First Gen. - Second life

[rob quilter]

Sorry man, just accidentally negative repped you while scrolling on my tablet Will sort it tomorrow

I did that to fweakyg a while ago whilst posting on my HTC, I gave the rep point back as soon as I could.

Stupid touchscreens

[nitin_s1]

Fat fingers?

[Pot_147]

Hi all,

It's been a while again since I last posted on here. I must admit that I got sidetracked forums-wise by another one, g1preludes.com and made last two or three longer write-ups on there, hoping that the 1g fanatics would have a lot of useful comments to make.
I am quite short on time, so I decided to cut and paste those posts in here, I don't want to leave you guys out of all the 'fun' I have with the restoration, so hold tight... here it comes.:

"Most things I wrote about in the previous post are still as they were a few days ago. I have been terribly busy in the past week or so and had no time for the car. Luckily my duties called when the weather was bad anyway.

Atop the damper-nut, the end of the shaft on the damper itself is a No.8. hex bolt, but it's made of some rather soft stuff and can't withstand much torque without getting smeared onto the surface of the wrench trying to hold it. If I can't remove the nut, I'll simply drill the entire thing out with a 1/2" drill bit. The damper is a gonner anyway. And so are all the other three.

Still no sign of 2g rear brakes for the upgrade, so that side of the project is on hold. I found toothpaste-like deposits of what I would think is aluminium-oxide of some sort inside the intake manifold, but there is so much of it that upon removing the manifold I found lots that made it inside the cylinders. How annoying! So now I don't only have to remove the engine, I have to take it apart too. I don't think I am ready for it although time is running out, so it has to be done.

Could anybody advise on the master cylinder and how to remove it? With that in place I would end up with a spot too big on the firewall to leave it untreated and unpainted and that's something I would like to avoid.

The pics are still on the phone, I'll get 'round to doing them one of these days. More news expected for Tuesday.

...

Last week I managed to get the manifolds off, but the two came off together, I can't remove the three long bolts that hold the two together from above. It isn't a major problem although the heat shield is virtually gone. Not good.

Thanks for the pics of the booster, it's A LOT of help. I have to remove the dashboard anyway, so I will have easy access to the four bolts on the inside. All the rest of the bits I removed already, the last major thing left to do is to pull the CV joints apart. Unfortunately I already have the car all jacked up with no wheels, no brakes, etc on, so the hub nut is a tough job again.

I fiddled around a little with the antenna today, pulled it all out from the pillar and laid it out on the floor with the disassembled motor beside it. All I could figure out that the metal end of the cable's shell is connected to the motor with a pin of some sort, I tried pushing the plastic cable inside the motor's housing, but the material is so old that it snapped easily. It wasn't flexible enough to roll up. I will look into possible means of replacement for the plastic cable. First idea is the plastic cable that's used as the 'blade' on those "shoulder launch" lawnmowers (motor-scythes?) There are different hardnesses and diameters, there might be one that'd be a good substitute.

I got the rear bumber of the donor car off today. It's ugly. The only good thing is that the two side bumpers are pretty much intact, except the surfaces, but those can be fixed. The metal part is all wobbly and wavy, one of the mounts had been welded (I cut this off). Tomorrow I am going to try to straghten it out with a wooden hammer as best I can, give it the wirewheel and see what happens.

The plastic strips on the sides look quite good, but the chrome surfaces need repair. Is there any sort of self-adhesive band I can use? I can't remember seeing it anywhere. (Apart from the duct tape that's used on heating/aircon ducts. I could have the roll cut into different widths with a waterjet cutter, that could make things easy. - This is how ideas develop while typing. )

What else? Yes. The door windows. I got them both out of the donor car, but it wasn't as simple as one might think. The rubber seal between the glass and the railing it sits in turned into something similar to not properly cured silicone sealant and getting the glass out of it wasn't that easy, even though I unscrewed the railings from inside the door and removed the whole lot. I cleaned the glass, cut an old bike tyre inside to size and the windows are ready to go into the red car.

Pics still on the phone. I need to start another computer to get them off of it, resize them all, then upload them to my server, do the html... I simply have no time for all those just now. It's almost 11pm, haven't had dinner yet, worked all day long and am looking at another rough day tomorrow. At least I there will be more pics and more progress to report on tomorrow night.

This is all I could think of.

...

