SiRedge's 1986 Honda Civic Si

[SiRedge]

After a bit of prompting from people who know these cars, I decided that since it's going in to have a bunch of rust fixed all over the place, it'd be a good idea to go looking for more in the usual trouble spots - might as well get it all done at the same time.

 

The boot cavity is seldom a problem. The seam around the rear hatch (under the hatch rubber seal) however, IS. As is the cutouts where the tail lights come thru the body. Water sits in the sponge insulators and rots things out.

 

So with this in mind, this morning I pulled out the boot hatch seal to have a look:

 

 

There are a few patches, but it doesn't look too bad on the whole.

 

A bit in the upper left corner:

 

 

A patch in the lower left corner:

 

 

And a little along the bottom edge:

 

 

I'll need to take out the tail lights and have a look in there as well - hopefully it's in the same sort of condition as most of the rest of the car - patches here and there on the seams, but pretty minor. Maybe I'll get lucky and there won't be any! A guy can dream. LOL.

[SiRedge]

Recently I acquired a set of floor mats out of an AH Civic. They were covered in filth, but after a fair bit of cleaning product, elbow grease and liberal use of a water blaster, they've come out looking quite reasonable.

 

When I first got them:

 

 

And after a clean:

 

 

The colours won't match with my interior of course but whatever, interested to see how they look in the car!

[SiRedge]

Time for a little rust update (click for bigger images).

As previously mentioned the idea was to check behind the tail lights for rot, as this is a common trouble spot with these. But I've been fortunate in this case - there's no sign of any rust which is great.



There was a couple of small rust holes around the rear hatch seam, which will be patched (you can see the piece of steel that will be welded in sitting on the bumper):



The rust in the rear passenger window seam has been patched:



There's still a little work needed before it can go to paint - sunroof hole, bonnet, and other prep work, but it should be ready next week. Exciting!

[SiRedge]

Greetings, reader.

. . .

Hmm? You still here? There's nothing to see . . .

. . .

Nope, nothing at all . . .

. . .

Oh alright alright, jeez! Here it is ready for paint. Picture dump!!











I've been told I can pick it up tomorrow afternoon. Excite!!

[SiRedge]

Well . . . I've got the car back again. Short version? It just looks incredible, blown away with how good it looks.

It needs to be put back together again and given a good wash - that'll have to wait until I'm back from the Coast unfortunately.

But in the meantime, here's a little sneak peek:

[SiRedge]

Well, things have been rather madhouse for me over the last couple of weeks - along with several appointments to attend (and ladies to attend to ), I've been in the process of moving house. So much crap involved with it . . . not a lot of fun! Still got a heap of sorting to do, but because I'm now finally in the new place, along with all my stuff, I don't have to do it all straight away. And I really wanted to get the Civic back together again!

 

Reinstalling the roof lining proved to be just as tricky as getting it out, much as I expected. There was many swear words used, and even with my Dad helping me out it still took several hours to get it in and have everything back together again.Then once it was back together, the sunroof wouldn't lock closed properly. The glass fitted in exactly where it was meant to, as expected, but when closing it the lever wouldn't lock it closed, and it was a little loose. I had no idea why it was doing this, but since I was busy moving house I wasn't able to look into it.

 

Today was my first free day for a while, and it was a cracker of a spring day too. I started out sorting through boxes of crap, but soon got sick of that and decided to go play with the Civic instead. Something posessed me to look at the sunroof locking bracket again, see if I could figure out what was up with it. I was extremely surprised (and delighted) to discover that, upon partially unscrewing the bracket, it could be slid forward or backward nearly 10mm - clearly a built in adjustment nobody I spoke to knew about. I slid it back and tightened it up again, and presto! Sunroof now closes perfectly. Great success!!

 

I celebrated by giving all of the interior plastics a clean (as best I could manage without taking vents etc apart anyway), and then vaccuming it out - the whole interior was full of dust and crap from having been at the panel shop for two weeks. Tomorrow morning I plan to give the outside a good wash and clean the windows on the inside as well . . . then it's time for some pics!!

[SiRedge]

Washing happened, car is clean. Time for the post paint reveal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . and a couple of JDM style blossom pics, for the hell of it:

 

 

 

As it happens, today also marks five years since I've owned the car - I don't think there are many better ways to celebrate than this. Love this car.

[SiRedge]

 

 

Pretty sure it was only the clutch cable giving up, but still, not the best.

[SiRedge]

So, a little update. Clutch cable replaced, no trouble there, so the car is driveable again.

 

However . . . it's also had a little issue lately I've wanted to have looked at. The car starts fine and runs normal. As it warms up and the temperature gauge on the dash is approaching normal, but only in a narrow temperature window, the car won't hold idle - the engine stops. This tends to happen when pulling up to a set of lights when the car is getting close to operating temperature - stop at the lights, gearbox in neutral, clutch out, the revs just drop off and the engine stops. When this happens it isn't easy to get started again - it usually needs several attempts before it will catch. Ironically, it quite often does this at the intersection of Montreal and St Asaph Streets - right outside Honda. Must be a sign.

 

If the car isn't warmed up yet, it doesn't do it. If it's warmed up past that stage, closer to and up to operating temperature, it doesn't do it either. It's only in that narrow temperature window and only if the car is asked to idle. I can sometimes tell it's in that window if it's a bit hesitant or slightly jerky in gear at lower rpm, like if the oxygen sensor isn't quite right or something. Anyway, I've wanted to have it fixed because I can't really drive it to work like that - it keeps conking out at the same roundabout or set of lights and I wind up with people stuck behind me honking their horns - not ideal.

