Matt / rxford's junk.

[RXFORD]

Got it all back togethor and wizzed it over again. Cranked for maybe 10 seconds then it fired into life!

Fuck Yeh, stoked. 

1st of the unknowns ticked off.

 

 

 

[RXFORD]

Shop stunk like fuel when I got into work yesterday, but when it was no better today, I got curious and wondered if the filler cap was leaking or a hose on tank was missing a clamp. Pushed the car forward and saw a couple puddles so got it up in the air.

As soon I crawled underneath I found the culprit. No bloody drain bung fitting. Rookie mistake. Out of all the pre-start checks I did I failed to check the tank, but to be fair, I didn't notice any spillage/puddles when I put fuel in it on Monday but that must have been by fluke as I can see the stain on my floor from what spilled.

Fuckin muppet.

[RXFORD]

Bit of thrash the last couple of days to get this thing sorted for the Jap Meat today. Thursday night was the first time I actually got it up to temp properly and checked fan was switching on/off. Also threw a beer crate in it and made sure clutch worked and it went forwards/backwards a few metres.

Brakes were pretty jammed up and it was hard to push, so I did half a day at work Friday then got busy doing Honda shit. Got it up in the air and pulled rotors off. Dropped them to the local 'we do winz quotes mechanic' and traded him some watermelon I had for a skim. I free'd up the pistons and threw it all back togethor. Whipped the rear drums off and gave them a clean/dust off inside and the shoes a sand up, and free'd up the cylinders. It all look relatively new under there. Put back togethor and bled up. 

[RXFORD]

While it was in the air I thought I'd see if the T2 front swaybar shit I had would work. I know people have done it on a narrowbody city but wasn't sure what hurdles they had.

Unless it was ordered from the factory the narrowbody citys never had swaynar or even the provisions for them. Radius rod mounts on the T2 have the extra bracket for swaybar and were a straightforward swapover, so that was easy. The issue I came into was the swaybar itself hits the main engine crossmember that runs north/south. I think the T2 crossmember has a slightly different shape to allow for the swaybar. I have one amongst my parts hoard but that will be a mission for another day. 

[RXFORD]

Finished up late friday night. Did engine oil and filter as it was black as, then dumped gearbox oil and put some fresh shit in. 

Gave the shitty rusty trim rings a quick polish to look less shitty and threw on the stock rims for Sat wof check.

[RXFORD]

Saturday was a big day. Started off by getting bumper back on and tidied up some indicator/parklight wiring. Swapped over the combination switch from the blue car as the manhattans was playing up and had some wiring hackery. 

Gave all the windows a good razor blade and clean inside & out as they were proper filthy. This revealed a couple more issues. Firstly the passengers door 1/4 window was a plastic replacement and didn't like glass cleaner being used in it. Good thing I had the orig glass one from the blue car, so pulled door panel off again and got it swapped. And secondly a butchered rear view mirror that had been cut off. Luckily the mounting holes were small enough that I was able to drill and tap to m6 to ditch the screws and once again, the blue car offered its parts.

[RXFORD]

This little rubber thingymajig is an optional accessory that helps stop the rear view mirror vibrating and going blurry. It actually works mint so was cool to find one. 

[RXFORD]

Fitted some fresh double sided tape to the  'H' emblem and 'R' badge and refitted to hatch, then touched up the white on the 'Honda' and 'City' badges.

Plus taped on these little door buffer things that the blue car had. I'm guessing they are to stop the paint hitting a wall.

[RXFORD]

Continuing on with last Saturdays jobs...

Quartz/Digital clocks are a popular accessory to have in these cars and fetch decent money for what they are. The manhattan just had a blanking plate, but luckily the blue car had a clock in it. The green tinted lens was a bit faded, so I pulled the clock apart gave it a clean, and wet sanded/polished the lens. The bonus is the looms pre-wired for the clocks so it was a simple swap.

[RXFORD]

The original seats were a bit boring, not to mention faded and tatty.

[RXFORD]

I had been on the hunt for a set of Houndstooth pattern seats for a while. They were only offered in the CityU, which was a oddball sub-model, and the Cabriolet, which had a different headrest. @Pininfarina /Coby from Wellington listed his old CityU for sale  a number of years ago and I managed to work a deal for the seats with him before he sold it and I've had them stashed since.

They are not in perfect condition, but are perfect for the era. I'm stoked with them.

[RXFORD]

Something I didn't anticipate was the Houndstooth seats having a different rear captive nut location and I never got rails with them and of course the stock manhattan rails were shorter between centres. Its about 40mm furthur back. Fuck knows why Honda did this, maybe its a year thing. I checked the rails in the blue car but they didn't work either. 

I figured I'd adapt them, but only had enough material to do one side. Seeing as I'm a fatty, I decided to kick the drivers seat back a bit so factored that into my adaptors. The passengers I just drilled the seat base and put a nut on the back for now. I'l revisit this soon as seats need to come back out to be steam cleaned.

 

 

[RXFORD]

Majority of Citys have a plain plastic inner door panel. The Cabriolet and Turbo2 have insert the break up the pov spec. I had some Turbo2 panels with the plain white insert, but managed to score a pair of Cabrio inserts from a fella wrecking one. Got them swapped over and the panels refitted to doors. Heaps more betterer.

[RXFORD]

By far the coolest thing I have for it so far is this centre console setup. The consoles themselves are not too hard to get, but the original Cassette deck and Bodysonic controller with storage insert that doesn't have a broken lid are ultra rare having only been an option for a couple of models and and expensive one back then. The were made by Pioneer specifically for the City. I snagged this setup complete off Yahoo in Japan.

Its not wired in yet, but I'l be getting onto that soon. 

[RXFORD]

Theres a few stock steering wheel options for the Citys. Top one is standard CityR/CityE and they are a bit boring. I had a Turbo1/Cabriolet wheel (bottom left) and also a the more desireable Turbo2 wheel in my stash but ultimately I'd like to go away from the blue interior, so decided to go with the T1/Cabrio wheel. 

[RXFORD]

Needed to ditch the nosebleed height but adjustables are a mission for another day. 

Concluding my Sat thrash, I finished up in the early hours of Sunday morning doing this neat lowering trick I learnt from @cletus. Nothing crazy, just closes the gap up between tyre and guard.

 

[RXFORD]

Sun morning of the 18th New Years Jap Oldschool Meet I came in early and finished off a few minor things and got some tools and shit loaded up.

While waiting for my folks to show up who were taking the Cordia to the event I decided to fit the Turbo2 bulged bonnet. For whatever reason the latch didn't want to play ball, so I pissed about for way too long on it before finally hitting the road. Bonmet still needs some aligning but it latches ok for the time being.

[RXFORD]

Got there a bit late, but mate it to the event. First time I had actually driven it properly was pulling out of my driveway headed for the meet. The thing cruised mint, no temp issues, no weird noises or smells so that was a relief. It is a bit smokey so I suspect rings or valve stem seals are a bit tired. These cars are only a 5-digit odometer and I'm Pretty sure is been around a couple of times

Prakash parked up with me in his mint CityR and got some snaps. People were buzzing out about the high-roof. It definitely got a bit of attention.

[RXFORD]

Caught up with @Dudley who brought his bugeye kp60 down from Whangarei. And had a yarn with @Lukel200 and @kp60nick who had the Logo and L200 there.

Got sunburnt to fuck but was a good day.