Venting it couldn't hurt. I remember having problems with the main relay in my old Civic, but it was always on hot days when the car sat in the sun and heat soaked for a few hours. If I parked in the shade or the weather was ~75° or cooler, there was never an issue. I used a microscope and looked at the solder joints on the relay that was removed from the sedan. It does look like there are circular cracks around the pins in the PCB.

Big thanks to @94 Civic Si for posting his A/C troubleshooting and climate control removal DIY's. I'm thinking I have the same A/C related symptoms that kicked off those threads. Did resoldering the pins on the climate control fix your A/C issues?

A couple of weeks ago I dropped off the car at the A/C shop. The tech cleaned out the leaves, acorns and debris that collected around the evaporator. He then recharged the system and got it working, but mentioned something about the compressor not consistently kicking on when he was testing. Fan speed 4 hasn't worked since I bought the car. The tech told me that with most cars, the high speed setting usually forces the compressor to turn on when the A/C is turned on, whereas it cycles on and off with the lower speed settings. He replaced the resistor, but fan speed 4 still doesn't work. He told me to take the car and drive it a bit, then let him know what I think.

The A/C worked when I picked up the car and it was functional the following day when I drove it to work. Both days were in the low to mid 70's. I drove the car to work again this past Friday and the A/C was intermittent. It stopped blowing cold as I was getting on the highway to sit in stop and go traffic, which sucked. It started working again once traffic let up and then stopped working again about 10 minutes before I arrived home. I drove it again yesterday with a similar experience except this time the A/C didn't work at all for the first 30 minutes of driving. It finally started blowing cooler air, but by no means would I call it cold. This lasted another 20 or so minutes until it switched back to hot air. Then as I was a few miles from home it kicked back on and was blowing cold air like it should.

When it acts up, I can sometimes mess with the buttons on the climate control and get it to start working again, This may just be a coincidence. It's really hard to say. To me, it seems like it's related to the electronics in the climate control. I think I'm going to tackle this project next. The climate control also has a burnt out light which can be addressed as well.

 

I don’t know anything about your issue specifically, but based on what you’ve described, I think reflowing the solder on the climate control board seems like a good idea.

 

Yes - 100%

 

That's really great to hear, thanks. This is what I'll be working on this coming weekend.

 

So I worked on the climate control this past weekend. First I removed the climate control from the DX hatch since it was easily accessible, and I wanted to have it disassembled and its parts available incase I needed to swap something over to the sedan's climate control. I was curious about the fan speed selector switch since I knew there was a problem with the switch in the sedan. I checked the continuity between the pins at each of the 4 speed settings and then measured the resistance. There were all quite different with one measuring ~90k Ω, two others were ~350k Ω and the last one was around 1M Ω. Then I opened up the switch to see what was inside and found that the contacts were just dirty and slightly corroded.




I removed the old grease and then cleaned the contacts with DeoxIT. Then applied some fresh silicone grease to the contacts. After cleaning and reassembling the switch, the resistance between the pins dropped to low single digits.

There must be a decent amount of current flowing through the fan selector switch since it was starting to melt the plastic shell where the fan switch clips into the climate control housing.



There was really nothing else remarkable about the climate control from the DX hatch. The solder joints had some minor cracking around the switch pins, but everything else looked good as far as I could tell.

Then I removed the climate control from the LX sedan and right away I saw the fan selector switch had gotten hot at some point and it was seriously melting the plastic shell.



The switch itself was even starting to melt and blister.



I opened it up and found it to be in bad shape. There were deep grooves in the copper pads and the contacts on the switch arm were worn down considerably. The contact for fan speed 4 was slightly chard, so this switch is obviously junk.



The PCB also had problems with the solder joints for the switches. The most severely damaged joints were found on the A/C button, as well as the recirculate button. They looked ok to the naked eye, but under the microscope you see the extent of the damage.





I spent the afternoon on Sunday hunched over the microscope de-soldering the pins to all 8 buttons and then resoldering them. I even found some cracking on the 14 pin connector, so I repaired all of its pins as well.

