Project Steph's 1978 Honda Civic 1200

[Steph]

I have been doing nothing of late, other than gardening. Charlie my 7 year old Border Collie died unexpectedly 10 weeks ago and it's been hard to get interested in the Civic. Hard to get interested in anything at all. I can't believe how hard this one hit me. I'm still nowhere near over it. Still feels like it was only a week ago.

Anyway, I did however purchase a set of headlight springs with stainless cap head hardware from the much valued Civic Garage. As you'd expect, I stripped the blue finish off which was really hard to get off. I can attest that it has excellent durability. I couldn't get it off the insides but you won't be able to see any of that surface once the screws are in place. I then gave the springs a good brush with a fine stainless 'toothbrush' to break free the paint, and then a rub over with 1500 grit paper and finally a quick buff. I hate buffing small items because they invariable get caught in the polishing mop while I'm polishing and shoot off like a bullet and it can take ages to find the part afterwards. So far I have always managed to find things but a few times I was looking for ages and got pretty stressed (and dirty!) crawling around on the floor. These are the last parts I have to prepare and send to chrome. It occurred to me today that I better do it this week in case there is some sort of shutdown. At the moment my region is good, but they may give everybody some early holidays, even though we are lucky to have never had a person to person issue and everything has been successfully quarantined to date, there is always the possibility things could change. So it's off to the chrome platers.

[Phil]

Very sorry to hear about Charlie. Life can be extremely cruel

The headlight springs look great! I personally love the blue, but your build screams chrome. I can vouch for the quality of the hardware too!

Hope you're coping okay with the covid19 saga. I've been making the most of my time off, pure civic restoration time.

[Steph]

Thanks Phil, I actually think they have it under control here and the shops here are getting more and more back on the shelves too, so I've stopped stressing about it and I've just been keeping busy. I went to Windsor Electroplating to drop my chrome work off the other day and found they had gone out of business. I was telling my brother and he told he works at a place not far from A Class Metal Finishing at Lonsdale and he's going to take it there for me. They're pretty much the best platers in Adelaide but I'm too lazy to drive all the way out to Lonsdale. I got excellent work back from Windsor, but I had to buff out a mark here and there. In fact I used to feel a certain anxiety with Windsor, whereas A Class is a top quality outfit. I had some other plating done there years ago and it was perfect. They charge more, but that's probably one of the reasons they're still in business. Rob over at Windsor Plating used to be soo cheap, that's one of the reasons I went there, but also because it's not too far to drive. He sold the business back when it was still a going concern, then stayed on as an employee. He got out of there intact, but the guy he sold it to didn't do so well. Sad to see a another small business fold. Anyway, I'm hoping my brother is going to drop by and pick up my parts tomorrow and take them in Monday. Gotta help stimulate the local economy!

[Steph]

My brother has all my parts and is dropping them off to A Class Metal Finishers today. I'm getting excited to see all my chrome parts!

quick edit: no sooner had I posted this than I got a call from A Class Metal Finishers where my brother was at 9 am this morning. It's all getting done and I had a good chat with one of the guys there and explained the whole situation how I used to go to Windsor Electroplating and now they are closed. I got the impression these guys are super fussy so it should be good to hear back from them once they see my work and it's all done.

[Blue-Civic-Hybrid]

Looking forward to see your shiny new parts come back!

[Thor]

Come on Steph,
It's time you polished that car off LOL

[Steph]

Hey Pete!

I have been pouring money into it of late. We got all this stimulus money thrown at us by the government so I used it to stimulate the chrome plater's business, although because A Class Metal Finishers have such a good reputation, they had huge amounts of work coming in from all over the country with ever man and his dog restoring their cars during lock down. My brother picked up my last load this week and is dropping it off to me some time this week. It's on the other side of town across the road from his work! So it's pretty hard not to take advantage of him dropping off and picking my chrome up for me. This last load had my valve cover in it, as well as the door latches (I had to gaffer tape my doors closed) and a few parts that my new friend Phil managed to grab for me from his many wreckers visits. It's funny, with social media I was instructing him what to grab and he was sending me photos virtually in real time. It was like I was there looking over his shoulder, also sending him photos out of the parts book so he knew exactly what I was after. I managed to cross every single part and bolt I needed off my list, finally.

I also snagged these two Mugen limited slip diff centres from Japan. Anybody recognise them? They were listed as limited slip diff centres through the translator. The were listed in the Hobby, RC Cars section by mistake (I believe/hope) so I took a punt that they were the real thing and bid and won them. If they are, you'd cry if you knew how little I paid for them. I had them sent sea freight about a month ago, so I'm hoping to see them soon.

[EvoCivic]

I don't think their listing in the RC car section was a mistake ...

[Steph]

I don't think their listing in the RC car section was a mistake ...

We'll soon see. I certainly can't find ANY Mugen RC car parts referenced anywhere online.

Much less for a SB1 Honda Civic diff centre, which is what these were listed as... jealous?

[mielko]

They look very small. I would. Say They are RC parts..