Project Psylocibe 1975 Honda Civic 1200

[Psylocibe]

So I've been wanting to own a mk.1 Civic for many years. I've gone through a great number of projects, always tinkering and getting bored and moving on but I've always known I need a first gen in my life. My opportunity came up last August, when I located an incredibly rough, issue ridden 1975 Civic 1200 hatch. At the time, I didn't really know the differences in the models, but after picking it up and beginning my research I've actually decided that I love the 1200s way more than the CVCC models (not that I'm hating, I've owned 2 2nd generation CVCC hatches before, an '80 rust bucket that I got for free that blew the motor, and a fairly nice '82 auto that I resold just because I really couldn't get into not rowing my own gears). I have also grown to be frustrated at the early/late 1200 differences, and the availability (or unavailability) of parts.

This thread will be an archive of the ongoing efforts it's taking to ressurect my car, and also manage to daily drive it. I'll break each post down into monthly updates to catch up to speed, and then update as progress is made.

As I bought the car:

Mechanically, it's terrifying. The engine purred when I fired it up so I just bought it and off I went. To find out that there's something seriously wrong with the brakes, it's only braking with one wheel right now, and only all the way down at the very bottom. I'm pretty sure that it's the right front that brakes, because if you push down hard and bottom the pedal out the right front locks, it veers, and I crap my pants. It also misfires under load, it feels like spark or fuel related. Oh, also when I let off the gas and coast there is a horrific metallic growling from the rear end. It smells of mildew and rat Whoooosh, there's moss growing in the carpet, and the odometer doesnt work.

I drove this one home 46 miles from Puyallup white knuckled in honest terror the entire way. I made it roughly halfway give or take with my chase car, stopped in Seatac for gas only to find that I couldn't find my phone. Turns out I left it at the previous owners house. It was at this point my chase car went home, so I drove the Civic back in the dark with only a vague idea of where I was heading, got my phone, found it had died, and then proceeed to make the trip back to Ballard flying solo without a lifeline. Good times.

The next day I brought it to work to check it out and noticed something in the parking lot.





Turns out the spare tire well was full of rusty water, the spare tire was missing, the jack and tools had corroded into an unrecognizable hunk of oxide, and the fun discoveries just continued.



But at the end of the day, it was still mine.

[Psylocibe]

I started tearing into the car as quickly as I could. It was hemmorhaging coolant, so off came the timing belt cover to find that the tensioner wasn't even hooked up, it was just flopping loose in there!



Tracked the water pump leak to a stripped bolt courtesy of the previous owner.





Helicoiled it, new water pump, gasket, and belt and the coolant leaks stopped (for now).

About a week later, I had a sudden no start issue. Tracked the problem to the main power cable to the starter, was the original cloth wrapped one and it had gotten so much internal resistance it melted. No fuse issues, replaced the cable and it's been fine ever since.



At this point I was still getting heavy stumbling under load, checked the spark plugs to find someone had put in quad tipped iridium plugs. Swapped to copper plugs, and the drivability got better but still not perfect. But I was on my way.



I began hunting down parts and things on line auctions. I had a helper along the way.



Then decided to replace all vacuum lines.



Swollen line.





Hm.





work in progress.



Then one day my door slammed itself shut and wouldn't open. The issue was the drivers hinges were blown out, so the door's been contacting wrong and the latch broke.



Started looking into the carburetor and found that just about everything that could be stripped, was. I fixed it as best I could, and went on my way.



And with that, we wrap up October.

[Psylocibe]

With November rolling around, and the weather getting worse progress slowed down but didn't stop entirely. I was more focusing on staying dry and not drinking myself to death, living in Seattle the winter blues set in pretty hard sometimes. But there were their moments.



Progress:







One of my favorite hobbies is parking next to things to show off just how comically tiny it is.



This update will also include December, as November had almost nothing else to report.

Was stranded at my friends house with no tools so I towed it back to the shop and found the ballast resistor had gone bad, replaced it and noticed a ton of the on throttle stumbling vanished along with it. Replaced the condensor at this time just because.



As December weather trudged onwards, and with no driveway or garage to work in and it getting colder, progress again slowed down.



It wasn't always bad though, and I found a friend!



And that wraps up December.

[Psylocibe]

One day my dimmer/headlight switch randomly blew apart. I actually opened it up, cleaned out all the old greae that had turned into glue, found all the pieces that had broken, plastic welded them together, put new dialectric in there and it works better than it ever has.











This was the hard part, getting the spring, plastic part, and contact tab pushed down into the rheostat so I could slide this plastic plate back in and redo the lock tabs, then lining it up well enough to slide the rod all the way through.





