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Confused's Prelude Rebuild Thread

Tell us about your old honda preludes that you used to own.
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Confused
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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:06 pm

22nd March 2007

I called Exedy today, and they confirmed my suspicions - the clutch kit I've been sold is not compatible with my car.

Therefore, I have had to purchase the correct kit from another supplier, which will be delivered tomorrow.

Once Gripforce Clutches open today, I shall be calling them and demanding that they give me a refund for the incorrect clutch they have supplied me, and that they will be paying for it to be shipped back to them. There is no way I'm going to let this stand, especially as they told me on the phone yesterday that it would be compatible :mad:

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:07 pm

25th March 2007

Got another clutch delivered on Friday, and took it up to my dad's on Friday night.

On Saturday, the rest of the pipework in the engine bay that can only be accessed with no engine, was cleaned and installed :)

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Then I finished cleaning up the engine, and gave it the final coat of paint.

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Then came the time I'd been waiting for! It was time to put the engine back in!

And here it is:

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I've also had a call from my dad this afternoon to say that the engine has been fired up!! :biggrinn:

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:08 pm

26th March 2007

I was out (at the Honda Revolutions social meet) yesterday when my dad first started the car, I couldn't resist going over there last night before I came back home to see the engine in action myself, and also to take a quick video

[youtube]ZS3GZqO4ZYg[/youtube]

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:08 pm

7th April 2007

No update here for a couple of weeks, but don't worry, we have been busy!

Have cleaned up and painted the alternator, air con compressor and rest of pipework, power steering pump, fitted all including belts.

New radiator fitted, (with brackets cleaned/painted) and filled up with coolant :)

ECU fitted with "Spoon" chip from a guy on PreludeUK (to give me VTEC in first and no speed limiter, as I had with my UKDM ECU!)

Cruise control actuator/bracket cleaned/painted and refitted.


And paint has started going on! :clap:

Passenger wing, bonnet, boot lid & numberplate surround primed, and underneath of bonnet & boot painted white.

All the sealant on all windows (windscreen, rear quarter and rear screen) removed, bubbles of rust on roof/around screens treated, and primed.

Wings/bonnet/boot lid installed to car :)


And now of course the obligatory piccies! ;)

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Coming along really quickly now!

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:10 pm

22nd May 2007

OK, well I haven't updated anything here for a month :oops: but I have still been working on the lude!

Unfortunately I missed my original aimed completion date of the weekend just gone, (ie the Digital-Car show!), due to some circumstances you'll find out later in this post :(

After my previous update, I had the initial version of the front lip I'm having made, which is going to be a Wings West RS replica. However, the one he made up and brought over to me wasn't quite right - whilst nice, not what I had originally asked for.

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So I sent him away again with a list of modifications and measurements to make it how I wanted it, with the intention of seeing him the following weekend with the completed article.

The next weekend came and went, without being able to contact him. The next weekend I saw part of the plug, but it was no-where near completion. Then the weekend before last he should have been bringing over the plug/mould for me to inspect - and again he didn't. I then finally managed to get him last Monday, when we agreed he'd bring it up to me last Thursday when I was at my dad's, before going to the Digital-Car meet. Then yesterday, I spoke to him again (after calling and leaving multiple more messages over the weekend asking why he didn't turn up) yesterday, where he said it would ready that night.

So, I arranged for it to go to the body shop last night, only now about 3-4 weeks after I'd originally wanted it to, but, surprise surprise, no sign of a lip, so the body shop cannot get on and paint up the bumpers, but they will get on with doing the other bits, including the last few bits of preparation I hadn't done.

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Whilst I was waiting for this lip (remember - the only bit other than paint we haven't done ourselves), I decided I'd use some of this extra time to swap over the rear suspension from the donor, partly due to having less rust, and partly due to the bushes etc having done only 50k miles compared to the 175k mine have done. This wasn't originally on my list of things to do - but the delays with the lip meant it seemed like a good idea!

