1998 Civic Winter Assault Vehicle Build

Brief Update. Not much progress due to the cold the past week - new radiator arrived just before the temp went subzero. So, we pulled off a few rusty bits and headed into the basement. Interestingly, the wiper arms appear to be stainless. Before: <img src="" />

Nick at work with our vintage HF blaster (note new GRM swag courtesy of Grandpa): <img src="" />

After: <img src="" />

Wiper arms painted with leftover Eastwood satin trim paint; brackets painted with Rustoleum textured paint. Other news: we now have a set of 14" Altimax sitting in the back of the car. Next weekend I'm not on call and it should be warmer so we can get the new rad installed and IAC cleaned out.

Nice project for you and the boy. I'm hoping my 13 w/o son will learn something via osmosis since I get some very confused silence when I bring him out to the garage. Maybe he'll have more interest when it's closer to driving age.

Thanks! I figure even if it ends up in a part out, we end up spending more time together, and he learns a few things about how to be self-reliant. Part of it is just time/experience using tools: he's kind of gorilla-like and occasionally forgets that 'righty-tightly/lefty-loosey' thing, so there have been a fair number of broken and stripped bolts, some of them due to rust on the car.

I have noticed what you're hoping for, though. He's far more interested than a year ago because the temp license is in view now, and a few friends and their brothers are starting to drive.

Big progress today (finally), precipitated by my wife. She had some kind of out-of-body experience driving to work the other day involving all three lanes plus the breakdown lane. After a spirited exchange that I can't repeat due to forum profanity rules I figured that I have less into this car than a set of 17" snows for an Odyssey would cost. So with that (plus a bit of self-preservation) in mind, I chiseled out the Civic, which started right up at -2 after a two week cold soak. Temp in the garage was a balmy 23 at this point.
Here's the thawing after 3 hrs in the garage with all the lights on, plus a 1500 watt heater . Propane heater wouldn't fire for some reason. <img src="" /> Dropped the tires off to get mounted, went to the Title Bureau and BMV to get a temp tag. While in line for 45 min, I spent most of it talking to a kid who just bought a 77 Ford 4x4 pickup with supposedly little to no rust. Told him about POR15 and FluidFilm. Side note, we apparently are about to have a Harbor Freight in town, right between the liquor store and Title Bureau.

After doing a bit of recon, I decided that it would be easier to pull the throttle body than to try and separate the IAC valve from the bottom. I needed to drain the cooling system anyway for the radiator, and the IAC has a coolant loop through it. The TB looked pretty nasty: <img src="" />

I don't have a pic, but the IAC valve slider was stuck open about 1/2 way before I started cleaning it. Here's an after shot of the TB and IAC valve: <img src="" />

After shot from the vantage point of the airbox, showing how fun it would be to try to pull the IAC valve off the bottom blindly: <img src="" />

The rad change was simple and straightforward other than the usual rusty fasteners. It was now ~35 in the garage, so here's the only evidence of the rad change. Not bad for $27. <img src="" />

One final step: very cold under the car, plus the snow and ice on top were finally melting and sliding off by 6pm. I did the $2 temporary fix of the exhaust flex joint with some exhaust sealer, a coke can, and a couple of hose clamps. Should last for a couple days so I can drive thru the storm Monday and get the echeck done so I can get real plates.
Started it up, and the idle was perfect, so my free IAC/TB cleanup did the trick.

Just after dark after my 10 hour thrash today, I drove it around the block!!! The trans shifts nice, brakes are pretty noisy and I can feel a bit of pulsating. I'm planning to put 20-30 miles on tomorrow & I'll see if they burn the rest of the rust off or not.
So all in all, not a bad day, first time I've succeeded in taking something that was about to be scrapped, and making it run under it's own power again. Only for 1.9 miles, but hey, it's a start! Good news is that we should have a decent amount of snow the next few days to play around in.

One more update. Changed air and fuel filters, topped off the washer fluid, and set out to hoon around for awhile. It rides well on the highway, brakes are improving with use, and it passed the OH emissions check (just an OBD scan).
Then this happened: <img src="" />

FWIW even with the slushybox, this thing was a blast to flog around in the snow today, compared to the tankish vehicles I've been driving. The Alpin Arctics seem to be VERY grippy. My coke can 'fix' on the flex joint is already failing after 40mi. I'll get it replaced at the local muffler shop after the snowpocalypse is over.

Where are you at in Ohio? Didn't realize we were in the same state.

Beans, I'm in Medina, 30mi south of Cleveland.

After getting this thing reliable, I'm going to have to do something with lighting. I could barely see a thing on the way to work this morning.

Sylvania Silverstar's are probably the best drop in bulbs I've found for the $.

Another update, after 500 miles of commuting and slogging thru winter slop.
This thing is, well, a Honda. It starts fine after sitting out in subzero all day, runs fine, etc. Boring. And slow. Unless there's lots of snow on the ground, then it becomes fast.

Average MPG over two tanks is 26.6, which is lower than I expected, but it's been 0 to -10 for the most part, driving on snows, and doing a lot of city driving, donuts, basic driver training, etc.

Regarding lighting, the lights were ridiculously out of whack, and leaking water. I resealed, aligned them, added a set of Sylvania XtraVision bulbs. I discovered that the PO had 'engineered' a fix on the drivers side bulb mount, and half the ring around the bulb cracked off last night. A bit of epoxy and an hour-long battle to stick the piece back on, using a hair dryer for heat. No pics, garage was 10deg at best last night, and you really can't see in there anyway.

So, anyone have any experience with the cheap Ebay replacement headlights? Looks like ~60/pr is the going rate for stock looking lights, vs $40-50/side for sandblasted opaque 16 year old OEM ones.

Usually the cheapest ones yellow pretty quick and often leak. Don't think you'll go wrong for the money. I like the projector version myself. With cheap hid.

Junkyard pick-n-pull. They're usually $25 a side at my local place(Cherry Picked Parts). Also check the Honda groups on Facebangz. "Ohio Import Parts" and "Ohio Honda Parts" are alright, but you have to deal with the yoloswagsters and their kind of ridiculous pricing at times. The OEM Stanley housings are pretty nice and reseal pretty well once you crack them open and remove the factory sealant. Being a '98, lots of people like to remove those headlights are replace them with the 99-00 units, so they come out to be fairly inexpensive secondhand. I'd still keep your eyes peeled in the junkyard for good ones.

Good to know about the older ones being less $$. Depending on temps, I'll try to get out to the pick a part when I'm not on call. Definitely not doing the jy thing today!

Well the weather finally broke, so I figured I'd get a few more things done on the world's most boring project car. To date, I've put about 1200 miles on it, 29.7MPG on winter blend gas, snow tires, and a lot of errand running. Knock on wood, no issues at all. I think I'll continue using it as the work/errand car until my son gets his license in the fall. New ATF and Honda-specific power steering fluid; major improvement in shifting. It keeps popping a CEL code, P1457, that keeps coming back, so we'll troubleshoot the evap system in the next week or so.

I ended up hitting the easy button on headlights, $54 delivered to my door via ebay. Too cold and too little time to check at the pull-a-part. Old vs new lights: <img src="" />

Back of the driver's side that I managed to epoxy back together. you can see the extra hardware that the PO had kludged together when it broke the first time: <img src="" />

And an after shot with the new eyes in place. They look to be about 3000% brighter in the garage during the day. Also added some FOD protection for the radiator via some 1/2 construction cloth behind the bumper while I had it off. <img src="" />