[Mafed]

Well, I thought I should tell you with what I'm wasting my free time

But a little Backstory first.
I bought my first Del Sol back in 2015. It was a '92 with a D16z6.
Here known as the 3rd Gen CRX - but we all know a del Sol is not a CRX

Last year a Tire blew on me and I spun out on the Autobahn. I had hit the Guard Rail with ca 80-85 mph two times.

I didn't want to fix the car, especially it startet burning oil, so I bought the cheapest replacement I could find.
A '96 with a D16y8.
Had a little front damage, was sitting for 6 Years and someone tried something against the rust on the rear wheel arches.

First thing I did was getting rid of all those stupid stickers.
I changed these ugly tail lights with stock ones
Replacing the front fenders, front bumper, and new rims.
From the yellow one i took over the whole suspension, exhaust and the Prelude seats

But still the hood wouldn' close and I thougth it needed just an aligment, but no - the whole front frame was bent
I replaced the mask and readjustet the frame behind it.
But now the front fits again

Now I can take care of the Rust issues

Here are the mods I'm carrying over:

• Eibach lowering springs 35mm with new Koni Shocks
• all bushings were changed with PU
• Drilled and slotted Rotors in Front
• Integra GSI Airfilter Box
• B16 Throttle (60mm) with matched IM
• XTD light Flywheel and Clutch
• Header and Catback made by TSS
• 200 cpi Metal Core Catalytic Converter
• 4th Gen Prelude Seats and shift knob
• Civic EG6 front lip
• Stock non Airbag Steering wheel with leather cover
• Mishimoto radiator
• fake wood trim
• some smaller stuff I forgot about

Planned:

• change the s8g (Y8) transmission with the shorter s20 (Z6) transmission
• slotted and drilled Disks in rear
• rebuild the engine with higher compression
• port ans shim the oil pump
• installing some extra gauges

 

[postwarart]

That... is a LOT of rust.

After seeing my friend do magic on my car, I've realized that every golden-era Honda that can be saved, should be saved.
Best of luck! Post plenty of pics!

 

[Mafed]

Sometimes it's funny, what you find when you take apart a car.

I was taking out the seats and removed the carpet yesterday.
There are several cuts in the carpet and through one must have fallen a PSP game (Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters)
and the previous owner had glued foam to the floorboards.
Probably as a sound insulation, but it turned out to be more like a moisture sponge.
I guess that's one reason the floorboards are rusted.

Here are more before pictures of the rust

the bracket that holds the rear bumper was almost completly gone

And I don't know why the Trunk vents were covered with plastic foil

 

[Mafed]

I bought a bottle of chemical rust remover today to try on the surficial rust spots.
Not that after it the whole car is gone

 

[postwarart]

I bought a bottle of chemical rust remover today to try on the surficial rust spots.
Not that after it the whole car is gone

This would be the equivalent of showing up to the Deepwater Horizon spill with an XL bottle of Dawn soap.

 

[drtalon123]

This would be the equivalent of showing up to the Deepwater Horizon spill with an XL bottle of Dawn soap.

I mean, thats essentially how they tried to fix it lol. Heard of Corexit?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corexit

Applied to the ocean by the metric tonnage by plane.

Essentially a surfactant that makes oil on the surface of the ocean able to penetrate the top surface boundary layer of the water, and fall/sink to the bottom of the ocean and stay there.

They didnt clean the oil up, they just swept it under the rug/ocean.

Corexit, kinda sounds like "corrects it", as in "oil companies, buy this shit, this makes your problems go away", essentally the Xanax equivalent of underwater pipeline disasters. Apply enough of it to the surface layer problem, people just stop caring after a while haha.

 

[Soul Engineering]

I mean, thats essentially how they tried to fix it lol. Heard of Corexit?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corexit

Applied to the ocean by the metric tonnage by plane.

Essentially a surfactant that makes oil on the surface of the ocean able to penetrate the top surface boundary layer of the water, and fall/sink to the bottom of the ocean and stay there.

They didnt clean the oil up, they just swept it under the rug/ocean.

Corexit, kinda sounds like "corrects it", as in "oil companies, buy this shit, this makes your problems go away", essentally the Xanax equivalent of underwater pipeline disasters. Apply enough of it to the surface layer problem, people just stop caring after a while haha.

Oh like the 2.5Billion that Boeing spent to cover over the two plane loads of people they killed with the 737 Max.........

Corexit

 

[postwarart]

Well that's a depressing way to end the weekend.

 

[Mafed]

I think it's time for a little update.

It's not the restauration that i want, but i'm a bit in a hurry.
The lift the car is currently on is just lented and the owner wants to move away and take it with him. So I have to get the car rollable until March.

As you can see I mountet the left rear axle.
Complete with new trailing arm bushings by Hardrace and new Wheel bearings.

The axle itself isn't from the green one. It's from a Rover 400 that I found years ago on a Junkyard.
That explains why there is almost no rust

The Rover 400 was just a fancy 4 Door Civic, that almost nobody wanted.

Now I have to do the other side.
Here's what it looks after I brushed the rust over.

