Since my 1999 Prelude is undergoing an extensive restoration at the moment, I went out and picked up another car to get around in. I was looking at Civics and Integras originally since they were cheap and plentiful, and because of the commonality of parts between those and the girlfriends car. I had intended to buy one, drive it till spring and then scrap it.

With old Civics and Integras, come old Civic and Integra people...


Ad: "Runs and drives great!"

Seller: "uuh yeah just to be up front, 3rd gear is completely gone.."


Ad: "99 Civic. manual. Contact via email for details."

Me: Hi, couple questions about the civic: 1) kms? 2) What does it need to certify? 3) Where is it located?

Seller: "Brantford"


Ooookay then... thanks for skipping the other questions..



Preludes in my area were (in my opinion) over priced. Rusted out 4th gens that have been hacked to death, and they are asking $2500.

I spotted an ad for a 96 Si, which had an interior pic as the main thumbnail...never a good sign. It means the exterior is trashed. It was $1500, certified and e-tested. That was more than I wanted to spend, but the rest of the pics looked good, and certified? Can't beat that.


The car:
Year: 1996
Make: Honda
Model: Prelude
Sub-model: Si (though I guess it's actually an "SR" here in Canada)
Build date: 08/95
Colour: R-81
Engine: H23A1 DOHC Non-VTEC
Transmission: M2S4
Owners: 4
Purchased: August 2013
Purchase KMs: 245000










BurbleBurbleBurbleBurbleBurbleBurbleBurbleBurble VRRRRROOOOMMMMM BurbleBurbleBurbleBurble




TickTickTickTickTickTickTickTickTickTickTickTickTi ckTick






I'm not sure why this came with it.. 95 and 96 is only one model year, but they're a million miles apart.


Type-R radio delete!



I bought this car to get me through the winter, and then possibly scrap it. I am now thoroughly in love with the car and plan on keeping it as my next project.

:drive:

 

The certification was only good for 36 days. I bought it outside of that time period so I had to have it redone.

The biggest problem was the hole in the quarter panel.



No sweat! Bodyman-in-a-can!

It actually passed like this. I will fix it properly eventually.


I fixed the lack of a radio by upgrading to this: In-dash integrated nav, and communications rig.





Okay now for some serious stuff..


First I gave the carpets and seats a quick shampoo:



Meguiars ultimate protector/protectant. This tuff makes the interior panels glow.








I noticed it drank 5 litres of 5W30 in two days... a little concerned, I started weighing my options. It didn't leak out, and I didn't see any clouds of smoke.. so where did it go?

Earlier on, I pulled the spark plugs and found that #2 had a lot of oil on it and in the spark plug tube. In fact, so much dripped into the cylinder while I had the plug out (less than 2 mins), it created a SeaFoam-esc cloud of smoke when I started the car up again. I guess it was a steady injection of a tiny amount of oil. Enough to deplete what was in the engine, but not enough to create a telltale plume.

I replaced the valve cover gasket and all four of the spark plug tube gromets. While I was at it, I did a valve adjustment. What a pain in the *** (and the back) that was. I hate doing those, especially on a low car like this.




After the valve adjustment I started to polish the tail lights... one thing led to another and soon I had compounded (by hand) the right rear quarter. Then the bumper.. then the trunk lid...and so on...













My favourite of the bunch.


^^^Just compound, no polish, no wax.

:smile:

 

I've been busy lately buying parts...

On the way is:

- Half mast antenna and switch
- VTEC subwoofer bracket/amp
- 1/24 92-96 prelude model kit (I'm such a child)

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up:

- Heated leather seats (minus the switches..)
- Door panels
- Mud flaps
- OEM 6 disc CD changer and OEM deck with tape player. I'm not planning to use these as I have a kenwood deck to install.







Today the mail man brought me:

- leather inserts and the matching arm rest.
- New climate control unit
- new climate control shroud




She's taking shape.

 

At the moment I'm waiting for my radio parts to come in. This is one thing thats really grinding my gears if I'm honest. When I bought the car, it had no radio. Stancie, my ever loving, wonderful, sent from heaven above, girlfriend, bought me a deck to put in so I can at least have traffic reports. I decided I would seize the opportunity to put n a VTEC subwoofer, since I got the cover when I bought the seats.

Purchased on the same day and shipped from Japan!


My box of 100% authentic JDM newspaper!


Kidding...

 

Things with this car have tapered off lately. I have almost everything I wanted for the car, with the exception of fog lights and a few odds and ends here and there.

