Havent updated in a while, I picked up a Honda Civic with light collision damage to fix and sell so I can replenish my car fund. Money was getting low and I have a deal with my wife that i dont pull project money from the house funds. Those mid 90's Civics have a pretty good resale value with the tuner crowd so Im hoping for a good profit. Im just about done with it so I did finally get a few days back on the Plymouth. We finally got the decklid, doors and rear fenders on, primered, and sprayed with guidecoat. Now for a lot of wet sanding and hopefully some color in the near future.
I was painting a 95 Honda Civic I bought to get it ready for re-sale and ended up with 1/2 gallon of Corvette Red left over so I found a good use for it. Now all my interior parts and wheels are done. Pardon the ****py cell phone pics.
Not much exciting to show but lots of wet sanding going on. It took about 10 hours just to do the door and part of the cowl and quarter. I dont know if its Nason primer or that I let it dry for a few weeks before starting sanding but this stuff is really hard to sand.
Time to pay the piper for all the budget priced bodywork I've been getting on this. I had a deal with my bodyman that when he got the funds to build a new motor for his 87 IROC that I would help him and let him use a garage space. He's ready and he grenaded the 305 so were putting together a 355 sbc with 10:1 pistons, a Lunati cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM heads and a modified factory tuned port injection. Now he's working on the 48 and I'm working on this.
I finally made it all the way around with 600; I had so much wet sand mud on the car I couldnt tell if it was good or not so I pushed it out and gave it a good scrubbing. Im getting close, just have some touch up spots to go over. I was also looking at my wheels and decided I dont want them painted so I dropped them off at the powdercoating shop.
I got a few things bolted on; coil packs, MSD, sensors. It's starting to look like something. I still need to figure out an A/C compressor. I've seen some exaples of the the GM pancake compressor mounted with S-10 brackets on an LS1 to get it up high. I'll probably go with that.
Finally after 4 years I got some paint on the car this weekend. I think it came out nice; next step to finish up the doors and decklid and shoot them, and then onto the front clip.
We got some time in on this one the last few days. The door and trunklid jambs are painted and we hung them back on the car. Over the next few weeks we'll finish up a little work on them and get them painted; then start on the front clip. <!-- / message --><!-- attachments -->
Thanks! Once it's all painted Im hoping it'll move faster. With having someone else do the body and paint you're kind of at the mercy of their schedule. But he's really cool and has given me a great deal so I dont mind waiting on him. It's time to get the front clip done and painted so the first order of business was to figure out how it all what parts to use and how it all went together. I've got tons of parts for this thing but I wasnt the one who dis***embled it so I was scratching my head on how it all went together. I had the fenders on it before but never had the full clip together with all the little inner panels and braces. I painted the insides of the fenders and grill with POR 15 a few days ago. After rooting through several boxes I got all the good parts sorted and figured out which ones were going on the car. I also made a trip to Lowes and bought all new bolts rather than trying to clean up the old ones. Finally it's all together and we can start getting it ready for paint. I think I'm just going to build new inner fenders and mount the battery in the trunk. The factory ones wont even come close to fitting around the engine.
Happy Newyears!!!! How is this beauty turning out now? More pictures!!!! Vidios of when you have her running down the road!!!!
It's coming along slowly; we finally got all the dings out of the front clip and got some primer and a guidecoat on it. Just need to wet sand and put some color and clear on. I hope to do that this weekend. Unfortunately it's a long way from a road test; probably a good year. Funds are scarce so Im focusing on finishing my 51 so I can have a driver this spring.
No need to rush especially when your doing a complete rebuild. I have been working on my step-daughter 95 Honda Civic which had a B16 VTEC engine implant before she ever got it. Its funny, the car stopped running about a 1 1/2 years ago and everyone (mainly the wife family members and some friends) who call themselfs mechanics tells the wife that they dont know whats wrong with it but are willing to ask to buy the car just for the engine. If the engine doesnt run then why does everyone want to buy it? For the past 3 months, I got tired of it sitting there not running so I started working on it. I already knew what the problem was 1 1/2 years ago but the wife thinks that I dont know anything about anything. The problem was with the engine wiring. Whoever did the engine transplant didnt use the right gauge wires, used multiple wires to make one long wire, bad grounds and not protected going thru the firewall and sitting on the engine block melting the plastic. Using rugular scotch tape instead of electrical tape and not using the correct wire connectors. I worked on the engine wiring for a week replacing each wire one by one the ay it should have done the first time. The wiring looks so good now that it looks like I bought it from painless wiring. The front grill/bumber is a fibergl*** racing one and it was so bad with cracks that I had to redo that and I have never worked with fibergl*** before. It actually came out looking new but I added extra fibergl*** to all of the areas on the backside that looked to me to be week points when you attach it back onto the vehicle. I know I need to make and add a support bracket to it since all that holds it to the vehicle is the 5 upper lip bolts and two side screws that goes to each fender, one screw for each side. Since I had the grill off I basically said to myself that if Im gonna do this that I might as well start sanding the engine well area and paint it that the same color as the exterior color is (Purple when the car used to be white). Now I find myself redoing the whole car sanding, bondo the areas that have dents after I have pulled out as much as I can. A little project has turned into a big one when all I was going to do was get the engine running. I am learning alot about body work and what I have learned is that you have to take your time and not to rush. This week, I will be removing the moonroof and clean that out and adjust it to rise higher when I put it back in. Right now, it rubs against the roof when opening and closing so that the roof has two big s****e holes. Anyways, I cant wait to see yours running soon and see it on youtube. I really do enjoy seeing your work.
I know about the funds being scarce right noe also. The wife and daughter seem to think that money is easy to get and easy to spend. Wait, they are females so money is easy to get because we give into them when they ask for it, LOL. Heck, I would love to be working on my mail wagon right now but instead I have to maintain the wifes hummer, pay for all the damage that the step-daughter does to the 2010 Nissan Sentra because she is now 18 and has a car so she wants to drive all of her so called friends around and be stupid. Funny, never saw 90% of her so called friends until we got her that car last year. Here I am now fixing the Honda Civic for her so that the wife can take the Nissan from her so that she wont have to drive that gas eating HUMMER all around. I would love to be working on my mail wagon (project) but seems like I am always fixing and maintaining there vehicles because they want to show off and drive like idiots.
Hah! I hear you, Sarge. Honey do's seem to pop up at the wrong time; for sure. That Honda should be a good little car; i just bought one of those, put a head gasket, fender, and a quickie paint job and made a couple grand on it. The ricers love that V-tec engine. This is definitely a long term project; it'll probably be a good year before I hear the engine run but Im plugging away at.
It's been a while since I got to put some time in on this one; I spent a few hours wet sanding the front clip and had to rebuild one of the hood hinge mounting edges. Feels good to see a little progress again.
Yeah, last week I did a major garage cleanout, m*** throw away, and sold a truckload of parts. I havent had this much room in several years. With the 51 done for the year and space to work I hope to make some serious progress on this one.
i like the idea of letting him have it for the day, and if he and his wife want to get frisky in the back seat just lay down a drop cloth lol.
Hah! Well, Mike and his wife are in their 60's so i dont imagine it would last long enough to make too much of a mess.
Been working on the hood several nights this past week; finally got it to where I could put some etching primer on it. I'll do the other side in a day or so.
The Jalopy Journal
