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Ef yu's crx

31K views 125 replies 34 participants last post by  ef yu 
#1 ·
Trying to keep a Log for a car that i purchased.

Story is that I purchased the car back in December of 12'.
I was in LA county at the time when the deal came up back at home (norcal)
I got on it, emailed the seller and he contacted me first. We talked back and fourth for an hour or so. Heres what the previous owner sent me.



Busted windshield


it had a momo wheel, not too bad of a choice. Ill be switching it out for oem later.




He had the car since he was in high school. Not sure if he was the second owner or what but the car sure had its fair share of abuse during its 288k miles

The following days later, I had my brothers check it out and they said it was cool. It seemed like it was a deal considering it was running and complete. For the price, i couldn't complain, til later.

As soon as they brought the car home they sent me some poorly skilled pictures lol.
Heres what they sent me while i was in SoCal for the time being.

Some 1/4 panel damage....=(




minor dents


cutout for foglights...ill fix this.


Frame looks straight.




Some weird rust spots? dont know how this happened....




and the only best picture i got from my brothers.


Following week, i finally arrive home. I couldnt wait to see what was actually up with the car but as i know it, Airline lost my luggage. lol. Woohoo!

I still went home and cleaned up the car for a few hours.

Got rid of that intake...Somewhat cleaned it. I already purchased a MAJOR tune up parts from Hondapartsunlimited.








Some Dynamat was installed during its life...


Trying to fix the climate control...lol i couldnt go on and finish it. just looked awful.






Also found out that the driver side quarter panel has been worked on =(




Some fender damage as well....


I dont know why but i didnt take any pics of the passenger side quarter panel before. It didnt seem that bad but it was pretty bad. things didnt lined up nor was the skin of the panel even attached to the body anymore. So me and my very good friend tony got to work. Mostly he did it lol.









Test fitting the lights to see how they fit.


The day was almost ending and i had gotten some tires so i had to get the wheels off.
started goofing around to make the day feel better lol.




While this was being done, my brother came to help too. He installed the waterpump/ belt and tensioner. Cleaned up the timing covers and reinstalled.


The next day we got back on it. With no time wasting, we already applied and sanded the body filler.












I welded up the seams to the rear panels, and used window weld to seal it.
Wish i got before pics.






I fixed the rust from the A pillar. rust was pretty deep but i got it to work out.


While cleaning up, i found this. haha I guess the previous owner high school days were fun.


We got bored and wanted to start something different. The quarter panel was such a pain in the butt to line up.
I told my friend Tony that i wanted to install some OEM foglights. Of course i didnt wanna dish out 300 for a pair of fogs that i will likely seem them crack.
Heres the work being started on it.






nerve racking when u cut your only bumper lol. We applied filler onto the bumper as well since the bumper is fairly easy to paint, we said why not.


Alright, it was fun playing with the bumper but its time to get back to business.
Was trying to capture the line correctly.






Here it is all primer-ed up and possibly ready for paint.






As that was drying, we started working on the roof and the hood. My god was that a mess.....sigh.




With the bumper on for giggles.


Started to felt that i neglected my first crx.


couple weeks later, we wanted to paint this sucker to get our motivation back.








Of course you didnt expect a actual spray gun now....I am trying to fit this into my budget.







We got the usual massive orange peel from it not being in a booth and not with a real paint gun. we sanded it down and got to buffing it.












Not too shabby if i might say.

Ill post more pics later.
 
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#3 ·
I used Omni brand paint that was a custom mix from PPG.

Painted the Hood + bumper. While i was at it, i might as well paint the ef8 hood for the other crx.
Tony helped me paint these at his place, Thanks !




Out in the sun to get it baking.




Back on the car to just see how they match/look. I havent seen this hood painted for 5years lol.


Although i havent painted the moldings yet, heres the look I am going towards for.
 
#6 ·
Lol, it doesnt matter if we're asians or not. I for one is really impatient and want to see results fast. so i usually end up doing a second round and fixing my mistakes. Btw, its not rattle can.

My brother bought a Whole gallon of paint. He got them to color match the cars original paint by giving them the paint code. It just so happen that my brothers car has the same paint code as mine.

I take the paint, went to Home depot and bought a aerosol spray that was able to spray paint you mix on your own in their small can. I mixed the paint with reducer, clear and hardener.
We Did a single stage paint job on the 1/4 panel but the hood and bumper was done with a spray gun and 2 stage paint to eliminate orange peels because no one likes to wet sand a car on their day off. :p

I also changed all the coolant hoses(some oem), even the smaller one, put new rotor + cap, fuel filter, Koyo radiator, thermostat and probably more. Will need to finish tomorrow though. Going to try to clean the engine + bay. well see how that goes.
 