I wanted to change the steering rack, because the green one's leaking and the yellow ones just needs new boots.
On this occasion I took out the front subframe and de-rusted it.

He black paint i'm applying isn't really paint, it's kind of a liquid plastic

For the chemical rust remover: It works better than expected, but worse than i've hoped.
Just applying and waiting results in a white film and a bit of removed rust. You have to cover it up with plastic wrap and wait a few hours. I don't know what to make of this...

I couldn't stand the look of my Z6 Valve cover.
A couple of years ago I painted it golden with rim paint and it started chipping off, so I bought black paint with hammertone finish.
In the end it looked as if I was hammered while painting.

So I did what thousands of other people already did: I painted it red
Had some leftover from a Mazda I once did.
For a little contrast I grinded down the paint of the lettering and logo.

 

[Oldcivicjoe]

Pretty fast progress considering the level of rust you are dealing with👍

 

[Mafed]

Yeah, I'm really satisfied with my progress.
Didn't think I would come so far so fast.

Here's my latest progress

Not that beautiful, but it works.
My Father always used to say (roughly translated): Anyone can do a Job, but botching takes some skill

I have already sealed it up and the rear axle is also back in.
The only things I have not yet are new parking brake cables and brake hoses.
I had to cut the cables to get the axle out and unfortunately new ones are currently out of stock and the Rover ones which were on the axles, don't fit.
The brake hoses are porous due to the age, but I want to have some stainless steel ones anyway

And I found more foam below the carpet

 

[Mafed]

The upside of owning a Car Repair Shop is: If there is nothing to do, I can work on my on car.
The downside is: I don't earn any money without customers.

So here's my progress in the last 2 Weeks:

I took out the Tank and what a surprise - more rust.

I brushed that off and sealed it.
The Tank itself is pretty rusty on the top, so i put the Tank of the yellow one in it.

The bottom of the Trunk is also done. I weldet the Piece from the yellow one in it.

The left rear wheel arch is also almost done. A little piece on the inner arch is still open.
I cutted out the rust in a large area, so I could remove and seal the rust on the inner body.

The inner arch is also taken over from the yellow one.

After that I adapted a repair panel and welded that in.

Not my best work, but also not my worst.
I'm looking forwart to be finished with the welding by next week, but I guess it will be too cold for a paintjob for the next few weeks.

The interior is also almost back together. I ripped out all of the foam and took the carpet from the yellow one - its a bit more worn, but not damaged.
I left out the drivers seat yet, because I have to access under the steering wheel.

The two front bolts of the drivers seat were snapped, one I was luckaly able to remove with a plier, but the other one - no chance. Therefore I took the easy route and cutted out the section with the thread out of the yellow one and welded it in the green one.

 

[Mafed]

The welding is done.
Unfortunately I was a bit in a hurry, so the end resuld is - to put it mildly - unsatisfying.
I think I got cheated with the repair sheet - I believe it's for an EG.
The transitions to the door don't really line up and the back piece i cutted off is clearly not for a del sol tail light.

I also welded the inner wheel arch too far to the inside, so the rim stands out more on the right side than on the left side.
You only notice it first when the car stands on the ground

I don't want to apply pounds of Bondo, so I'll try to push them out with a cheap fender roller that i ordered.
If everything else fails, I'll get some fender flares

 

[postwarart]

I think that's the perfect excuse to go wider, anyways.

 

[Mafed]

OK, I must admit that I never worked with a fender roller before and it shows

First attempt:

I had to cut the inner wheel arch to get the fender a bit "straight" out

Second attempt:

Still awful, but better

That was second to last saturday, last saturday I startet to fill the gap on the drivers side with fiberglass-reinforced body filler.

2 things I've noted since I used it the last time:
first: they changed the color from Pink to green
second: they scam you with the packaging. I opened the can and it was just half full. The tube of hardener wasn't any different.

While the bondo was hardening, I thought I could disassemble the engine.

I drained the oil and it was pitch black - considering the fact that it was new and ran for a maximum of all in all around 20 minutes.

My impact gun couldn't loose the Crankshaft Pulley, so I had to get creative

As the bolt was out, the pulley won't come off. So I tapped it just slightly with a hammer - and I chipped a bit off.
I hope the Z6 Pulley is the same, otherwise I'll get an Lightweigth one (maybe).

The intake valves on cylinder 3 and 4 are pretty oily. I hope its just the valve stem seals and not the valve guides.
Valve guide replacement is also one thing that I never had to do before.

But here is what really concerns me:

I hope its seeable.
On all 4 cylinders there is a spot where the sleeve looks like polished.
Usually a sign that the pistons are tilting and in top dead center you can push the pistons a bit to the side.

I used to own a 1989 Ford E150 with a 302 with the same issue and it was gone with new piston rings, but the sleeves looked better.

If I feel over the spots I don't notice any difference, but that doesn't say much.
Unfortunatly I don't have the tools to measure out the bore.

Since I want to raise the Compression, now I'm unsure if I should get 75mm standard size Pistons and hope for the best or if I should get 75.5mm oversize ones and take the block to a machine shop.