[danteisme]

Are those pieces discontinued from Honda?

The trim pieces are, and the green clips are, but they are still showing the white clips are available. I can't see any difference between the 2, so i might order enough clips in white for both sides and see what happens. I'm still not 100% sure what the correct way is to remove these pieces, clearly the way i did it is not the correct method lol.

 

[g3teg97]

The trim pieces are, and the green clips are

That sucks.

 

[popanollie]

it makes me sad and mad when i see or hear of these cars being neglected, so when i see your work to save her it brings a tear to my eye. a tear of joy and hope.

 

[danteisme]

it makes me sad and mad when i see or hear of these cars being neglected, so when i see your work to save her it brings a tear to my eye. a tear of joy and hope.

Thanks! Sometimes I can be too much of a perfectionist, but in the end it will be worth the effort/trouble/headaches lol.

 

[danteisme]

I'm going to order enough white clips for both sides and see what happens. Not sure what the difference is between the 2 sides, other then green and white coloring. I'm also going to order parts to rebuild my shifter so when I install the new short shifter I can do everything at once.

On another note, what lug nuts does everyone recommend these days for aftermarket wheels? I have black "tuner style" lugs now, and I hate them. The black coating just flakes off, so now i guess they are chrome lug nuts. I'd like to get something where the coating won't flake off during their first use.

 

[danteisme]

Order placed for the clips, we'll see how they work out. Also placed an order for all of the pieces to rebuild the shift linkage. Car is 98% back together now, makes me so happy!

 

[tony4311]

awesome!

 

[danteisme]

A couple of hours of work Friday night and Saturday night after the kiddos went to bed. After cleaning the car, I sanded the car with 2000 grit, and then followed up with 3,000 grit. I avoided the edges and around the door handles and such because I am not a fan of getting the buffer that close to the edges and because my buffer has a 7" pad. Too risky for me. I also realized that I definitely could've sanded a bit more in a few places, but I was nervous to sand much further. No real indication that this fear was warranted, but just getting too much passed my level of comfort given this is 100% DIY paint job by a guy that never previously painted a car before lol. A few pics:

After one pass with meguiars 105 and a wool pad. This is the trunk lid:

The hood:

I think i'm going to go over the whole car one more time with the 105. I can't tell if some of what i am seeing is swirl marks or hazing from the wool pad or if its still 3,000 grit sand marks. I plan to follow up with 205 on a polishing pad and then with meguiars 7 with a finishing pad. Then i'll put a solid coat of wax on it. I think I have chemical guys butter wax and some meguiars nxt wax, i'll just pick one of them. So hopefully after a few more hours in the garage this weekend, i'll have all of the buffing done and protection done.

 

[danteisme]

Went back over the car along the edges with the 3000 grit to get the same uniform finish on the paint from a recommendation on honda tech. i also went over a couple of places again with the 105 and the wool pad and i'm glad i did. it really cleaned up a couple of places. I had limited time to work on the car this weekend, so i completely finished the trunk lid and the hood. When i say completely finished, i used 205 with a polishing pad, then followed that up with meguiar's 07 with a finishing pad.

here is the hood:

I absolutely love the depth of this color.

And here is the trunk lid:

Also, i installed the rear spoiler. Still getting used to seeing it on the car since mine didnt come with it from the factory. I like it, i think it finishes out the rear of the car nicely for being a stock oem part. Crappy part is it will need to come off again at somepoint when i repaint the other few pieces that need some attention.

And i think its finally time for this guy to go.

And lastly, i'm thinking about picking up a set of these from delray. I took them off the car long long time ago for fear of rust starting between the wheel arch and the protector since the car was still driven in the winter. Not sure if that is a real threat now that the car won't be driven in the winter. I feel like i need something to protect the paint on the wheel arch. thoughts?

 

[danteisme]

Moar updates!

I decided i'm just going to try to PPF those wheel arch lips. It will be a good place to practice.