So I stripped it off, cleaned it up, and gave it a good going over with a tin of Hammerite ;)

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During this delayed time, I also finished swapping over the rest of the wiring, and checked out that things like windows, JDM folding mirrors and all other electronic components work - including the loom modifications for hooking my EL dials to the JDM pre-facelift loom - which did, by the way ;)



So, the current state-of-play is that it's in the bodyshop, and I'm still waiting to see this lip - which I hope to god is right, as I've had enough with the waiting and problems this guy has been giving me, and the lack of communication, and it's held me up by a good month! :mad:


More updates and pics once I get the car back from the bodyshop! :)


And thanks to everyone who asked me about this at the weekend and said kind words about the rebuild and this thread - it makes it all worthwhile! :)

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:12 pm

During the evenings I have been working on some other bits for the car, namely lights :)

I started off another thread about this, but I let that fall by the wayside, so here's this bit (out of order of the rest)



Feb 1 2007

I know there's another Projector/light thread going on (who posted up a couple of days after I posted pics originally in my rebuild thread!) but I'm doing it slightly differently - so it's good to have more than one option of logs - plus we can then see what each other are doing, and steal any good ideas! ;)

Basically, the reason for doing this, is the quite appalling headlights that 90's Japanese manufacturers thought would be good enough!

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Quite clearly, the beam pattern is terrible, the light is spreading all over the place! Fitting brighter HID bulbs to the standard reflector won't really help too much - all it will realistically do is just have more light spreading where it shouldn't be going!

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This is the pattern you get from a projector unit, such as those fitted to modern cars, especially those with HID lights. As you can see - there is very little light spread upwards, other than the small rectangle of this one, which is by design (for some reason, I'm not quite sure why!)



So, the first task is to get a suitable set of lights as a donor. I managed to get a pair of Subaru Legacy headlights, which had been replaced under warranty at the local Subaru dealer because the plastic lens had started melting on one of them (probably due to sitting for a long period of time with the lights on, with little to no airflow over the lens). Unfortunately, the HID bulbs and ballast were put into the replacement light units, so I do not have the actual HID bulbs/ballasts. However, an aftermarket set at 5300K will be acquired.

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Next, I opened the Subaru and the Prelude headlights up by placing them in an oven on a low heat - I used Gas Mark 3.

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Once they were apart, I took the standard reflector out of the Prelude headlight, and started fabricating a piece that would replace it, and hold the projector unit.

So that I could still adjust the beam alignment, I incorporated the plastic mountings from the original unit onto the bit I was fabricating, so that I could use the OEM alignment screws.

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And now this panel placed into the housing - all the adjustment screws lining up nicely :)

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I then kind of got a bit carried away with doing it, and completely forgot to take any more "in progress" pictures :roll:

So here's a picture that you can see the modifications to the aluminium plate to hold the projector unit, and the cut-out for the beam to project through:

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And here's how much it sticks out at the back - there is enough for the rubber cover to *just* fit on (albeit at a little bit of a stretch)

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Once I'd done this, I bolted the headlight onto a car, and compared the beam aim with the original unit - it was miles off! [smilie=hate-wall.gif] It was about 1ft too high at 4ft distance... and could not be adjusted any lower, as the top edge of the projector was already touching the opening in the back of the casing.

In trying to adjust this, I also started to bend the aluminium plate out of shape, presumably from where I'd cut too much away :roll:



So... back to the drawing board I went! :arrow:


I started again, with a new plain sheet of aluminium, determined to keep it as strong as possible, and cut away as little as possible!

So, I decided instead of cutting out slots for the bits of plastic for the adjusters, I would instead utilise the original metal bar they are attached to from the reflector unit, and screw these to the sheet instead.

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The washers allow the plastic bushes to move as the unit is adjusted, without putting additional stresses on the adjustment screws. Small holes are also cut in the aluminium for the adjustment screws to pass through.