Then I started looking at the wiring harness for the sedan and noticed that the fan speed switch was melting the wire connector.



I assume the wire harness from the DX hatchback is the same as the sedan's. The pinout is the same, and they both use the same wire colors. Only the part numbers are slightly different. According to google, the last number in the third string of characters may possibly signify which subcontractor manufactured the part.



I'm waiting for some new OEM bulbs to arrive at the dealership so that I can fix the backlighting. Then I'll plug it back into the car with the wire harness from the hatchback and test it out for a few days before reinstalling the lower console.

 

Wow! Amazing how much damage there is from just being used / age.! Good work..!

 

Yeah, no kidding! I reinstalled the climate control earlier in the week and took the car for a 20 minute drive. Everything worked normally including the highest fan speed setting. I'll try to drive it a bit more this weekend to make sure that it continues to work before reinstalling the lower console.

I had some new 6.5" speakers arrive to put into the doors. The stock speaker baffles had to be cut out and now I'm working on the adapter brackets. It's going to be a really tight fit.

 

I managed to get the door speakers in a few weeks ago. The spacing needed to be fairly precise so that the speaker sits far enough into the door to allow the factory grill to clip onto the door card and not make contact with the rubber surround, but not so far that the magnet makes contact with the window.

I worked on a couple of different constructions for the mounting bracket before settling on this. It's a 1/16" steel plate with (4) M4 x 30 mm bolts welded to it.



This allowed me to bolt the 3/8" polycarbonate spacer ring and speaker onto the bracket and then screw the whole thing into the door. Closed cell foam was used as a gasket between all of the mating surfaces.



A couple of small strips of sound deadening were applied to the outer door skins along with some acoustic foam directly behind the speaker.



It's a super tight fit. There's only a couple of millimeters between the speakers surround and the mounting clip for the grill after everything is in place.



I used the hatchback to test fit everything before installing it into the sedan. You can see here that the rear of the speaker is only about 5 mm away from where the window would be positioned if it were rolled down into the door.



Lately I've been hearing and feeling a clunk in the passenger side front wheel. It's usually just a single "click" sound similar to the noise that a bad CV joint would make. It sometimes happens when I pull away from a stop, or I can make it happen more frequently by slowing to a stop and then reversing the car. I checked the suspension components and couldn't find anything to explain the noise. I replaced the axles thinking that must have been it. It was quiet for a couple of days on the new axles, but now the car is doing it again.



CHD 10 is only about a month away. I was originally planning to take the CL this year since it's a bit faster than the Civic and is less likely to hold up traffic. Unfortunately, the heater core started leaking over the summer, so I'm going to park that car until I can remove the dash and fix it properly. In the meantime I've decided to try my hand at wet sanding the paint on the Civic. One of the previous owners gave it a backyard single stage paint job. I removed a lot of the oxidation last year which helped clean it up a bit, but the paint still had a lot of orange peel and haziness that penetrated deeper into the surface.

I've been using 1500, 2000 and then 3000 grit to wet sand by hand. Then I switched to a DA polisher with compound and a heavy cut microfiber pad. Then I'll switch to a fine or ultra fine foam pad with polishing compound and then finish with wax. I'm really happy with the results so far. The trunk lid, roof and hood are done. Now I'm working on the passenger side fender, doors and quarter panel.

Hood Before


Hood After


Fender and doors sanded.


Fender and doors after cutting compound.


I'm really looking forward to getting this done so that I can see what it looks like in the sun. The paint used to look flat. After a couple of passes with the cutting compound the metal flake is starting to become visible.

 

It's been a while, so I thought I'd post an update. We made it out to the Classic Honda's meet in October.



A couple of weeks after that I ordered and installed the ASR rear sway bar kit.



Then in December I started searching for parts to upgrade the brakes. Locating Integra knuckles from the local salvage yards was bigger task than I anticipated. After 6 weeks of searching, I was finally able to complete the set from two different salvage yards.