I fixed the oil consumption by changing out the valve cover gasket. I checked the oil the other day and it hasn't burned a drop.

My fuel efficiency recently took a nose dive. I figured it was the old fouled plugs and air filter. When installing the plugs I happened to turn the plug wires over and found they were badly cracked. $75 later I had a new set. The ones I took off were marked '95 (original), so I figured they were about due for retirement. Four new spark plugs and new wires installed, my mileage went even lower. My 120km commute which took 0-1 bars (4th gen people will understand this term) jumped to 3-4 bars. It got to the point where the lude I bought to do this commute would be more expensive to run than the truck I was replacing.

Oil change, good tires, 91 octane, new plugs, new wires, valve adjustment... it should be running better, no?

The only thing I could think of that could trigger something like this around this time of year was the switch from summer to winter gas. Though, I have never seen such an acute impact on fuel economy in the several hundred winters I have been driving. Fortunately, it has bounced back a bit on it's own. I'm guessing the switch, sent the ECU into a frenzy or something. I filled up (right up to the top of the neck) with 91 the other day for $61.00. I got 99kms from the filler neck, before the gauge started to move.

The old H23 intake was a disgrace. The ghetto goofball who owned it before me hacked the end of the intake tube off and stuck some nondescript cone filter on the end. It probably come off the end of of one of his ghetto buddies Civic cold air intake.



I originally thought I would be clever and harvest some 5th gen parts to save the day. I was going to use the top of the 5th gen air box and mate it to the h23 hose. No dice. I learned that the stock (non-type-s) intake tube is bigger than the h23. So the H22 box top wouldn't fit in the end of the H23 hose. Fack!

I started looking at cheap short ram intakes, and K&N cone filters. I wasn't going to start looking around for a stock H23 intake set up.

Then, this happened:



I spotted a Type-S intake with a K&N filter for sale for $160 locally. Someone else was interested, so I gave the guy an extra $20 to tell him to get lost and sell it to me instead. And he did.

I installed it last night, in the dark (you know you spend too much time with one particular type of car when you can install things blind). Here is what I found with the installation:

Type-S intake installation:

Type-S to 5th gen (H22/23) it should bolt up right out of the box. If you H23 comes with the Air boost valve, that wont plug in, because the intake doesn't have a hole for it. It works on my H23 without air boost so don't worry.

Type-S to 4th gen (H22/23): It will fit. it is a tighter fit, but once you get it in there, it will fit. IMPORTANT! You will need the BOTTOM half of the 4th gen air box assembly. The bottom half of the 5th gen air box will NOT fit properly. If you hold a 4th and 5th gen bottom half of the air box up to one another, you will find the 4th gen is shallower. The 5th will fit in there, but won't sit low enough, and your hood will not close. So, if you want to put a Type-S intake into a 4th gen, you will need the bottom half of the air box for it to work properly.

I took the car out last night, and what a difference. It just flies along, and it seems to be a bit more responsive.

Fuel-wise, currently I am at half a tank, with 350kms on the trip meter.

 

These just arrived ten minutes ago, courtesy of Bartosz.




Very nice looking, and well made.

 

Things have been pretty quiet with this car lately. Apart from driving it, I haven't had much to do, since I have been waiting for a couple parts.

I picked up a JDM half mast antenna from eBay. There were some problems with it. The guy was selling two of them with switches, but discovered that only one worked. So my shipment was delayed a week while he went back to get the other antenna, which turned out to be the functioning one. The only problem was, he forgot to send me the switch.

I was given a choice; have the switch shipped out, or have it shipped with something else. I looked through his other items, and found a couple interesting parts, but nothing that I couldn't get cheaper elsewhere. The only other thing was...





Yes, it's complete.


Oh and, this was in the box too:

 

I finally have all the parts to install my radio.

- Head unit
- OEM wiring harness from a VTEC (7 speaker set up)
- OEM sub bracket + sub
- 6x9 sub
- JDM half mast antenna + switch

I'm no stereo installer so I thought I would make a start on the antenna. The old one was ripped off (this car shows signs of past baby-mama-drama), and that should have been a heads up to what I would find later on.

Rant: I love the 4th gen Prelude. I love ho wit looks, the interior, and how it drives. I hate working on them. Trying to get to one item on a 4th gen is like replacing one strand of a wicker loveseat. Everything is so tightly woven in. In order to take one part off, you have to take half the car apart.