 

Anyway, a mate of mine mentioned distributor. Uh oh, I thought, here we go.  Anyway, Honda has taken a look at it for me, and it's pretty tired out. The ignitor and rotor are pretty well had it, and the vacuum advance unit is no better. Realistically, short of a brand new dizzy, the whole thing ought to be rebuilt / reconditioned. The trouble is, parts are quite expensive, if they can be found at all, and I'm tight for cash. Anyone got any connections? No guaratee this will solve the issue, but it's going to have to be done . . .

[SiRedge]

Welp . . . Can't get any parts ever for this thing. Dizzy is tired out and has to be replaced or refurbished. Honda can't / won't, so it'll be up to an auto sparky to give me some kind of solution. Stall issue could also be caused by coolant temp sensor, and that part is no longer available - Honda also say they can't find any aftermarket part there either. So, long story short . . . Honda fixed the clutch cable and nothing else. Dunno how I'm going to solve the rest of these issues.  

[SiRedge]

Picked the Civic up again from Honda this evening. The clutch works again, excellent. Drove home and it didn't conk out . . . but probably more because I didn't let it than anything else! Anyway, got home no problem. Adjusted the warm idle screw up a little bit as it was a bit low - it mightn't make any difference, but it can't hurt. It's going into the auto sparkie on Monday for them to take a look at it. I'll have the dizzy reconditioned, and might as well get them to have a butchers at the alternator while it's in there. Not going to be cheap, but there's no alternator-tive.

[SiRedge]

Well . . . the Civic made it into the auto sparky, although not without protest. Half way there, in heavy traffic, and sure enough the engine died. I was just rolling to a stop in the queue of cars, so I let it stop before trying to start it again - fortunately after 10 - 15 seconds of cranking (and giving it plenty of throttle) it started again, but it wasn't happy about it. The engine was running very rough, wouldn't idle smoothly, and I knew if I took my foot off the throttle it'd just die again. So I kept a few revs on the clock and after a few moments it settled down again, and I got to the auto sparky without further incident. Fingers crossed it's easy enough to fix!

[SiRedge]

Just had a chat with the auto sparky. They found a vacuum leak between the vac box and the vac advance unit - fixed that, and it seems to have fixed the fault. They've got a new distributor cap and rotor on the way - they told me the dizzy itself looked fairly serviceable on the whole, with only the rotor and cap obviously needing replacement - the rest looks fine for now which is good news. I'll have new leads thrown on, and hopefully be able to pick it up tomorrow night all going well! The guy was enthusiastic about the condition of the car too, saying it's the tidiest he's seen in a long time. All good news for me, looking forward to having it back again!  

[SiRedge]

Welp . . . it's not fixed. Sigh. Spoke to the auto sparky just before. Vacuum leak is fixed, dizzy cap and rotor replaced, and it's still conking out. The guy says the LED on the ECU isn't working at all, so he can't see if it's throwing a fault code or not. He's checked fuel pressure, which is holding strong at 30psi, even when the idle misbehaves, so it's probably not that. The fact that it only happens in a relatively narrow temperature window means it's probably temp sensor related, but still yet to be determined. Many sigh.

[SiRedge]

Updating this and . . . the car is still in the shop. Sigh. They couldn't work on it for a couple of days because they suddenly got swamped with jobs. They then removed the fast idle valve and intake manifold to have a look. Intake mani was pretty clean, but the fast idle valve was fairly gunked up, so gave that a freshen up and back on the car. They started it and let it run, and it didn't fault, but since they didn't take it for a drive they couldn't be sure it was fixed. So the guy decided to check the coolant temp sensor by unplugging it with the car idling. It immediately replicated the fault, very rough idle (like an old car on too much choke on a cold morning) and didn't want to rev. So they want to replace the sensor as well, just to be sure. The only trouble is finding one - nobody seems to have one to fit, which is a nuisance. Hopefully a simple solution presents itself, I want my car back!

[SiRedge]

Car is back home . . . for now. A new temp sensor has been sorta bodged in place. It'll do for the time being - essentially, I'm to drive it around this weekend, and see if it faults. If not, then a more permanent adapter for the new temp sensor will be made up and slotted into place, and job's a good 'un. Fingers crossed! Good to have it home anyway though, definitely going for a celebratory hoon tomorrow! Any 03 folks keen for a dort later tomorrow?

[SiRedge]

A gold star goes to forum user chris r, who, out of all the places I'd posted about this issue (even a dedicated Civic / CR-X group on Facebook), was the only one to suggest the coolant temp sensor. Fixing that seems to have nicely fixed the issue. It needed a new dizzy cap and rotor anyway as those items were in sad shape, and plugging the vacuum leak was good too, but it was the new sensor that stopped the stalling. The car's running great now, and for a good price too. Well done to Tower Auto Electrical, and thanks again Chris! I owe you a pint. 

[SiRedge]

Hi guys, been a while.

Gave the car a good wash yesterday, then took it out for a drive and some photos:

Full album here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskUyiqy

[SiRedge]

Ancient thread bump . . .

Not much has been happening with the car of late - meeting someone rather special, getting engaged and then married will do that I suppose! There aren't any big plans for it for the future either way though, just keep and enjoy it. But I'll throw a couple of pictures up for the hell of it:

 

Taken on a very recent jaunt down to Lake Tekapo, where the car performed perfectly - a pleasure to drive. Good economy too - under 6.5L of 98 dinosaurs per 100km.