Then I aligned the projector unit up with the hole in the back of the light unit, and marked where the projector needed to be mounted - this ended up over 1cm lower than I had previously done it (by lining the projector lens with the centre of the visible area!)

The piece of metal from the projector unit that holds everything together square, and gives the beam pattern has now been screwed to the plate.

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However, it will be on nuts/bolts, so that the rotation of the beam can be adjusted so that it is perfectly level. Therefore, the holes where locating pins and screws attach the unit together (all the holes in the plate in the picture above) will have to be enlarged to allow a small amount of movement for fine adjustment.

Feb 13 2007

Right, worked some more on these last night :)

I finished the plate to mount the projector to, including the hole for the beam to shine through (the only thing left over from before).

I also started work on the plate which will be attached to the shroud, which the lens will sit through once finished.

Here it is after drilling it out, roughly (and a couple of minutes of filing)

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And once filed enough for the lens to sit through:

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The hole still needs to be enlarged a bit, so that the lens position can be adjusted properly. The hole will be surrounded by some rubber hole edging, which will prevent any excess light leakage, but still allow movement :) The plate will also be painted black so that it all matches up nicely :)

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Feb 20 2007

I have so far been working on the light that was damaged in my accident, so I finally bit the bullet last week and cooked the ones that came from the donor car! :shock:

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It then needed prising apart. This grey glue stuff is horrible, and gets *everywhere*!

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And a little while later, I had two separated JDM headlights!

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I was then able to make an almost exact duplicate of the plate to hold the projector unit, just had to adjust a couple of holes as they're offset to one side on the projector unit, and the plates are mirror images of each other.

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Et voila, two projector units in Prelude headlights :) I still need to make up the other front plate, which will hide the ugliness of my workings, and then put them back together, once I've double-checked the alignment of them on the car :)


And a couple of shots of them switched on :)

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Feb 26 2007

I then started thinking about the side-light section, which was the one part of the standard headlights I didn't like design-wise.

So, I wondered what it would look like with the sidelight lens tinted, so that it follows the dark/black theme I'm going to have with the rest of the light unit.

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So I used a bit of tinting film on the sidelight lenses and tried it out (with some help from my mum) to see how much light I'd get.

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Once I was happy with that, I finished up the projector surround plates, and sprayed them black:

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May 16 2007

With a long break from my headlights (more later as to why ;)) I looked at them again, and finally made my decision on something I'd been uhmming and ahhing about for a while - whether to use a bit of aluminium around the projector lense, to make it look a little more "OEM" and to break up the black a bit (and draw focus to the fact there's a projector lamp there!). So, I cut up an aluminium lamp shade from B&Q (thanks exboyracer for the tip - shamelessly stolen from him!), and then had the following:

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It still needs a little straightening out, and I may possibly polish it, rather than leaving it brushed - still unsure!

So that's where I'm at with the front lights at the moment :)

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:13 pm

Now that's an update on the front lights, time to move onto the rear lights ;)

I was browsing on eBay one day, when I came across a set of smoked Lexus style lights (similar to what jules.pollock has - linky), thinking I'd continue with the white/black theme I'm having with the front lights, wheels & window tints etc)

Obligatory Photoshop of the lights on the car)
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However, not being content with leaving it standard, I started having evil thoughts, so the day after they arrived, I stuck them in the oven to pull them apart!

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And found (to my horror) they were actually lexus-style chrome lights with a smoked cover, which I found actually reflected back quite a bit of light, and didn't look that good IMO.

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Knowing I wanted to do something with them, but unsure of what exactly, I left them as they are for a good month or so, but kept getting them out to see if I'd have any good ideas, but none came.



I then went to the Honda Revolutions annual social meet at Gaydon, and whilst walking around, saw exboyracer's car (who I'd already shamelessly stolen an idea from for my headlights), and I then saw his rear lights. It then struck me that, unfortunately, I again wanted to steal another of his ideas! ;)

So, an evil plan was born, and I started to acquire the bits I required - LEDs, stripboard etc.