Finished the polishing process with the car. There is a downside to this though. Now that the car is polished and "flat", you can really tell how badly i warped the doors when i was stripping the paint...However, if i you look at it at the correct angle, you can't tell lol.
Door warpage. Well, maybe not so much warpage on this one. This is the one that had all of the damage to it that i tried to fix just because it was too late to try and track down a straight, rust free door in Western PA lol.

You can also tell in this picture which pieces were the ones affected by my compressor regulator exploding. Look at the difference in the orange peel between the front fender and the front door.

Some reflections

Once the snow is cleared out, I'll flip the car around in the garage so i have a little more room to try and take care of the clear coat runs in the back passenger door. In the meantime, i'm going to clean up the overspray and junk off the windows, put some paint protectant on the car now that its all polished out, and attempt to clean up the compound splatter all over the car. its everywhere. I think i'll also pull one of the wheels to test a small spot for polishing these rotas out, just to see if its feasible / worth my time.

Couple over overall shots and my newly installed emblems on the trunk (i'll have to wait until i redo the front and back bumpers to install the rest of the new emblems.

Speaking of emblems, i'm really glad i bought mine when i did. i dont recall paying this much.

Also, is there some trick i don't know about to get the plastic nuts to stay on the tabs on this emblem? I push them on, and they just fall right off? These guys. It looks like its just a pressure clip. They came with the emblem and i just twisted them loose to remove them from the emblem. Now i cant get them to screw on, snap on, anything on?

 

[danteisme]

Ugh. i figured out the emblem, i'm an idiot. hopefully i can still fix this without having to buy another freakin emblem.

And I liked the way the car looked when i was taking out the trash the other morning. Warped doors and all lol.

 

[danteisme]

I now enjoy posting pictures of the car now that its in this stage lol. Several things happened this weekend.

I flipped the car around so that i have more room to work on my runs on my door. Also nearly have the garage back in order (although the pictures really dont paint that picture)

Paint sealant is applied, just have to do the wax coating on top of this. Love the reflection it has now. Is it perfect? No, far from it. But I am incredibly proud of the job.

Spoiler brake light is wired up and working the way it should be. (yuck, look at the textured paint on the underside. can you tell this is one of the pieces that was a victim to my air compressor regulator explosion?)

And i cant figure out what i am doing wrong with this emblem... I removed it so i could put the clips back on the prongs on the back of the emblem. Well, this apparently is not correct either. How the heck does this emblem correctly attach to the car??

i have also decided against polishing these wheels. After talking to some powder coaters, after i spend lord knows how many hours to polish them, i would still need to pay a powder coating a couple hundred dollars to protect the raw alloy. I just don't have it in my to hand polish these things for a couple hundred hours lol. So, once it warms up, I'll be repainting these bright silver. I'm over the gold color. When i do the wheels, i'll also touch up the calipers and a few other things that will need to wait for warmer temps.

 

[danteisme]

Whoops, i havent updated this in a while. Got them emblem figured out with the help of a friend, turns out I was over complicating it.

I scraped my clear coat run with a razor blade about has far as i want to take it. Can you still see it? Yup. Is it as bad as before? Not really. Scraping any further is beyond my level of comfort at this point, i have a scratch or two from where the blade dug in a bit deeper than it was supposed to.

I'm still fighting with this overspray on my windows. I'm having a heck of a time trying to remove it, nothing seems to be working. I've tried a razor blade with glass cleaner, that got a good bit off but started to scratch the glass. I've tried 0000 steel wool, that helped a little bit, but no more than the razor blade and glass cleaner. All of the videos i watched of someone using 0000 steel wool to remove glass overspray did it using it dry. Maybe i should try with glass cleaner? I've tried acetone and paint thinner on a rag, no effect. Not sure what to try next.

I started mocking up the DB8R exhaust, i have some cutting and splicing to do to get it to fit. I also have to weld a reducer on my new flange and then weld that up to the DB8R piping and that will be done.

I removed the linkage from the car so i can install my Neuspeed short shifter and rebuild with all new OEM bushings around the shifter. Hopefully I will be able to tackle that during the week so i can get it reinstalled this weekend.

