. They sit just inside of the outer 'lip' of the gauge. It's an interference fit.

[amifsud]

I also just noticed that your air conditioning has a vent on the drivers side, how cool is that Mine only has vents on the actual air conditioning unit.

[Steph]

Yeah, it really is great having that outlet there. Does yours have two condensers? Mine has one in front of the radiator, and the other on the left hand side in the standard position. I couldn't believe it when I saw the second one, but I would have expected it to work a lot better than it does, considering it has two of them. I paid a $1000 to have the compressor reconditioned about 5 years ago. It was a total ripoff IMO, but that's based purely on the fact that I didn't want to pay $1000 to have it done!

[amifsud]

Nah mine only has one condenser. But it's not stock size, it's wider, higher and thicker than stock. I bought my air conditioning system from Campbell off this site, but the condenser was damaged, and couldn't find one of the same type so I had to modify the radiator support by moving it to the left side of the car a little so the new larger condenser could fit in. It works pretty well, when I took it to get gassed up, the guy put a thermometer in the air outlet and it got down to 6 degrees. He'd just finished a Holden Statesman before he started mine and said to me even the statesman isn't as cold.

This is what it cost me:
$100 for the whole system from Campbell
$180 for condenser
$40 for the drier bottle
$80 for one new hose and other fittings
$120 for refrigerant gas

All up $520 but this doesn't include wiring, time to install it and other bits and pieces that I had lying around at home that I used.

[toshy]

Glad to hear that the aircon worked eventually!