Continued to have a very poor pedal feel so I tried adjusting the rear brakes. Followers made out of steel. Great thing about aluminum and steel parts sitting untouched in contact with each other for years is they will never seize up



Finally managed to convince it it was in its best interests to come apart.



Cleaned and....lightly lubricated.



Nothing looked unusual so I lubed the backing plates.



Then I noticed a couple unusual things about the rear wheel bearings. Firstly, there wasn't really hardly any grease at all, and secondly I don't think I've ever seen single roller ball bearings on a wheel before.



Repacked, reassembled, adjusted.



And for the first time since I bought the car, it actually has a normal feeling brake pedal!

One day developed a coolant leak, located at the hose going to the back of the intake manifold.

Rest in peace, little OEM hoses





They weren't exact fits but Oreilly's had some that came suprisingly close, close enough to route halfway decently anyways.

[Psylocibe]

March was off to a good start. My girlfriend was finally moving up from California, and we were on track to getting our own place.



The new place had a garage!



So here's the inside. It was a little less private than I assumed, but then I had never actually seen the inside so I was taking it as an improvement over curbside any day. It's got no lights inside or outlets, but there are a *ton* of oil stains on the floor already so Tinkering with my streamlight and magnetic base look like we're good to go. Also nothing *specifically* preventing me in my rental agreement, I checked



movingdaypriorities.jpg. It took a lot of trips, but I actually managed to move almost every single thing I owned with the little trooper including a 47" Vizio flat screen.



One day on some errands the temp gauge suddenly pegged. Boiled over getting it back to the shop.



Replaced the fan switch and OEM radiator cap, the fan switch had peg terminals which of course the old connectors disintigrated on removal and the parts store didn't have any so I stripped some wire and zip tied it to the terminals and it works. No more boiling over but still seems to run warm in stop and go which I understand is the hardest time for heat dispersal.



At the end of March I felt like doing something more than just a size comparison. Replaced the cigarette lighter so I can actually charge my phone, fixed the dome lamp (just years of corrosion) and spent a while just scrubbing the dash down removing decades of grime. Removed, cleaned, buffed and detailed the steering wheel.



even though it's posted above, here again are the dash pics from the day I bought it for a side by side comparison.





Which brings us to April.

[Psylocibe]

In my ongoing quest to figure out my poor power and terrible gas mileage who here would like to tell the class if they see an issue with the linkages at WOT.



Using a carburetor diagram I found online, I discovered that many of the linkages were on backwards, or incorrectly. The accelerator pump spring was flipped so it was holding it down at all times.

Corrected. Idle:



Partial throttle:



WOT:



Also found the vacuum advance canister frozen, and got it freed up and working.

Shortly after that Gas door hinge decided today was the day it couldn't go on any longer and sheared off. Due to the unlikely nature of finding a similar door quickly, I repaired the hinge as best I could with a section of coathanger. Aint pretty but it works.



Hit my emblems with some cheap paint just to try and make them a little more readable. They're in rough rough rough shape and really aren't worth fixing, I'm keeping my eye out for some good ones when I can afford them.





Shortly after...



Wound up replacing every single component in the ignition system, partially because of preventative maintenance, and partly because my testing indicated that everything worked, I had power where I needed it, points and condensor were new and properly set, even replaced the coil after it still had no spark. Pulled the distributor just to inspect, cleaned lubed and oiled everything properly inside. Turned my engine over to TDC to reinstall the distributor, and for some reason this time it finally decided to start for no discernable reason why this time it decided it was fine. However when it fired, I forgot to take my ratchet off the crank bolt and Turning my engine over the crank bolt sheared off. Guess where the rest of it was.



:evil:



A close call.

[Psylocibe]

With April coming to an end, the weather began turning warmer and I noticed that day by day my temp gauge was reading just a little bit higher. I ran a compression test on the engine to check for possible head gasket issues, with the range of 145-155psi all 4 cylinders when hot. I see that it's a bit lower than spec calls for, but because they're even and I haven't ever noticed it actually using coolant once I patched the leaks it was not quite a concern for me right now.

Some infrared thermometer readings along with visual on the gauge.

173*



206, fan first kicks on.



Peaked at 215 at idle, fan comes on for a few seconds, goes off for about 30 seconds, comes back on for about 5 seconds, etc.



At this point I'm assuming that the radiator is not flowing like it should, and I feel like the fan should stay on if it's over 205 rather than cycling like it does? But, unfortunately, as this is my daily driver and 1200 radiators are seemingly difficult to come by I just kept hunting for parts and reasons why it's so warm. I even pulled the thermostat out completely as it's going to be warm the next couple months and I can pop one in when it begins getting cooler again.