Harbor Freight had their Icon ball joint tool on sale, so I grabbed one to help disassemble the knuckles. It's a lot bigger than I was expecting, however it does fit the Civic/Integra knuckle (just barely) and the kit contains the correct size adapters.





Once I was down to the bare knuckles, I then tried to clean them up with a wire wheel before powder coating. The left side knuckle must have been from a southern car. It cleaned up reasonably well. The right side however, still looked bad after cleaning. I decided to try Evaporust to see if it would help, and I was surprised how well it worked.

The photo below shows the original condition from the salvage yard, then cleaned with a wire wheel, then the lower half dipped in Evaporust for 5 days. It took almost 2 weeks and 2 gallons of Evaporust to clean the knuckles.



Here's the parts that have been collected so far:
- Integra knuckles
- OEM wheel bearings
- New snap rings
- New ball joints (these will be replaced by the Hardrace roll center version)
- 4th gen EX 15/16" master cylinder



I'd like to find new dust shields and I still need to decide which hubs and studs to use.

While looking for the knuckles, I was also searching for disk brake trailing arms. The trailing arms have been much more difficult to locate. The salvage yards that I've spoken with either don't have them or the bolts are frozen and they won't remove them. There's some local Integra's being parted out on FMB, but the communication sucks and it hasn't lead to any serious sellers. Plan B is to pull the trailing arms from the DX hatch and do the conversion with the Scarebird kit.

I pulled one of the drums off and found that this car has the HON spindles, so now I know what I'm working with.

 

Hot.

This gen civic had some really cool colors that complimented its body lines. I think your blue and camellia red are two of the coolest colors Honda produced.

 

The blue has grown on me. I would liked to have had a grey one. I think there was a Phantom or Horizon grey available for the sedan.

Someone on FBM got back to me on Friday and I was able to pick up a set of Integra trailing arms.



They came apart fairly easily except for a few of the M6 bolts that broke on the dust shields. I think I can drill those out without too much difficulty.



The right side spindle is marred up. It looks like someone might have tried prying the hub off at one point. Is it worth using this spindle in this condition, or would you look for a replacement?

 

What a project! Crazy attention to detail.

 

Oof it's hard to imagine wtf someone could have done to cause that damage to the stub axle. I think since nothing slide on that surface (the bearing does all the work) you can probably just smooth it over a little and make sure that back face doesn't have a burr sticking up that could damage the bearing seal... then put fresh hubs and send it.

If it was going to see track I might think twice but I think you'll be fine for road use.

Clean car man.

 

Thanks, I think I'm going to smooth it out like you said and try to use it. I've spoken to a few mechanics that all seem to agree. It just sucks knowing that it's gouged up the way it is.

I got the rear brakes stripped down and cleaned up. I let them soak in the Evaporust for a couple of days and they look as good as new.



One of the pistons was badly rusted, so I started looking for an aftermarket rebuild kit that included the seals. Oddly enough, it's easier to find rebuild kits for the Type R calipers. Rock Auto sells a kit that says it's for a GSR or Type R which includes pistons and seals, but then the specs say that it has the larger 34 mm piston. I bought one to measure it myself, and it turns out that it is in fact 34 mm. I sent it back and will just buy the OEM piston from the dealership and try to find the seals separately.



These past few weeks I sort of got side tracked trying to learn how to zinc plate my old hardware. It gets expensive buying new bolts from Honda and sometimes you can't find some of the specialty parts. I've had my eye on the Caswell kit for a long time, but was never ready to drop the $400 on the starter kit. I started looking around online and found that you build a decent setup with several household materials. There's quite a few writeups on how to do it. I had to do a bit of trial and error to find the right electrolyte mixture that would work for me.