#14 ·
TurtleED8 said:
Nice work so far man! :)b
Thanks
MColvin said:
How much did that paint job cost you? I'm thinking of painting mine this summer. I just don't want to pay an arm and a leg, and I am going to go with the original blade silver
well total in cost would probably be around 250-300 with all the materials needed. (sand paper, body filler, primer etc etc)
MasterJasper said:
Yeah man nice body work and paint job! I need some work on mine too I hope down the road I'll do a great job too.
Definitely a tough experience but love the outcome.

Today we tore the roof apart. Removed all the bolts and screws to remove the sunroof panel to do some work to it.





All primed up. read for a wet sand


We didnt get any during pictures of the painting because we had our monster enegy drinks and tried to tidy up the pieces of parts we have to make it into a whole car again.



We also primered the trunk + paint


While that was drying, we sought out to finish the front bumper. We needed to painted the trim because i didnt want to mask up the moldings before the initial paint.


After about 3 coats of black trim paint, heres what we got.


Heres the paint after everything settled down and semi-dried. Dont worry, we plan to have it wet sand and buffed out to get that bling everyone wants.




Pretty much the end of the days work.
We started cleaning the area to organize our tools and what not and found our selves mocking up the front end lol




I also forgot that Tony helped me wet sand the passenger side of the car and buffed out any blemishes on the old paint to somewhat match the new 1/4 paint.


Will resume again tomorrow. Ill be tidying up the engine bay. cleaning, more tune up parts etc.
 
#18 ·
Im sure Ill start a raging war by saying this, but after spending most of my life around my father's body shop and learning about paint work I can say that it doesn't really matter too much if you rattlecan it or use legit painting equipment. It just comes down to the abilities of the painter himself. The only real differences is the propellant, aerosol or compressed air. And with a paint gun you get a much broader patch of paint laid down per pass. Overall, it's all in the prep work and making sure there is good adhesion between the primer/base/clear. This is a good example of that on the quarter panel. Just be prepared to have the single stage fade faster than the 2 stage paint. Good job!
 
#19 ·
^ thanks. We're not experienced body workers or anything, just wanting to save some money by doing work ourselves.

Didnt get much done today . Finished with all the engine stuff. I tried to replace everything that would help with mileage and performance. I tried to clean the bay but i can only do so much.



Heres the passenger side. Buffed out and waxed.


Driver side is on its way.
 
#24 ·
Thanks guys.
put it some more work into the crx before the rain.

Heres the Driver side after some polish work done to it.



Buffed out the roof as well.


Fixed the leaking rear wheel cylinders as well. (dont know where the actual picture went lol)
I replaced the brake shoes, wheel cylinder and the brake drum itself.


Heres the roof itself. Trying to prep it so we could have it painted but the spray gun got clogged and ruined the paint. so it looks like we're gonna have to fix it again.


Andddddd the roof covered up for rain. I didnt finish it like that, i added strips of tape it help keep the plastic bag from bowing and added a carboard underneath the plastic for structural strength.
 
#25 ·
Quick update, ran into a spongy brake situation. Bled the brakes, new rear shoes + wheel cylinder, rebuild the front calipers, cleaned up the original master cylinder. still no good. I thought the booster was bad so i had a spare gsr booster that Tony gave me. was meant for my other crx but ill come up with another one sooner or later. Brakes still felt spongy....=(

My brother came to help and suggested that the proportion valve was the only thing left to change. After replacing it with a 4040 valve, everything worked. Brakes feel so much better.
Picture of the booster in action in the bay. was a tight fit! but we got it to work.

Also people online were saying that the gsr master cylinder uses a 12mm brake line. some reason my old 10mm brake line works no problem. YES THIS IS A GSR. We pulled it out ourselves from a Doner gsr that Tony used parts for his hatchback.

Random picture.
 
#26 ·
Small update. Havent really touched the car...
I fixed the radio harness. fairly easy fix..


shrinked it down and done.


I also got a plate "fix" idea from another member on this forum. I forgot the user name.
He took the face plate from a 88-91 civic climate control, cut it/ trim it to fit and glued it on.
Before:

During:

After:


definitely a heep lot better than its original form.
But once i tried to put the climate control back in the dash, it fell apart. Other parts of the plastic were so brittle and fragile that it just simple time to trash it.

I bought this at the local junkyard for 25 something dollars.

I've already made a pulg and play harness so that i wont hack up the original harness incase i find another oem climate control.

Thats all for now.
i fixed a fading headlight.
Wetsanded the headlights using 1000, 1500, 2000 grit and then used a polishing compound with a drill to get the maximum shine out of it.

AFTER
 
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