Popular Post mk2marty Posted June 21, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 21, 2019 We've all done it, right? Spotted something tasty on Trademe while browsing idly on a Friday night? Sometimes, after a few beers, you might even put in a cheeky low autobid just for the hell of it. Well, fast forward two weeks and it turns out no-one else wanted that crunched Accord you were bidding on while a little bit drunk. Damn. Thus, for a stupidly small amount of money, I added another slightly rotten Eighties classic to the fleet. This one rolled off the NZ Motor Corp production line in Nelson sometime in the early part of 1981, probably into the hands of a caring gent who treasured it for a couple of decades, adorned it with a set of THE GREATEST WHEELS EVER M8, and apparently never had a flat tyre because the original Reidrubber Award is still sitting in the boot. Fast forward a few years, it passed through several more owners, and tried to pass through a brick wall which didn't go so well for it. However, considering the reputation that first-gen Accords have for disappearing slowly before your very eyes, this one seems remarkably solid. The wall-inflicted damage was limited to the pushed-back bonnet, radiator support panel, guards and bumper, with the chassis rails thankfully having escaped damage. It was in this state that I picked it up on Saturday morning, drove it to the parents place and tore it to pieces in their driveway. By Saturday afternoon it was sans front, I had pulled the radiator support panel back to where it should be (it helps when your Grandad has a low mile, immaculate one owner example you can take measurements off) and I sprayed rust neutraliser over every bit of metal oxide I could find. The whole structure is surprisingly flexible, everything bent back into place quite easily, and by Sunday afternoon the front was starting to look more like a Honda again, and the bonnet was back to where it should be. It was solid enough to make the trip home, anyway, and to drive it round to Grandad's beforehand to spin Honda yarns and spot the differences between pre and post-facelift Accords. It was already missing parts of the grille moulding and a bumper insert though, which was a bit annoying, and the bits of chrome moulding it does have are bent. Not sure where to get replacements for these, I am unused to the lack of aftermarket support for anything that isn't an old Ford... I did however find some repro indicator/park lamps from a place in Otahuhu that turned up in the mailbox the next day, which was pretty sweet. I'll take some proper photos of it once the rain stops, but here are some phone snaps in the meantime 32 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mk2marty Posted February 14, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 14, 2020 Some good things have happened to the Accord since the last installment! I gave it some CV boots, thankfully the inner and outer are the same size, because both boots on the L/H axle were split. Fun fact - pre-facelift Accords have CVs at both ends, but later ones like this one have tripod joints on the inner. Confused the hell out of the bloke at BNT, anyway. It passed another WOF last week without any hiccups, and we've taken it for decent number of road trips around the upper North Island. I even slept in it after Crate Day, which honestly turned out to be more cramped and uncomfortable than I thought it would be. Still working on tidying up the front end, there's a sedan at a wrecker down country who might be able to supply the grille bits. The passenger side carpet is pretty rotten and it got consistently damp in the rain, which was a pretty good indicator that there were holes somewhere that there shouldn't be holes. I broke the unwritten rule of old car ownership, that being "don't pick at that bathroom sealant, you won't like what's underneath it" and lo and behold after chiselling away the layers of Selley's Bathroom Adhesive in the windscreen plenum chamber there was a decent hole. After taking out the wiper motor I found another hole, so out came the cutoff disc and the welder. Just to be safe I pulled the dash out so nothing caught fire, to be honest this is probably the first time this car has seen the hot end of a MIG torch in its life. I made up a couple of patches, binned them after I found more scabby bits near where I was welding to, and then made up some bigger patches. Glued them in with the metal gluestick, and hit it all with some epoxy. Might spray some underseal in there yet, or I might just spray it all with fish oil and put up with the smell for a couple of weeks. Otherwise it's been plain sailing, the front seats need some more foam because as far as I can see they don't actually have springs in them, just a layer of heavy foam which has disintegrated over the past 39 years. Local content laws dictated that as much trim as possible had to be made here, which is why we didn't get the neat colour coded interior fabrics that everywhere else in the world got, we got beige or beige. I pulled out the amplifier that was tek-screwed through the floorpan underneath the passengers seat and the lil' Johnny spec head unit that was flopping around the dash and wired in with three core house cable, and wired in a period '80s Clarion spindle mount unit - less doof, but more class! It needs a set of TS-Xs for the parcel shelf next time i'm near Buyee.com. Here's some pictures of it enjoying the scenery 19 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mk2marty Posted July 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 26, 2020 One year on from when I bought it, and it's looking a bit more respectable. I bought a grille, front bumper, front air deflector, chrome moulding and column switchgear from the wrecked sedan in Lower Hutt, which has prettied up the front of the car immeasurably. Also, in a feat of impulse buying, I bought some headlight covers from a NOS Honda accessories bloke in Indonesia, who very kindly sent them over just before lockdown. They couldn't go on the car just yet though, because while the grille and surrounds were a lot better than the ones on the car, the surround was missing the left hand corner piece. There was a guy in the States who was selling a couple of corner pieces, and after lucking out of people in this country who might have the right part, I sent him some internet money for the piece of moulding in question. Three and a half months later, it managed to fight its way through the COVID ravaged postal system and finally took its place on the front of another Accord, half a world away from the car it came off. It was definitely worth the wait though! In other news, I fitted some headlight relays because the high beam switch had enough and self destructed one night. Fun fact: the switch is before the fuse in the headlight circuit, so when resistance through the switch gets warm enough to soften the solder on the terminals, there's nothing to stop the wire from falling out and then trying to weld itself to anything that has a body contact nearby. Unfortunately, without drastically altering the wiring loom there's no easy way to remedy this. The best course of action was to fit the replacement high beam switch and run it through a pair of relays to remove the current load. Other than that, there isn't a lot to report. Tune in next time for the valve stem seal replacement and 1980s stereo install, hopefully 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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