In reply to wheelsmithy :
Thanks for the opinion, if a guy named wheelsmithy approves they must be pretty good. I think the Gsr "blades" would have been my 1st choice, but these are absolutely perfect considering the price and convenience. I anticipate running these for the foreseeable future.
I'm trying to keep a steady pace - there's a lot to do yet and a lot of question marks. Ideally the car will be all white before the snow flies.
Fat fives will look nice! Are you going to paint the wheels too?
I'm sure the spot welds on the core are sufficient.
In reply to Run_Away :
I want to! I think white on white would be cool and give the Integra type R vibe. However, the wheels are pretty scuzzy so I don't know if I'd ever get the inner barrels clean enough to paint. We will see - I'm trying to hold off getting tires until I talk myself out of painting them.
I'm still digging this thread !
Today was a good day. Got up at like 7, worked for a couple hours, picked the wife up at the airport, then she napped and I worked some more. Feel like I got a lot of stuff accomplished.
Cleaned the transmission - Before
and after. Simple green is magical.
Also cleaned up my new to me wheels. Before on the left, after on the right. Tools of the trade above. Simple green and a little kitchen brillo pad/scrubby sponge works wonders and doesn't appear abrasive enough to damage the finish of the wheels.
Really quite pleased with how they cleaned up honestly. They're still pretty beat, but they are far more presentable. As mentioned previously I'm entertaining the idea of painting these body color white, but I'm still on the fence about that.
Speaking of paint... I did a new thing today!! I painted!
I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now, I have been pretty intimidated by painting with a gun for quite some time now, and today I was able to overcome that intimidation and shoot some color on the core support I welded in last night. Now, before I show the outcome it is my first time ever holding a spray gun, let alone using one, but I'm pleased. Before that though, some things to admit.
I did this to my first $15.99 Harbor Freight gun before I even used it.
Here's what happened. It comes with a 1/4" end threaded in to it, with 1/4" male threads. I thought I could take the 1/4" male thread quick connect I had lying around and just thread it into the gun. Well, I pulled everything apart and there was a filter in there. Nevermind that, I want to get this done. Onward. Only I should have heeded the filters warning. When I went to thread in the quick connect robbed from my blower nozzle it immediately cracked the cheap aluminum body of the spray gun. The threads were far too long and the aluminum just couldn't hack it. Dumb mistake. Another trip to Harbor Freight and I have a new gun, and some extra painters tape and a roll of masking material (which is pretty rad btw).
So fast forward, My new gun is all set up and cleaned, I'm mixing paint... E36 M3. I bought the wrong end of the quick connect. I bougth a 1/4" thread to female quick connect. What I needed was a male. I was a bit excited today, guess I wasn't thinking clear. Fortunately my old man had stopped by in his 1964 Beetle so we went for a quick rip to the store to pick up the right fitting.
OK- paint is mixed and on the bench. New fitting is installed on the gun, it's connected to the compressor which is regulated way down for the HVLP gun. Pour the paint through the filter and into the reservoir on the gun. Test spray on the paper mask. Looks weird, real thin. Turn up the air pressure, sprays better but still isn't covering much. Spray some paint on the core support, most of it drips to the floor. Hmm.
Never stirred the primer. Go to the bench and the can of primer has a bunch of gelatenous goop on the bottom of it. D'oh! Ok, stir that all up, re mix it and start shooting. Covers much better now miraculously. Start spraying without a mask in my small garage. Bad idea. Open garage door, finish shooting primer. Mostly make a mess but get some coverage. Paint is stinky. Real stinky. Cold weather be damned, I'm pushing this out to the driveway. Push to driveway, mix actual paint (making note of stirring). Spray paint! Do an OK job, but realize that there are a lot of difficult to access areas and that the spray gun takes up a lot of space. Do the best I can, feel stoked anyway. Gotta start somewhere!
TLDR: I painted. Not well but I painted.
Thanks for reading!
Didn't spend much time on the car yesterday, but did go out to the garage after dinner and weld a couple unnecessary holes shut. Looks like this car had aftermarket side skirts and some kind of spoiler at one time in it's life. Let's un-do that shall we?
My current thought process is to get the paint/bodywork situation addressed before the snow so I can hunker down and focus on the mechanical stuff of a much better looking car over the winter. I'm not looking to achieve perfection, just a nice coat of paint on the black parts and a little touch up here and there where the car needs it. Basically just get it all one color.
Took a little time last night and drizzled some bondo over the previously patched holes, and replaced a low-pressure power steering line that had been previously crushed. Also made the first blood sacrifice to the car, so it's officially mine now? Just scraped a knuckle, nothing exciting.
No pictures to update. It's been raining the last 3 days straight so there hasn't been a great opportunity to paint. Hopefully soon!
I think for the HVLP gun you should have a gage and little regulator on the gun, some come with that feature. At least mine did.....
In reply to TED_fiestaHP :
I bought the $15.99 version sans regulator/gauge. I turned my compressor way down and it seems to be working ok. Although for my experience level it could be all wrong, but it puts paint on the metal so it's all good.
FOLLOWING
Since GRM is awesome I'll throw this one out there - does anybody happen to have a weird backstock of bolts for these cars?
I need some engine mount/trans mount bolts. Can get specifics if someone thinks they might have them. Basically drivers side long bolt to go through the engine mount on the frame, and the 3 studs that go ontop of the trans to that plate. And probably like everything else too but those are the ones I know I specifically need.
The advantage of the little regulator on the gun, once you find what works, it will stay at that setting for next time. Since we don't paint often, we need all the help we can get.
If you can smell the paint, then you need a new respirator, you should never be able to smell it.
The results so far are awesome!
In reply to TED_fiestaHP :
Good point. I need a respirator period ha ha ha. That's on the list before I paint again.
There are a ton of flaws in the core support but I am really happy with the overall results. Paint seems sturdy, thick, and shiny. I'm excited to try a more flat panel and see if I can do a little better.
I'll rummage in my parts bin and see if I can have anything useful. I have Hasport poly b series swap mounts sitting around. