The Interior - Civic saga continues.
Here is the deal. I took almost everything out of this car. Now I would like to put it back together. But in a nicer way. First I need to come up wit a consistent theme for this car, though. Here is some ideas options, and issues associated with them:
- headliner - repainting with rubbery textured paint; requires patching existing holes, would need to purchase a spray gun, air compressor, and paint.
- headliner - gluing vinyl/fabric headliner material that resembles or matches rest of the car onto the existing headliner - cheapest solution; requires 3 yards of material, and appropriate glue, still could be painted afterwards...
- headliner - scrapping off existing foamy stuff and redoing it with foamed backed material; probably cleanest/neatest solution, slightly more expensive than the one above, biggest issue is to glue material into molded visor niches (heat gun and formed wood?)
Neat thing about painting the headliner would be ability to use the same paint/texture on door panels as well as other elements to create a matching design. Plus those painting skills will sure come in handy.
- plastic panels and a dashboard; everything would be ok if I liked brown. But I don't. Not so much. Idea - repaint it all.
- sound system;
- seats; well this option is out of the question now. Local upholstery shop is asking for 500.00 to redo only front seats! Optimally I would like to do it myself but I don't have sewing machine and most importantly SKILLS required for the job. On the other hand a pair of brand new Corbeau seats would cost me just as much. Here are my favorites:
Good thing about having duct tape on your seat is that once you start sticking to it - it provides extra security in case of head on collision... even if you did not wear your seatbelt...
Other things to consider:
- carpeting;
- console with cup holders;
Comments (0) Apr. 24, 2008 00:05
Civic smogged!!!
Yup, thats right, I did it!. Well I did pay the shop to adjust the ignition timing as I could not figure it out. While they were at it they also checked the engine compression 175, 175, 170, 175. NICE!!! Now I can start beautifying the whole thing. I already ripped the rear seats out (hypermiling, baby!). And here is some things I would like to address: seats need to be re-upholstered or replaced, replacing carpet, Want to get rid of that brown interior color - considering repainting the interior with some other two tone design. Nothing tacky, but I wanna come up with a theme, like black/gray, black/dark green is nice, so is black/navy, and black or navy/orange (that is kinda ricey... a new term I learned from forums). Other thing: headliner, patching holes and painting or replacement. For now I cleaned the visors (lol) and it does not look half bad when it is cleaned, will try cleaning it first - it has to come out, though.Comments (0) Apr. 13, 2008 12:20
Getting it done...
Since the car has been sitting for a long period of time on the street, it would be a wise idea to actually do things like oil change and tune-up before attempting passing the smog inspection. I was too excited to consider that. Once it failed, I had been granted 30 days to fix it and re-inspected for free. Here is a list of what has been done and approximate cost of parts and supplies.
| Item | Price | Source and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Initial price | 500.00 | Negotiation ongoing |
| Alternator | 125.00 | Kragen |
| Tune-up | 77.00 | 4 qts of 10W30 Castrol, K&N oil filter, spark plugs, fuel filter, PCV valve, Techron |
| Vlave cover gasket set | 35.00 | Kragen VS50326R1 |
| Sum | 767.00 | ANd it keeps going... |
Everything tuneup related was pretty straight forward. Depressurizing fuel system was kinda iffy but it tuned out rather simple, no mess whatsoever. With spark plugs I tried to point gaps towards combustion chambers (found it somewhere online).
Hole in the exhaust pipe... more like a crack , actually. Tried epoxy kit from NAPA to patch it - what a piece of crap - lasted 2 days and then just burnt through. it is either new pipe or welding. My buddy Aaron is an awesome welder, and fixed it for me for 20.00. Most difficult part - taking pipe off, why? Because nuts are actually welded onto a bracket, and spraying them with PB Blaster won't do shit, just put the ratchet to the bolt end of the assembly ;-)
Then I realized why my throttle sticks. The plastic that secures the throttle cable through firewall was broken and some dirt and grime collected on a wire. Took it out, WD40 all over, and some... duct tape for time being. Later I swapped the throttle cable with one I found at the junk yard in newer civic. Slightly shorter - but it still does its job. It seemed like the spring that brings foot pedal back is bit soft so I clipped it and bent a new hook in it, will do for now. Junk yards are full of these.
Comments (0) Apr. 13, 2008 00:49