Then, about 2 weeks ago I lucked out at pick n pull!











I stripped off everything I could afford, got my 5th wheel/tire, gas struts that actually hold my hatch up along with the plastic covers, the cluster, door hinges to replace my blown out ones on my door, door panels, pedal covers, some corner lights, and some other odds and ends.



I then had to work the next few days, and intended to go back and strip the glass, switches, door regulators, and front struts with perfect strut mounts but by the time I made it back the car had been crushed

Loosened the dash for the cluster swap and the door hinges.



Oh god how did this get here i am not good with cars



Little bit of rounding out in the top hinge pin.



Ditto with the bottom. The door spring is missing on mine and note the wear on the door stop.





'New' going in.



I have a working odometer and trip meter! The guts of the 2 units were actually completely different and incompatible so even though I got the needles off okay, I still wound up having to use the faded display plate because the screw holes were ever so slightly differently spaced and wouldn't work. I did however notice the old gauges had a glass face and the new gauges had plastic so I swapped the glass into the rubber gasket for the plastic and I'll just hang onto the other guts and tinker to see if I can get it working. The face on this one is sunblasted and scorched and also reads both mph and kph, and the speedo I had before was perfect paint on the face and read mph only. Wish I could get it working.



Made vapor barriers and installed the door cards just to feel like I have an interior, these will look treat once I hit them with some Vinyl dye.

[EvoCivic]

You're doing some good work there!

I then had to work the next few days, and intended to go back and strip the glass, switches, door regulators, and front struts with perfect strut mounts but by the time I made it back the car had been crushed

Man, they seem to be in a hurry to crush them don't they. I would have thought that as you were obviously willing to spend money on bits off it they would maybe have hung onto it for a little longer.
Oh well, not much that can be done but don't be upset about the front strut tops as they wouldn't have fitted your car anyway. Your 75 (EB1) uses the early small strut tops and the one you got the parts off is an EB3 (78 or 79) which uses the later large strut tops - not interchangeable. If you do need some new (reconditioned) ones just let me know.
This would also explain why things like the speedo are different (and you'll find the wiring is also a bit different). I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who can help you out with an early speedo (I've got a few but all in km/h).
Oh and you'll probably find that the fuel filler cap won't fit (early ones are different to later).
It also looks like you snagged some roof weatherstrips off the wreck. No doubt they are faded and shrunken. If you want some new ones just ask.

[Psylocibe]

Those are off the door actually, and were in great shape. My roof seals are shot however as you predicted. Noticed the link in your signature and I actually had that site bookmarked for the future once I start needing rubber already

Threw in the new radiator I grabbed out of the blue car to test and patched the broken support brazes with quick steel, seems to have set up just fine.



:(



It actually runs even hotter than the one I had already, where mine would get hot idling but drop back down to the line division the freeway with enough air flow this one just does a slow steady climb to the top. I put my radiator back in to spare the motor even more excess heat, and replaced the lower OEM hose while I was there.



Then I decided to actually make it so I could change a tire since before I didn't have a spare and the jack had clearly sat in water to the point it became a corroded hunk of metal that was wedged in. Liberal use of a pry bar, wire wheel, and penetrant got it actually out and freed up. Wouldnt trust it for under car work but in an emergency I think it'll do fine. Scraped about a half cup of rust flakes out of the trunk and wiped it down after wire brushing the worst of it off.







Ran into this sweet Datsun on Thursday getting groceries.



Which finally brings us up to speed with what I was up to on Friday and saturday. Just doing some stuff. Testing out some wheel paint, gonna try to redo the paint in the center of the hub caps too. Also redoing the grill in semi gloss. Getting some chrome polish and possibly new lug nuts all the way around, can't decide if I want to go with the OEM silver look or maybe a gunmetal or black with the chrome rings caps and lugs.





Popped the grill back in, only a minor difference but with the weather getting nice I'm really trying to push to get things done and make it look not quite so derelict.



Really pleased with how my wheels are turning out.





And that's brought us up to speed to today.

[Bill]

If you take the T/Stat out and then install a larger radiator you are now pushing the coolant through the system faster than it can cool. Put a 170 T/Stat back in place and you will be right where you want to be. I like using a lighted, 3 position Toggle switch, so I can run it off (bad idea), in the normal position where it is only on when the fan is on, (good for monitoring) and fnally in the full on postition, fan on all the time. Yes, it is needed it's California out here...