I pulled the trunk liner(s) aside and found that the antenna that was installed was a low grade, generic piece of garbage. You know the crap you can buy from a flea market, that practically dissolves in your hands? It wasn't so much wired in as it was stuck together with masking tape. I hate when ghetto ***** mess with cars.

I wrestle the antenna unit free from the car (it had corroded to the bracket that holds it in the car). I slap in the JDM half mast and find, the chrome antenna nut doesn't fit the JDM antenna. Great. So I swap the old one back in just to plug the hole. I start doing some measurements to see if I can file the hole in the nut larger so the "nub" on top of the antenna will fit through it. It will, but then I notice the thread pitch. No dice.




So after all that, the antenna was put back in its box until I get my hands on an OEM antenna nut, which is discontinued. Thanks Honda!


My climate control had been stuck half way between hot and cold, so I opened up the dash. I have to say, I love the 94-96 console, and I love where the parking brake handle is, but it makes it a royal pain in the *** to get the front part of the console off.
I figured the cable was just kinked a bit, and after looking at the quality of workmanship that was done to this car before I bough it, I thought it was more than likely. Once I get the dash apart, I find the "frame" that the radio sits in is completely crushed, as though someone had taken a hammer to it. It was a mess under there. It was as though someone had taken it and just rammed it in. I found the climate control cable was mis-routed and was being pinched by the clip that holds it under the dash. Unfortunately for me the plastic covering it has all been stripped, and the cable will not stay in place. ****! I had to use videgrips to hold the cable and clip together so I can have a little control over the temperature. Now I have to find another cable, which I'm sure is discontinued.

Looking at the radio harness, I can see at some point in the past, someone had chopped the plug off, and then reattached it... by twisting the exposed ends and wrapping it with electrical tape (weeps). I plugged in the stock radio that I was given, and it powers up after the code is entered. It lights up with the dash lights, it changes stations and keeps presets. Its great! Except there is no sound. ****.


So to recap:

JDM half mast antenna installation: FAILED due to a missing antenna nut.

Climate control fix: FAILED due to ghetto **** previous owner being too broke to have the stereo system he could have done without properly installed.

OEM radio test/installation: FAILED due to no sound from the speakers.


All in all, the day was a total washout.


But thats not all! Its not all doom and gloom.


These beauties arrived, courtesy of n0rmal:




All I need are brakcets, or to fab up some brackets.





I can't wait to get those hooked up.

 

This is a long update with a few detours along the way. There is non-Prelude content, and rants.


Well it's been a while since I have updated this thread... and the other one. Don't worry, I am still working on the cars, but work has slowed to a crawl. I was laid off from my job, so money is a bit tight as I search for another one.



Anyhoo..

I installed my half mast antenna. It works like a charm. A bit noisy but I think a little lubrication might sort that out. For the first time since I bought the car in August, I have radio! I had installed the factory tape deck and was listening to mix tapes I made back in the late 90s. How ****ing hipster is that? It was really trippy. Sitting in a very 90's car, listening to a tape made in the 90's of 90's music. All I needed was a teal suit, Doc Martens and a tube of hair gel and you'd swear that I had just 88 mile-per-houred it to 2013.

I took a video of the epicity of the retroness:
trimyrcGzR_zpsb544e1b6.mp4 Video by SilverFox81 | Photobucket


After I got the antenna installed, the weather turned bad, and I didn't have any wire to hook up the switch, so I retreated indoors, contented with a half mast antenna that goes all the way top for the time being.



December 26, 7:00AM, it is snowing like crazy outside. I couldn't settle at all that night, so I was half awake. My cell phone started ringing. My heart stopped. I knew it was bad news coming. Caller I.D. shows it is Stancie, my someday-to-be wife. I pick it up and say:

"You wrecked your car. Where are you? Are you hurt? How bad is the car?"

She replies, as though leaving a voicemail:

"Hi, it's Connie, I was in an accident on the 115. I am going to the hospital now..."

When I heard the phone ring, I knew what I was going to hear, but hearing it from her made my blood run cold. My protective side kicked in, and I proceeded to chew her out for driving in such a remote area in a white out.

I spent the rest of that day on the phone with the police, tow truck drivers, impound lots, her parents etc.. The story is she had gone to her parents for Christmas, and took our two cats with her. They were left in the car after she was taken to the hospital. I was worried they were forgotten and would freeze to death in the car. I had to track them down and meet up with the tow truck driver who had thankfully taken them out of the car and kept them with him.

