Beautiful ❤

 

Crisp! Did you retain the factory orange peel or is it as smooth as glass??

 

Thanks Jorge. Pictures don't do it justice.

Thanks man!

She's smooth.

 

Looks amazing, and panel fitament and the lines are so good!

 

When's the C5 gonna be ready??

 

Thanks! The fitment should get even better.. there are a few adjustments I'll make when I do final assembly.

I'll be lucky if the car is running by the end of the year. I'm not even sure exactly what I'm going to do with the motor at this point.

 

The mailman has been pretty busy in my neighborhood. All of the new badges/ emblems and decals showed up this week. She's looking more like a real car every day.

 

Took a break from working on the car.. I spent the last week on my boat and just got back in town. But I nstead of going back to work yesterday I started reassembling the interior. I'm surprised that I remember how to put everything back together considering how long it's been apart.

You can probably guess that I started by spending way too much time cleaning everything. I also decided it would be a good opportunity to replace all of the "gasketing" for the heater/ air conditioning/ and fan assemblies before installing the dash.

Before installing the rear side linings I made sure to install my new OEM power antenna.

I managed to get most of the interior plastics installed. I'm waiting for a good sized order of new trim/ molding to arrive before I can tackle the doors.

I installed a complete set of faux CF trim.. but I'm not too sure I'm a fan of it on a 98. There's a good chance I'll eventually remove the pieces and go back to solid black. I'm leaving them for now to see if they grow on me.

It's all about the details. I kept an eye out for a nice OEM spare for a long time and I finally got my hands on a clean example. It's just a stupid spare tire.. but I'm pretty happy with it.

While I was digging out my trunk mat I stumbled across my hoard of floor mats. Glad I bought all of this stuff while it was still cheap.



The ITR trunk mat and OEM rear strut bar combo is pretty hard to beat.

I also had just enough time to bolt up my Recaros before my wife made it home from work. She's not a fan of the Recaros.. hater.

 

Looks like you have the rear jdm strut bar with the plastic covers? I want that so bad.

 

X2!!

CaR is looking great! Nice work OP.

 

I got started a bit to late on my restore. I need all those mats and WOW! never would have expected the pricing! Good job on the build man!!!!

 

Looks great. At least if your wife doesn't like the seats it means she cares about the car enough to not like them ??? I don't know. Actually looks like a car again and not just a shell.. you must be happy.

 

When I finish the car I'll be posting a lot of spare parts for sale. I have a couple of spare rear strut bars that I'll be selling and at least one of them will have the covers.

Yup prices are a little insane right now. Probably selling at least one set when the car is back together. Thanks man!

Lol. Hardly.. But it's definitely nice to see the car coming together.

 

Oh **** yes, this is the kind of OCD I live for. This thread makes me want to go buy a cheap ITR and rescue it but I have my hands full already.

 

I read every single page of this thread. Every single page.
It's so bad to see that they stole your ITR, but if they didn't, you wouldnt have this cool story to tell us. :D

Btw, car is looking great right now.

Btw, you should put some grease on that fan, and you should put some perfume on filter so get some nice smell.


Keep us updated with your car. And have a good luck!

 

PM'd.

 

Outstanding build.

 

Yea keep it up

 

Just do it. You can spend years barely chipping away it too. Lol.


I hear you. I probably wouldn't have had the heart to tear down the car on my own if it hadn't been stolen. Still pisses me off, but hopefully she ends up better off. Fan has been greased btw.

Replied.

You're too kind Tom.

Will do. As soon as this order shows up I'll have a lot to work on.

 

For the last few weeks I've been working with a local engraving company to produce a perfect replica of my original badge. Shout out to Mikey Bitanga for sending me pictures of his badge (98-0413) to use as a reference. Our badges have the same digits and the engraver was able to produce an exact match by using Mikey's pictures.



It also helped having an original badge on hand. A while back I bought the badge from Steve aka B18C5Power's old car (99-0059.) The engraver was able to use it to perfect the font size, engraving method, and spacing.

Side note- if you bought 99-0059 from Steve and can prove it I would be more than happy to get your car's original badge to you.



Anyway, the engraver nailed it!



I've had the new armrest stashed away for a while. Looks pretty good with the new badge.

 

Just went through every page

 

Meet your twin. Fantastic build thread.

 

Thanks guys.^^

I finally managed to get my doors put back together. I should have wrapped them up a long time ago, but I hit a speed bump in the form of a few pieces of discontinued door sash tape. These are the pieces of vinyl that are applied to the top and sisde of the door panesl to fill in the areas that the moldings leave exposed. Fortunately, Alex (Silver_gs_R) was able to source them on his side of the border. I had a hard time finding any installation instructions for the sash tape, and the service manual makes no mention of them that I'm aware of. With a few of the pieces discontinued I was a little hesitant to just go for it. Jonathan (Danger_19) saved the day and sent me some pictures that were pretty helpful.



I'm not sure if I managed to get my hands on the last complete set of sash tape pieces, but just in case I saved all of the backing to use as templates. I also know the exact 3M vinyl that was used by Honda so it should be pretty simple to produce replicas for future restorations.

Next I installed new window run channels and all new moldings for the door panels/ windows. Tom B recently posted a great write up for the run channels in the ITR forum and the other pieces are pretty self explanatory so I won't bother going into great detail.



I cleaned the insides of the door panels, installed new door glass, reinstalled clips and plugs, rerouted the wiring harnesses, and spent way too much time with a wire brush removing overspray from the lock and latch bars. I also regreased the window regulator mechanisms while everything was easy to get to and installed new door seals. This was one area where I strayed from factory. Rather than using the Honda "goo" to secure the door seals I used cord weatherstripping. The stuff isn't messy, it's the right consistency for securing the plastic, and it's easy to remove years after it's been installed. A 90' roll is about $5 at Lowes or Home Depot.




I finished up by installing my mirrors and door panels. She's starting to look pretty damn good!

 

Good call on the door liner weatherstrip, the crap Honda used from the factory was absolutely disgusting. I used that exact same weatherstripping roll when I replaced my door liners on both cars a few months back. I had some issues with it separating over time though, so I think I may end up switching to a black butyl strip next time I have the panels off since it's a lot similar but stickier, just something to watch out for.

Edit: Switched to black butyl tape, MUCH better than the white stuff from Lowes.

 

Fantastic!! Looks like a working car and not just a shell at least from what I can see from here Beautiful