The materials that you'll need are zinc anodes, which I got from Amazon. You'll also need epsom salt, white vinegar, sugar, a small bowel, some thin wire and a bare piece of copper pipe or bar stock to hang the parts from. Then of course, you'll also need an adjustable power supply. There's a bunch of inexpensive switching power supplies on Ebay and Amazon for under $50 that would be perfectly suitable electroplating. As an option, you might want to add a cheap aquarium bubbler to help agitate the solution and remove any small air bubbles that might stick to the part when it's submerged into the bowel.

I had to mix a few batches of the electrolyte solution to dial it in. If the salt and sugar content is too high, the plating becomes rough and bumpy. After backing it down a couple of time, I was able to get a finish that was reasonably smooth.



I've found that 50 mA per square inch of the parts surface area is good target. It will still look good up to 100 mA per square inch, but the edges of the part might get dark and slightly rough when the current is too high.



After 10 or 15 minutes of plating, I would remove the part(s). They'll have a rough, frosty appearance when removed.



You can see the zinc crystals under a microscope.



Next you'll have to lightly "buff" the surface to remove the frosted look. I'm using a Dremel with an assortment of small, soft wire wheels. Underneath, it will have a bright shiny appearance. I learned more recently that you can then plate it again a second and third time to increase the thickness of the zinc. I've read that each plating and buffing cycle is called a "strike". The important thing is to buff it after each strike. You'll also want to move the location of the wire hanger after each strike to plate over any shadows that the wire hanger leaves behind.



The part that really prompted this whole plating interest was the e-brake return spring from these old calipers. The ones I had were rusty and gross looking. If I was going to spend the time to rebuild and powder coat the calipers, I wanted the hardware to look good too. I learned that with plating, you also have to fight that "Faraday" effect just like you do with powder coating. The inside of spring didn't want to plate, so I had to nearly double the current to force the zinc to adhere in that location.



It seems like Honda used a goldish color zinc plating back in the 90's when the cars were new, but nowadays I always receive the silver ones when they're bought new from the dealer. I actually prefer the silvery finish, however I still wanted to learn how to achieve the gold effect. It turns out it's a chromate layer that can be clear/blue, yellow, olive or some other colors. Again, it took some trial and error and I eventually found that the mixture requires an acid, sulfuric acid in my case, to etch the surface of the zinc and initiate the conversion process. It only takes dipping the parts for a few seconds to get the nice iridescent gold color. Leave it in much longer than that and it will turn a ugly dark brown.



The whole process of stripping, zinc plating and dipping the parts take about an hour depending on how rusty the bolts are to start with. The yellow chromate needs about a full day to cure and harden after the parts are dipped.





Now I've gotten distracted and I'm wasting a lot of time removing bolts from the engine bay to dress up.

 

Nice work! I've toyed around with trying this myself before but never got to executing. FWIW, Honda used cadmium plating until the late nineties (when most everything but aerospace moved away from it). Cad plating is great stuff because it kind of smears and provides a little bit of a self-healing effect but the process is quite toxic so you can't really get it done anywhere anymore.The later silver stuff is all zinc.

 

You're absolutely right, and I should have mentioned that. Instead of making your own yellow chromate, I would highly suggest buying the solution from Caswell for ~$44. It's likely uses a trivalent chromium and is much safer than my home-brew concoction.

I didn't know that about the cadmium coating, but it makes sense. Things get phased out as the EPA restrictions tighten. I'm starting to have mixed feelings on the gold vs. silvery zinc plating. It does kinda look good as an accent color in the engine bay.

Oh yeah, and I've decided to just swap the B18C out of my old black Civic and into the sedan. So I can stop wasting my time trying to pretty-up the D15B7. The B series should be way faster for me to complete. I'd love to do a K series, but there's just too much research that I need to do before I can take on a K swap. With the B series, I probably just need to replace all of the rubber seals and gaskets, and it will be good to go. My goal this this year to complete the brake upgrade and hopefully finish the swap before the Classic Honda's meet in October.

The red hatchback got rolled out of the garage so that I can replace the heater core on the CL. The hatch turned into a low priority since it needs quite a bit of body work, and right now I really don't want to pay to have it done.

 

Nice, thanks for the tip on the chromate.