Throughout the day I was getting updates from her while at the hospital. X-rays, CT scans, bumps on the head... plus I had to be ready to go pick her up..all this after not feeling well the night before and not sleeping. My stress level went into uncharted territory. At one point I sat down and chewed (yes chewed) an aspirin, because I thought I was having a heart attack.

The day rounded out with picking her up from the hospital, and going to look at the damage. She told me she spun out hit a guardrail, and then ended up in a snowbank facing the opposite direction. I was expecting damage on at least three sides of the car, and because of its age, I anticipated a write off. This made me sad. I love her car, and we went through hell to get it.

Now before you all laugh at me for being upset about this car, and allowing it to preempt work on my Preludes, I just want to say, I friggin love this car. It isn't overly fast, it only has one cam, everything about it is grey, but it is a hell of a lot of fun to drive...

Ready for the heartbreaking carnage?








Me: "Stancie.. what the hell did you do to this car?"

Her:

Me: "No really... aside from a missing side skirt and a cracked bumper, there isn't a scratch on it. I was pumped to do a 99-00 front end conversion on it, and paint it phoenix yellow for you like you wanted... but.. I can't. It isn't broken enough to justify doing all that work right now. What a let down!"

Her: :kiss:


There won't be a front end conversion on it for a while, but she has bumped up the schedule on the rest of the build for that car. Three projects on the go! CTR red/black interior build on the way! :banana:

She admitted to me afterwards that the medics and her mother were laughing at her because she was so afraid to call me and tell me she had been in an accident. She thought I would have yelled at her (which I did), and she thought I would have cried over the car, (I held it together, just one tear). We got the word yesterday that the insurance company will fix it.


Since the weather has been nasty lately, ice storms, heavy snowfalls, and now incredible windchills, I have been working on some odds and ends inside. Since I have most of the interior apart, I have brought the pieces inside and set to restoring them. Keep in mind, the purpose of this car is not to make it mint right now. The majority of the work I am doing on it is to make it more functional and livable. This car is also my lab rat, and I am experimenting with different techniques and products without worrying about messing up parts of my primary project.

I noticed that some of my interior plastics were looking really poor. They were blotchy and had a chalky looking build up on them. Cleaning the parts seemed to make them worse. Putting Meguiars ultimate protectant didn't help either. I faced my options:

1) Replace the console (94-96, hard to find around here, plus I'm cheap)
2) Refinish the console with SEM landau black paint.
3) Use what I have on hand and go for broke.

Before:





The problem:

The plastic is textured and is supposed to have a satin finish. How do you refinish that surface without losing the texture and the appearance?

I had a bottle of Mothers plastic polish laying around so I set to work with a bit of that on the tip of my finger. I didn't want to use a cloth as this would heat the plastic too much and eventually buff it to a high gloss shine. After a couple of minutes, the white stuff started to fade out but I found that even without a cloth, the raised bits were becoming too shiny, while the indents were staying white and chalky. To fix this, I decided to try a toothbrush with some plastic polish on it. After working the plastic polish in a circluar pattern, I wiped off the residue, and found a perfectly restored surface. The toothbrush allowed me to get the plastic polish into all of the grooves, but without applying a lot of pressure to the surface and polishing the surface too much.

After:
Bare plastic (restored)/Meguiars ultimate protectant



[imghttp://i796.photobucket.com/albums/yy243/SilverFox81/BB2/DSCN0383_zps95fa3952.jpg[/img]





As you can see from the pictures, the plastic came up great. I'm happy with it.

The switches are all recent purchases. I picked up the ultra rare heated seat switches from a local TPC member. After studying the wiring diagram in the service manual, I think I'll have a go at making my own harness, so I can use the switches and the heated leathers I have installed.

I also picked up a fog light switch. It fits the 94-96 switch blank perfectly! Rather than fork out a bundle for an overpriced, used 94-96 switch, I bought a brand new 97-01 USDM fog light switch. It is a perfect fit, and the socket on the back is identical to the plug in the 94-96. The only difference is the orientation of the icon on the button, but for %35 and brand new, who cares?

The empty switch hole between the seat and antenna switches is for a rear fog light switch that is on its way. I am not installing a rear fog light in the bumper (I think they are HIDEOUS), I will be doing something creative.


This is what I have been up to lately. More updates (on both cars) soon hopefully.

 

The FedEx man finally came today, and left me a fantastically overpriced (for what it is) rare JDM goodie!

Here it is!


Wait, no... that's not it. You gtfo!










Thaaaat's better...


It came with the usual JDM part damage. What do they do with these things?

I remedied this by trying a quick wet sand, and then eventually swapping out the housing for the old one I tool off the car.