I cut the stripboard down to the right sizes, and started laying LEDs down to try to figure out a shape/pattern:

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Once I was happy with the layout (which is very slightly different to ebr's ;)) I sprayed the stripboard black, and started to solder the LEDs on.

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I then started trying to figure out how bright the LEDs needed to be:

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I also had to make up some regulator circuits, including nice big heatsinks, as I wanted the brightness the same no matter what voltage the car battery was providing. Using just resistors on the LEDs would cause brightness differences!

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I then took it and hooked it up to the car, and got the brake & indicators working together:

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And two completed lights:

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However, I still wasn't happy with the chrome, as it looked out of place even more with the circuit boards black... :(

I then sprayed the inside of the light units black, rather than chrome, and with the covers on, looks much better IMO:

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The next step is to work out how to make the larger of the two rings be both a tail light AND a brake light - but I have a friend on the case :)

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:14 pm

4th June 2007

Well, I have the car back! :yahoo: :eusa_dance:

The main chassis has been painted, and it's back home and I'm starting to put bits back in it!

Pictures really don't do justice as to how bright and shiny it is! It actually hurt my eyes looking at the paintwork in the sun, without sunglasses on!

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And the obligatory "reflection" shot - again better in person than in picture, not bad for white, which is usually rubbish at "reflection" shots! ;)

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However, there is a problem :(

When we collected it, I noticed a large pool of oil sat underneath it, and a very scary looking trail of oil, which showed exactly where it had been moved around. :shocking: (Which you can just about see in the 2nd picture above - from behind the car going to the bottom right corner of the picture!)

Oil was pouring out from the bottom of the pulley/belt cover!

First thoughts were along the lines of "oh sh..!, that's quite catastrophic!", and cursing that it'd now be a 2hr job to get in there and figure out why it's now leaking - bearing in mind it'd been sat at my dad's for a couple of months, full of oil, and started up every now and then, without dropping anything!

An hour and a half later, we'd got into the area, and discovered that where we'd removed a tin-plate to clean it, and put it back, it's held in place using 2 of the oil pump/balancer shaft bolts - one of which was loose - probably not tightened properly. So, we tightened up the bolt, cranked it over for ~30 seconds or so, and the leak had stopped :)

Whilst annoying that it's happened (it's 3hrs of stripping it down and putting it back together that we could have done without) - at least it's happened while it's here, and not when I was travelling down the A12 at 70mph - because it would have drained all the oil and seized up after only a couple of minutes - which would have been a much, much bigger nightmare!


So, with the delay of having to fix the oil leak - so far only the dashboard has been put back into the car! :)

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It's getting tight for Japshow - not sure it's going to be finished - only 2 more weekends! :?

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:14 pm

4th June 2007

The tail lights are now very nearly finished - just need to confirm at the weekend that I've wired everything up to the correct pins, and they'll be oven-baked to perfection ;)

Here's a quick glimpse of how they look in action :)

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Off -> Tail -> Tail & Stop -> Tail, Stop, Indicator ->
Tail & Indicator -> Indicator -> Indicator & Reverse ->
Reverse -> Reverse & Brake -> Brake

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Post by Confused » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:15 pm

9th June 2007

Another update for you.

Went over to the bodyshop this morning, and matey who's doing the front lip actually had something to show me!!!

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That is almost as close to the Wings West RS lip as you could probably get just making it up from pictures, so I'm now happy with that, so it will be made up in the next week or so, so I should have the completed bumper hopefully by next weekend.

While I was there, I picked up the rest of the bits that had been painted - sunroof, door handles, mirrors, sideskirts, rear bumper, boot lid, rear numberplate surround, rear spoiler, and then started to fit them.

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I also hooked up the rear lights, and discovered they've changed something between the pre- and post-facelift rear lights, so what was the reverse wire on the post-facelift is brake on the pre-facelift, so basically I've got no reverse on one side, the brake light comes on instead lol!

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Also started to wire in the alarm etc too, which doesn't provide much pictorial progress!

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