I experimented with some xpel PPF and added a layer to my DIY woodgrain center. Just to protect the vinyl from the cupholder area mainly. I tried using just one piece directly below where the cupholders would come out, but it made that area super glossy compared to the rest. So, i just covered the whole thing.

I'm definitely going to try to get this on some key areas of the car once all of the resprays are completed.

Also picked these up. Got paid for some OT i worked so i got myself a little reward.

I will probably not install these over the existing glass like the instructions say to. I've seen where people have had issues installing them this way and they end up loosing an expensive mirror. I've seen a couple of other installs where people will remove the oem mirror from the black plastic housing and install it directly to the oem mirror holder/housing or whatever it is. I'm just not sure what the best method of adhesive is going to be. One video i saw, the guy used rubber butly to mount it. I don't think that's the best idea, rubber butyl tends to get very flexible when its warmed up. So, i'll keep on researching.

I also failed to post these pictures, everyone likes pictures.

This is one of the pieces that will be getting redone this summer sometime.

Ooof, those pearls.

Also picked this up for the OEM head unit. Act a fool.

 

[tony4311]

You have found a lot of things for your car but a F&F soundtrack on cassette? How in the hell did you find such a thing?

 

[danteisme]

Ebay is a dangerous rabbit hole to go down lol. I have the first one on cassette too, unopened at that!

 

[danteisme]

i had some successes this weekend, and some failure. as always...

successes! rebuilt my shift linkage per the LHT video on youtube with all new oem components and installed my neuspeed short shifter. My god that thing is solid now. and the throws are so much shorter, it will take some getting used to after driving all these years with the stock shifter. Also wired in 2 resistors to my led light behind my cupholder, it more closely matches the rest of the interior's lighting "intensity". Here is all of that back installed in the car.

Now....for the fail.....i realized this weekend that what i thought was overspray from my paintwork last year was not overspray from that. Which, might explain why nothing i have tried has worked. This overspray is from eastwoods internal frame coating. Apparently i missed a couple of holes when i was taping off the wheel arch and the rocker. this stuff is hard as a rock. i sent a message to eastwood about anything that might be able to take this stuff off, i'm hoping i dont need to get a new rear windshield because of this screw up...

I tried a razor with acetone on the sections not by the rear defroster....nadda.

 

[danteisme]

I received a response from Eastwood about how to remove that product:

Good morning,

Thank you for your inquiry. This product can be damaged by solvents because of its make up.. For easiest removal you should be able to find locally a paint stripper in aerosol form to utilize. This should surely remove this coating.


Best regards,


Customer Solutions Technical Support Specialist

So I'll give this a try, after i completely cover my car to avoid this stuff getting anywhere it is not supposed to!

 

[tony4311]

maybe spray on a rag outside the garage then come in and wipe it on the window?

 

[danteisme]

maybe spray on a rag outside the garage then come in and wipe it on the window?

I'm going to give that a go first. My only thought to needing to spray it in the car is i think this needs to be coated pretty good to work. At least that was my experience with it last time. But, since this is just overspray, it might not be necessary. I'm not trying remove layers of paint, just annoying speckled overspray. I had all intentions of trying it out this past weekend. i bought a can of that stripper while running some errands on Saturday and for the life of me i could not find it when i got home. Found it this morning getting ready for work....oh well. I'll get to it. I also now have the DB8R exhaust 95% of the way installed, i have to finish attaching one last piece and that piece of the puzzle is done.

Also, i had a disappointing realization this weekend. I looked at how much room the kiddos car seats take up in my truck, i don't see how they will ever fit in the integra with my seat in a position so my legs aren't in the gauge cluster. I'm going to make it a priority to test that out this weekend. If they do not fit, there is no need rush to getting this car done. I take my kids to daycare and pick them up every day of the week, so if those car seats don't fit in the car, the integra will very rarely be driven.

 

[tony4311]

That's why mine doesn't get driven much right now either. I drop off and my 6 year old is just too big with the car seat. Cant' speak on the sedan but the last time I gave her a ride for fun her head was up by the hatch glass closer than I liked. She won't be riding again until she doesn't need the car seat.
It's closer than the picture shows.