1979 Honda Civic Restoration and Modification

[koosjer55]

Couple of nasty things today; placed back the old stock front sway bar again and found out that the right mounting bracket is touching the inner wheel's edge. Apart from the grinding noise it causes it actually shaves off the powder coat when steering it max to the left. Not nice. Pretty strange that the other side shows about 8mm more space on the same spot :?. Maybe when the wheels are going to be aligned it solves this problem but I'll get back to it next week.

What isn't nice either is that my front (NOS) shock is leaking a bit of oil. NOS isn't always good.. Quite a bummer since the shock is shortened and a "new" shock has to get shortened too.

At the end of the day I started up the car again and heard the exhaust is almost rattle free, but not quite yet. Bit of bending will probably do the job. The exiting part is that I stepped on its tail for the first time and darn, it's fast :shock: 8) ! Though the sprint was only 80/90 meters long it's very direct and goes like crazy! I'll film it next time.

Well, that's it for now. Nothing on this car comes easy, but we're getting there in the end

Cheers!

Stephan

[koosjer55]

Well, replacing and shortening the new to buy right front shock will take a couple of weeks cause my buddy is a bit busy :( ...gives me some time though to search for a shock that isn't over 30 years old. Don't know if the holiday trip with this car to Italy (+/- 1600 miles in total) will still be doable, which is in 6 weeks from now and the car still hasn't have any proper test drives yet. Hmmm :?

Any way, yesterday I put on the standard license plates, including the black (Euro) license plate base. Not a huge fan of it, but with the chrome lights attached it doesn't look that bad at all Since the car is full of black accents, it kinda blends with the rest. Maybe - after passing MOT - I'll change them for the smaller - what we call "American" - plates, though I'm not allowed to have them. Oh well, the cops have to catch me first

PS: installed the NOS trunk cover today..sorry for the poor iphone pic quality...make some better ones next time.

[koosjer55]

Today I received my smaller "American" type license plates so I can eliminate the rear base plate again after MOT. Though not allowed for my car, they will definitely look better and are worth the risk of getting a fine 8)

[koosjer55]

was a possibility, but yellow is fine with me.. anyway, is this nice or a bit too much?? :?

[koosjer55]

Not too much going on, but fortunately I have a "new" shortened shock, so the car is back on its wheels
Next week it's holiday time. Civic is staying home, but MOT and all that stuff can be finally done when we get back home, so there's a realistic chance we can cruise this summer 8)

[koosjer55]

Dealing with a little set back with the shocks again. For the second time I've got a leaking front shock (right side) :? Fortunately I recently bought a pair of new ones (also not that old) on line auctions, so my buddy Dennis is going to shorten both again (need to replace both, cause the rod of the new pair is 20mm wide instead of the oem 18mm). He assured me the shocks' seals can't get disturbed while machining and rethreading the rods. Hopefully the new set isn't going to cause any trouble anymore, otherwise I'll go for custom-made shocks. Oh well, be back in business soon

[koosjer55]

Updated dimensions.

[koosjer55]

Hi all, car is a driver again Replaced the front shocks. My buddy already shorten 'em with the usual couple of centimetres, but afterwards I found out that the lower spring seat was mounted a bit lower than standard. Instead of shorten the shock further we decided that is would be better to weld a stainless steel spacer on top of the upper spring seat. Otherwise the car's ride height would lower again and I didn't want that. As you can see on the pics it all turned out pretty well. I also followed Squale's tip and mounted the Escort strut mounts after a bit of modification. Thanks for the tip Squale! :D Cause of the bearing ride height is slightly higher, and if I knew that earlier we could have decided to shorten the shocks a bit further instead of the spacer, but it's good enough for now.

Still plenty to do engine-wise (needs to be fine-tuned, cause sometimes after turning it off after a lets say half hour drive the engine makes a couple of strokes and that sounds really nasty :?). Already replaced the spark plugs and carburetor are getting synchronised within a couple of weeks.
Oh well, since fall started it'll stay inside most of the time till spring is knocking on the door...and by the way, the new daily driver isn't a punishment either

Enjoy, cheers, Stephan

[koosjer55]

Little update;

Just got these sweet original headliner speakers (4 Watt ghetto power!!!) for a good price! Now my Pioneer setup is complete.

Gave it a little black paint, so they look as new 8)

[koosjer55]

Click 'n' go Will do the wiring later on...