Another day, another update and finally - the new pics have been uploaded to the site, still here:
www.ro-bolt.info/honda/prelude_1.html

There are still many issues unresolved, the worst and most annoying bit is still the rear brakes. I can't seem to find replacement ones, nor could I find any 2g rear brakes, although for these there is still a little hope, I just got an e-mail from a guy who might have them. I'm getting an answer tomorrow.

As I was messing around inside the car the other day I realised that the back of the steering wheel, the cover around the indicator and wiper switches and the switches themselves have a fair amount filler sprayed on them and some parts of the dashboard got some as well. I can't clean the filler off of the plastic surfaces without scratching them, so I will have to replace these parts with the ones from the donor car that are in a much better condition. I was also thinking about swapping the entire dashboard too, but I am not sure just yet because of the colours. The red car's original dash and the transmission tunnel are greyish-beigeish-olive colour, the rest of the plastics and the upholstery are beige. The silver donor car's dash and tunnel are black, but the thresholds and some other plastic bits inside were beige originally but had been painted black to match the dash - which otherwise is in a very good condition.
So these are my options:
1.: Swap the dash and the tunnel's cover and leave all the other pieces of trim as original.
2.: Swap the steering wheel and switches only.
3.: Swap everything and paint all the beige plastics black.
The first option would look weird, the second would leave me with a not-so-mint dash, the third would be a messy job. Which one would you go for?

A bit of good news is that I removed the antenna's motor from the donor car and it has all the parts required to make it work. What's even better is that with a little bit of bending I managed to make the antenna itself slide in and out all the way smoothly, so all I have to do is to replace the plastic cable inside as I explained in my previous post. The one thing I'd have to figure out is how the end of the cable is attached to the inside of the motor and what length it has to be precisely.

The CV joints are still in place but in the meantime I drained most of the transmission fluid and got the right tools to remove the hub nut. That'll be the job for Tuesday. There's one bolt left to remove, it's on the underside of the engine, connecting the rod that comes from underneath the gearshift lever. I know it needs a #12 socket with a long extension, but the trouble is that the #12 sockets come with the small adaptor that can not handle the torque required to start the bolt. I actually managed to twist-snap two adaptors so far and I think I could easily break another ten. Any ideas about how to get that one out? (There is a pic of the rod-end I'm talking about among the most recent pics.)

Another fine job will be the reconditioning of the front brake calipers. I am not sure whether the cylinders are stuck or not, based on the state of the clutch release cylinder they probably are. The Haynes manual tells me to use compressed air to push the cylinders out, but they haven't provided any hints on how to connect an airhose to the caliper. I assume it's just one of those useless ideas again... Does anybody have a better one?

When the body panels have been welded and replaced, all the drainholes inside the panels and the doors have disappeared and now all the water that comes down from the side windows and the sunroof end up in the door and what's worse - in the "pockets" between the B-pillars and the rear fenders. I know I should just drill a few holes and the issue would be solved, but need a little advice on where exactly these holes should be so that no water can get inside the body. I was thinking about using plastic bulkheads through the underside that collect the water from the three tubes on either sides to make sure that no water can escape inside the body.

The rear bumper from the donor car is beyond repair, the original one is still missing. My best idea was to have a new one made from 1.5 or 2.0mm steel, cut the ends where the plastic side bumpers connect to the metal from the old one and weld those to the new bumper. I can see that originally the metal bumper has a slight banana shape, I can not replicate that but may that be my greatest concern with the restoration. If the plastic trim clips onto it like it did onto the old one, I'll be a happy bunny.

Oh, there's something else that 'made my week'. Earlier on we had some rain and a few storms, so I covered the car with two sheets of plastic foil. A thin, fine one and a thick, heavier one. After the rain was gone there was a day of bright and hot sunshine and as I removed the cover I realised that a very-very fine layer of the thin plastic had literally burned into the new paintjob and the only way to remove it is by polishing. That means almost the entire car. The sides and spots not hit directly by the sun are fine, but the nearside front and rear fenders, the doors, some parts of the roof and the trunk/boot lid are all affected.

I must admit that at one point this week I was on the verge of calling the gippos (gipsies who earn a living by collecting and/or stealing everything metal and selling them to the recyclers) to have them come around a pick both cars up for free. Then I changed my mind.

So, here's where I stand today. I would greatly appreciate more hints and ideas, so if you have some, don't hold them back! Thanks!"

Too long for a post, too short and way too crap literature to make it a short novel.

Nandi