Hello Honda-Tech, I figured that it was time to start a thread here to keep track of my progress and to share my journey with you all. This is not going to be a quick build, most of my money seems to go to bills and keeping my wife and kids dressed, fed, and happy, what little extra time and money that I have left after that I am going to start dumping into this project.

I have had my fair share of Honda's and Acura's in the past but I have put my car hobby on the back burner for the last 5 to 7 years. One of the projects that I enjoyed the most was building my first CRX back in 2000 when body kits and indiglo gauges were all that! I did have a B16 with some mild work and it ran pretty good, it was a blast to drive so that has inspired my latest project, a 1989 CRX DX that I luckily acquired for free from my aunt and uncle in Colorado back in September of 2010, I have not made much progress on it since then but have been collecting a few things here and there.

Like I said the car is a 1989 CRX DX and when I brought it home to Missouri, where I live, it had just under 105,000 miles on it and was mechanically sound. I drove it home from Colorado 9 hours or so with no issues, well except the headliner was falling apart all over the place. The car had sat outside its entire life and it was in Colorado where they get quite a bit of snow, so you can imagine what the paint looked like plus it is red. It has a crappy aftermarket sunroof installed that has to go and the normal Honda rust, but other than that it is in pretty decent shape. My goal here is to make it look nice and run good, I am not trying to keep it all stock, just trying to save up for the right parts.

With all of that out of the way, here are some pics from the day I brought it home.


Stay tuned for more.

 

Its great that the car is completely stock !!! (minus sunroof). Good luck with the project. keep us updated

 

the price was RIGHT.

FREE, you sob. jk

good luck, from the state to the north of you.

keep it stock if you can.

 

Nice car man!

 

So since I have had this car since 2010 I have done a few small things to it, first thing that I did was tear out the deteriorating aftermarket headliner since it was ripped up and the foam padding was falling down everywhere. Aftet that I cleaned up the mess inside and fixed the wiring on the sunroof so it actually worked.

Besides that I had painted some trim pieces here and there and detailed out the engine bay to see what I was working with.


As you can see it cleaned up pretty well. Not to long after this I ended up replacing the starter and the battery.

More to come....

 

At some point in time I was looking into the $50 paint job but ended up ditching the idea because it would be a big pain to strip it back down to get a real paint job in the future. For some reason I could not stand the ever so faded paint on the top of the car so I tried painting it flat/satin black on the hood, hatch and roof. Really not happy with it but it looks a little better than the faded red/pink oxidation.

Its Dirty in this pic but you get the idea...

 

With future plan in mind I started looking for ways to get rid of my aftermarket sunroof, it is really just a controlled water/wind leak at this point. Got lucky and found a guy on Craigslist who let me cut the roof off of his parts car CRX for $100. It has a few small dents but it will work.


Now that I have that piece I started looking into how to swap the roof skin. I found a few articles on HT as well as google on how to do it. So I bought a spot weld cutter bit and started working on the spare roof panel.


As you can see I started wire brushing to expose the seams and the spot welds and started drilling some of them out. This was much more work than I expected it to be and I was not having luck separating the panels so I put it on the back burner for a while and still haven't got back to it yet.

 

I am always on Craigslist looking for CRX parts that I can use and I got lucky and came across a set of CRX Si seats from a wrecked CRX, I was able to pick them up cheap with the intentions of getting them recovered. I actually followed trough on it and used a shop here in Kansas City that some of my buddies have used called The Interior Shop down on Southwest Boulevard. I chose a black vinyl in the original pattern.

Here is the only pic I have of one of the seats but I will be digging them back out soon. It looks a little bent in this pic but I believe it is due to the rails and how they are sitting on the ground, they cam out pretty nice and they even rebuilt the bolsters for me.

 

So besides driving the car and enjoying it the last few years I had not made much progress on it until lately due to work and family and resources.

The interior in the car is actually in pretty good shape but it is faded here and there from the sun and I am not really a fan of the gray/black two tone so guess what? I chose to dye the interior all black to match my new seats. I have done this before years ago with some good results but I went ahead and researched it again to make sure that I do it the correct way and use the correct products.

From my research I found that most people swore by the SEM products for interior paint/dye as well as their prep products. So I got on line and found that summitracing.com has the best pricing that I could find on it since none of the places locally seemed to carry it or at least stock it.

Here is what I bought:

- SEM Products Color Coat 15013 - Landau Black - 5 cans but need some more
- SEM Products Vinyl Prep 38343 - although I didn't really use it much since most of the parts are plastic
- SEM Products Inc 38363 - SEM Products Sand Free - adhesion promoter
- SEM Products Plastic and Leather Prep 38354 - plastic and leather cleaner
- Dawn dish soap
- Disposable rubber gloves
- Blue painting tape
- Disposable face masks to keep the nose clean!

After getting everything I started tearing into the car.


Man you have to be very careful taking all of that stuff out, it is getting harder ti find pieces if you break or damage them. I only broke a couple so far. So after this I piled all of the parts in the garage and started scrubbing them one by one with warm water and dawn dish soap and then rinsing them off and letting them dry. There was years of dirt on this stuff.

