Sensible daily - Honda Civic

[TGPlayer1]

And not just any old Civic, oh no, it's a gem.

It's a 2001 X-reg, black, 1.4i SE automatic, with leather seats, air-con (that works), CD player, sunroof, electric windows and alloys. It's done just over 91000 miles, had two owners and is mechanically sound, as one would expect with a Honda. On top of all that it has half a tank of juice, six month's MOT and a pile of invoices higher than the car itself. It drives completely spot on, the engine is sweet and the gearbox is nice and smooth. All the electrics work, the rust is minimal and the exhaust has been replaced quite recently.

All it needs is one tyre, front brake discs and pads and one hell of a polish, as the paintwork has seen better days, it's also had a bit of Halfords aerosol on the corners. Both arches on the driver's side need a little straightening and I'll probably buy a rear bumper for it, but these are all minor things that I can sort myself for pennies.

Here it is in all it's sensible Japanese glory




And how much did I pay for all this?

Just one hundred of the Queen's English pounds, yep £100 for a cruise machine. It literally costs more to tax it for a year.

So all I've got to do is get it gleaming and enjoy the easy, automatic life, and really really really not spend any money on it, which will be the hardest thing I'll ever have to do :lol:

Anyway I'll get a few more snaps of it tomorrow and then get about valeting the bugger, oh and also finding it a good name.

 

[tuonokid]

Hi Tom
You're now, officially, the youngest OAP I know
Barry

 

[Neil]

A proper Civic, full pensioner spec :lol:

Like it

 

[The Arch Bishop]

And it'll rattle on for mile after mile after mile with no major issues and keep gong looooong after you're sick of the sight of it! But for a hundred squids, it's a cracking buy.

 

[TGPlayer1]

It's even got brown Honda badges embroidered into the seats for that extra OAP look.

I think it'll still be rolling on long after I'm dead never mind bored of it :lol:

 

[tuonokid]

Ayup Tom
It'll be good reliable transport if nowt else but I will keep my eyes out for a beaded seat cover and a pipe rack for you.
Barry

 

[TGPlayer1]

Haha my Dad mentioned the seat covers too, add a faux wood steering wheel cover and I'm all set :lol:

 

[TGPlayer1]

Yesterday I began the cleaning process and gave it a mighty wash.

I took some more before photos









All I've done so far is wash it, put some coolant in the engine, swapped the bald tyre for the spare and put on some nice new plates and taxed it, so for now I can use it. I also bought the Haynes workshop manual so I can get about fiddling with it k:

I'm now on the lookout for a couple of bumpers, a wing, some better spec wheels and a shiny back box.

This Saturday I'll get it into the workshop and fit new front discs and pads and a cam belt, give it a proper check over and get some nicer bulbs in the lights. I'll also get on with the bodywork, as the paint was worse than I first thought.

 

[TGPlayer1]

It's been a hard day's night for me and Honda-San this weekend. Another midnight polishing session on Saturday followed by a full day of valeting and tinkering on Sunday. But at least the end result has come up good.

This was how I left it on Saturday night, after a four hour buff



I fitted the new discs and pads too



At this point I gave up trying to rectify the rear bumper and am now on the lookout for a replacement



As you can see I got new wheels too. MG ZR 16x6.5s which I think look really good indeed, I wasn't sure till I got them on but I jut bought them because they were cheap and figured I could sell them on if they were naff. But it's a vast improvement over the terrible 14" bottle tops it had on before.



And finally I managed to get a picture of the finished product before the rain came



It's remarkable how well the paint has come up, as I thought it may have gone too far, but testament to a bit of elbow grease and some good products as it's a beaut now.


Next few jobs include refurbing the wheels, getting the bumper sorted, fitting the new cambelt and kitting out the lights with LEDs. Then I will have totally disregarded the original plan of not spending any money on unnecessary mods :lol:

 

[red]

doesn't look like the same car from the first picture in the thread to the last. Good work.

 

[TGPlayer1]

Why thankyou sir. I'm still unsure that it is haha.

In fairness it's mostly down to having the right equipment and insider (trade) knowledge. I'm pretty useless otherwise :-D

 

[TGPlayer1]

Got me some centre caps



Also I found a rubber bat in a rehearsal studio, so have now adorned the dashboard with it



That's it for now.

 

[trublustu]

Every car should have a rubber bat.

Those wheels set the car off well, nice find..

 

[TGPlayer1]

I made use of the bank holiday weekend just gone by having two nights on the piss and still having a day in the workshop to do some required jobs on the ninja.

Firstly I tried to address the exhaust blow on the back box flange, as it's had the centre section and back box replaced at different intervals, using pattern parts that don't fit together particularly well. After hitting myself in the forehead really very hard with the ratchet (I still have a lump now) I got the box off and tried to jiggle everything about to get it to fit. Whilst on with this I have it a rev without the back box and it sounds quite sporty, without sounding much like a car with no exhaust, so I may just forget the box and stick a straight pipe on it. We shall see.

Then I fitted LEDs in all the lights, which went swimmingly once I'd got all the water out of the driver's side rear lamp and doused all the connectors in WD40. Although I noticed the next night that when I put the sidelights on the centre brake light comes on too, so a bit of troubleshooting needs doing.

Following that I tidied up the wheels as they were all stone chipped. Luckily no curb rash so it was just a case of a quick rub down then blowing over with satin black.

The next task was the trickiest, mainly because I'm a cackhanded fool, which was repairing the old-man damage that every Honda Civic has on it's bumpers. The near side front corner was very bad and has been repainted God knows how many times before. So a sand and paint (with the right colour) happened, and it was all fine until I applied the lacquer, and in the way shit lacquer does it went milky in places. So some rectifying was done and it's now fairly reasonable, luckily the bad bits are not in the direct line of sight. So I'll give it a polish when the paint is properly cured and hopefully it should be alright.

After choring with all those jobs I wanted to do something a bit nicer, so I painted the cam cover in matt black and polished up the Honda writing, but of course I got some polish on the paint and it's gone all crap, but by that time of night I didn't care and stuck it back on and went home.



It's better than it was anyway. I need to get some UHT paint on the exhaust mani as well, which will happen eventually. And sort out some better induction set up with a cold air feed.

Fast forward a couple of days and these arrived



So now I'm not going to get pulled for having a bald tyre

And with that I shall sign off for now.

 

[red]

so did you fix the blowing?

 

[TGPlayer1]

I did, but how long it lasts is another matter.

 

[TGPlayer1]

So whilst tearing around town on Thursday night one of my mates noticed the headlights were going crazy. Turns out both LED sidelights packed up already and were strobing, and the driver's side headlamp bulb blew the dip beam filament (being H4 bulbs both are in one unlike Puma) and actually melted the glass. Luckily the main beam still works so I wasn't going to get pulled, which would have been really really bad if you catch my drift. So now I need to get more bulbs, which is annoying seeing as these lasted two weeks :-(

On top of that one of my mates put a crate of beer on the roof and scratched it up, so now I need to polish it again. But as I still haven't done the bit I repainted I'll just do them at the same time. Fun fun fun.

 

[XAF]

I've not found any LED bulbs yet that actually last more than a couple of weeks. I'd happily pay for decent ones but every time I try somewhere new they're just as bad as before...

 

[Dal]

Try Cree LED side lights - ones that are CANBUS certified (although the Puma isn't CANBUS)

I had a pair in my old Focus and they never failed.

 

[XAF]

Try Cree LED side lights - ones that are CANBUS certified (although the Puma isn't CANBUS)

I had a pair in my old Focus and they never failed.

Cheers Dal!