Due to an accident, I'm actually in the process of repairing and re-painting *again* ..sigh. This is the car when I first bought it in 2005, a 1984 CRX 1.5 automatic. I was instantly attached to it when I noticed the manufactured date on the door-jam sticker matched my birthday exactly, and its been my daily driver ever since.

I was passing through a neighborhood and noticed it sitting on a driveway with flat tires. I went up to the house and asked the owner about it. Turns out it was a lady who was living alone and happened to be the original owner, she still had all the new dealer paperwork and everything. She drove the car up to 113k miles until the timing belt broke. She parked the car on the driveway and it had been sitting there ever since. It was complete, and totally stock, and after some bargaining I ended up basically stealing it for $500 because it wasn't running. Turns out the only think wrong was 1 bent rod from when the timing belt broke. (She obviously never had it changed at 60k miles.)

These are the before and after photos of the first repair and paint job. (This was before I got into the habbit of documenting all my work) ..wish I'd have taken some work in progress pictures.





















This happened just this last winter. (Like not even a month after the fresh paint. ) I was going down a one-way in the left lane, when this idiot in the right lane and just ahead of me decided to just turn left with no warning. I ended up T-boning him, and it broke most of my front plastic pieces and lights, mangled the supporting framework and popped a leak in my radiator. I just recently found time to start fixing it, so I'll get the progress pictures posted as soon as I can get my camera uploaded.

 

Yeah, man. That sucks. From the look of the first refurb, though, it's in good hands. Keep us updated!

 

First order of business.. strip off all the cracked, damaged plastic body parts.

Then straightened the damaged metal framework, and sprayed on some paint to seal it from rust.

Next.. got the largest of the new body parts mounted on the car. I'm at least legal now, so I'll have to drive it like this for a bit until I get a chance to paint it.

 

...

 

Ouch! Looks better now though.

 

Naturally, I spent what felt like a month wandering around the web to find all the new parts I needed for repairs. In the end, the only part I couldn't find... ANYWHERE... were the headlight garnishes for 84-85 CRX only. I can honestly say they are officially extinct.

So, out of desperation I pulled a couple garnishes off a similar year civic sedan at my wrecking yard. While pattern-wise these garnishes are almost completely different, the basic size and shape are at least almost the same.

As luck would have it, I still had my one, in-tact, original garnish to use as a pattern. I grabbed some cutting tools and went to work. I really think this fabrication will work quite well, and no one will ever notice (easily anyway) that they are the wrong ones.

More updates soon.

 

Bummer you couldn't find your parts, but good idea with the fabrication. Keep us updated.

 

Where did you find your front mask? I hit a pole this past winter and totally cracked it.
I've been trying to find one for months and still no luck.

 

Ebay bro...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1984-...Q5fAccessories

 

Well I finally finished fabricating the headlamp garnishes out of the 4-door civic ones I pulled from the junkyard. I sure wish the CRX ones were still findable, that was kind of a pain in the ***... but anyway here is the end result. I think it turned out quite well, people shouldn't really notice that they are the wrong ones. (Easily anyway.)

 

 

That's dedication. Nice work.

 

Painted wheels are gross

 

Time get this sucker painted again. Here's the list of what was done.

1. Washed the whole car to ensure all the tape sticks.
2. Prepped and cuffed the new plastic pieces with a special rubbing compound.
3. Spent about 4 hours masking.
4. Did a quick once-over with prep-all wax and grease remover.
5. Applied 2 coats of white, aircraft grade self-etching primer.
6. Applied about 3 coats of urethane single-stage red paint.

I'll let it cure until tomorrow, then I'll remove the masking and get some pictures of the end result.

 

i wish i would have never sold my 1st gen =[

 

It looks really good, how are you doing the paint, do you have a professional compressor-sprayer setup? I need to paint my car, and I'm pretty good at getting an even coat with a rattle can, but I dont know if I want to risk it with my car.

 

Compressor and spray gun, yes. As for paint, I used single stage urethane at a 4:1:1 mixture.

As for rattle-cans, I'd never advise using them for a car.. the paint isn't durable at all, and even when the body is properly prepped.. you'll get flakes and fades within a month to a year at most.

 

thanks for the advise, looks like im going to need a second job haha

 

Well it's kind of a dark wet day for a picture, but here's the post red paint result. I'm going to wait for another spat of nice weather before I try to finish shooting black on the remaining areas that need it.

 

I'm getting ready to finish painting the car this weekend, so should have updates for that fairly soon.

In the meantime, I installed a new amped stereo system. I had to get creative for mounting the rear speakers, as the factory never designed there to be any back there.

Edit: Also disconnected the stock antenna and switched to a powered windshield type.

 

i like this alot! looks good! which engine are you planning for it?

 

Thanks! This is actually my daily driver, so the car will stay stock for now. If the engine ever gave out due to high mileage, I might consider some kind of swap.

 

Getting the missing black paint sprayed on. I decided to re-paint the bumper as well. After the collision, you could still see a lot of the repairs that were done so they had to be covered.

Also, got those fabricated headlamp garnishes painted to match.

 

Great work! Man, I was in the market for a car this weekend and looked at a CRX. It was riced to oblivion, and poorly. Bondo caked everywhere, bad body kit, awful clear tail lights across the rear. Plus, it was rusted all to crap and the interior was all apart and full of tree debris.

It made me glad guys like you exist.

 

Thanks man. So was that rex you looked at a 1st gen? If so, I didn't think they made any products to even rice one of those. Parts are such a pain to get.