Post restoration photos: Wetsanded the lens, and cleaned up the housing.



So what makes it so rare? It's the illuminated version!





To avoid any speculation about this part:

1) Yes it does light up. Only when the brake is pressed.

2) The lens inside is identical to the standard red lens, except it is clear.

3) The "Prelude" filter is translucent, green.

4) It is plug and play.

5) The "non lit" units look similar, but the red lens can be seen at the top of the "Prelude" card. The emblem card is solid, and no light will penetrate. If you want to buy one (please don't, or you'll totally screw up my "ha-ha, I have a rare part and you don't" status), read the fine print carefully and look at all of the pictures.

I don't like the fact that it comes on with the brake light, so I will be hooking this up to a rear foglight switch so I can turn it on and off at will.


I also fitted my newly recovered rear sub cover. I'm impressed at how nicely the fabric matches. Not bad for $2. Forgive the state of the interior. The seats were just placed in there, nothing has been bolted down yet.

 

Toss that **** anywhere in a container, usually under heavy ****, because they got it for free. Then sell it.

 

It's been a while since I updated this. I have been pretty busy with work lately...

Work:


It's not so bad... I always get free parking at hospitals, and the uniform gets us discounts on coffee and stuff. Narrow Toronto streets and [B]Scarborough drivers who wait until the orange hand flashes before pulling away from a stop light are a pain in the rear.

As I said, work has been keeping me pretty busy, and this winter weather has made it impossible to do anything. The '99 is on hold until the weather warms up. The '96 has been without much of its interior for a while now, as it's been too cold to do any wiring. I have a radio in there now, but the antenna makes scary sounds when it is really cold, so most times I leave the radio off.

Winter driving in the '96 is lively, and not in a good way. I find this car terrible in snow and on slippery roads. The back always wants to come around, which when you've got your front wheel drive hat on, is a little unnerving. When I used to drive the '99 in the snow, it was planted, and rode like a mountain. This car slips like a stone and spins like a record...baby right round like a record baby right round round round.


New Parts:

I scored a set of 4th gen fog lights with pigtails for $70! They're the clear ones, but that doesn't matter. I bought them for the brackets. I'm going to retrofit those yellow Lexus projectors I have into the 4th gen brackets.

I also caved and bought myself a JTC customs short shifter. While installing it, I was struck at the sheer complexity of the 4th gen. The 5th gen shifter is an L-shaped bar with a plastic ping pong ball on the end. The 4th gen has end caps, o-ring-like gromets, a bearing-like centre, nuts, bolts, and this pesky little cube pressed onto the end. It was that little cube that gave me the most problems. I got it off the old shifter pretty easily... but it snapped in two when I put it on the new one. After a bit of swearing and a cardiac event, I figured out a way to make it work.


Problems:

I'm pretty sure the power steering is on it's way out. The steering on the '96 was pretty light when I bought it. It felt more like a Crown Vic, compared to the '99. Lately it has gotten stiffer, and there has been more road feel. Its not full blown manual yet, but it definitely takes more effort, and doesn't want to return to centre on its own. Ruts in the road are an adventure. I become a passenger in my own car when I hit those.

The past couple of days the clutch engagement has been pretty rough. Jerky, as though I was new and dumping it. At first I thought it was the boots I wear for work (18 hole army boots), but they shouldn't have been a problem, as I've driven with those on for weeks. Then I began to wonder if I was losing my knack...or perhaps having a stroke. On the way into work yesterday, the clutch pedal definitely didn't feel as firm as before and I decided, I would have a gander at it when I got home.

After dropping a patient off in a really cushy hospice out in the boonies, we got sent home early (yay). I get in my car, start it up and something told me "try rowing through the gears...go on, I dare ya". The shiny brand new JTC customs short shifter was locked solid, like it was set in concrete. Aw crap...

Of course I would be at work... and it would be freezing. A call to CAA, and a series of exceedingly difficult skill testing questions (what is the address where you are now? What is your cell phone number? - both of which I drew blanks on), and I was on my way home. $100 to a tow truck driver, and I was dropped off at a local shop for what I suspect will be some sort of hydraulic system repair. Goody.

The only thing I hate more than taking my cars to a shop is working on them in the cold, so don't think I'm selling out.

 

nice recovery on a car that was surely headed to the scrap yard. hope you get to fix that rust one day.

sucks to hear about your clutch problem. i had a clutch line let go once, luckily it was in the summer and it wasn't a daily driver.

Edit: congrats on the new job BTW