More to come soon.

 

What did you use to clean the wire/engine harness plugs?

 

To clean the engine bay I used simple green and soap and water, sprayed out with high pressure rinse at the car wash. I used some tire foam for the black plastics.

 

I love seeing people clean these cars up with just a little elbow grease!

 

Keep the updates coming! I have a similar project going. The CRX was my first love.

 

Here are some of the first parts that I cleaned and and prepped for paint. This is after the wash with dawn dish soap and warm water. I didn't get any pics of the plastic prep, but I basically wore rubber gloves and wiped them down really well. Here are a few pics of the before applying the SEM color coat. Also, please excuse any pics revealing my messy garage that is full of toys and a boat and whatever else gets shoved in there.

 

I am sure you will notice a small rip in the passenger door panel, I tried to repair it with some vinyl repair sealant that I found but it didn't really help much. Oh well, it is hidden behind the seat belt, it will be fine.

 

Here are some results from my first batch of parts painted with the SEM color coat.

The full process that I used is as follows, however I did not get pics of everything at the time.

1. remove interior parts to be painted, and take apart anything that can be taken apart

2. Use warm water and dawn dish soap along with a sponge and a scrub brush to clean the panels as good as you can and let fully dry

3. Use SEM plastic prep to remove any remaining oils waxes dirt that remain on the panels, should probably start looking chalky or dried out. *Wear rubber gloves for this step and from this point on to ensure you do not get oil from your hands on the panels or you will have to start the process over

4. Use SEM Sand Free (adhesion promoter.) Spray the panels with a medium coat of sand free and be prepared to paint very soon after

5. While the Sand Free is still drying, apply your first coat of SEM color coat. Start with a very light coat and let dry 10 minutes

6. apply a second light coat of the color and let dry another 10 minutes. After that you can continue to do another coat every 10 minutes until you get the coverage you want. You can apply heavier coats but be careful not to get too heavy or you will distort the vinyl texture on the panels.

7. let it dry for a few days and reinstall the panels

NOTE: I found that doing this on days with high humidity/rain would cause the results to be foggy looking, its your best bet to do this on a clear warm day and stay out of any direct sunlight while painting.

 

I had a few small cracks in the dash that I tried to press back together and then applied some JB Weld to bond it back together. It turned out pretty good and looks a little better, I mainly just wanted to add a little strength back in those areas to prevent it from getting worse.

 

So not too long ago I ran across a guy in this Facebook group that I am in that is parting out a 91 integra. He is going to sell me the front knuckles with brakes, rear trailing arms with rear disc setup, brake booster, and the master cylinder. I am pretty excited about this, should make a decent improvement in the stopping power. I am sure I will have to replace some bushings and do some cleanup/painting on the parts to get them looking new and shiny. Then I will figure out what rotors and pads to go with. Any suggestions from experience? Also, I can't remember if I will need to get new axles for the integra knuckles or if the dx axles will work. Anyone know? Hopefully he contacts me soon to come pick up the parts.

 

I am finally getting caught up to my current progress, posting pics from Flickr is a little painful but it works. Anyway, here is some progress from last week. It has been hard to make much progress with lots of spring rain and work has been busy too. As you know, painting on rainy days is not ideal. I am happy with the results I have seen so far, after everything is dry I am moving them into a spare room and covering them up. Now for some more pics...


After dash was fully coated and dry:


It looks a little shiny in the pics but I think the bright garage lights amplify it a bit. I bought some speaker grill cloth online in black to cover the front and rear speaker grills, I think it will look a little nicer than the factory holes and foam, I will take pics when I do that.

I also think that I am going to recarpet the cargo box and divider piece in fresh black auto carpet. I am not too sure about the cargo cover yet. For the floor carpet, it is in good shape just a little lighter than I like. I have read some articles about dying it with fabric dye in a tub and it seems to produce some pretty good results. We will see when I get to that step.

 

So I broke down and purchased a couple of these from fixmyrust.com, I have only received one so far, the other was on back order, they said it should be in within a week or two.


I do not own a welder and I really don't have any body experience but that has not stopped me before, I have friends that can point me in the right direction. I am thinking about using body panel adhesive to do this instead of welding. I have heard good things about it but I am still on the fence.

 

I have dyed carpet before. I bought a big trash can, filled it with water and dye, let the carpet soak for hours. Rinsed a few times..I was pretty happy with it.

 

getting a cheaper welder is not too bad and not that difficult to learn.

 

If you have 100 bucks and a harbor frieght near by I would recommend getting their 90 amp flux core welder and learning how to use it. It may not be the best but ive used it for patch panels and it works just fine. Just a suggestion though!

 

Check and see if any of your local community colleges have an auto body class. You can get them to do it for just the material cost sometimes.

 

FYI that rear quarter panel replacement you have is for a civic, not a CRX and it is different, compare the flair at the end of the wheel arches. Dont glue the panel in. Have a body guy help you out with this before you get in over your head. You may not need to replace nearly as much metal as you think you do so dont just start slicing and dicing away.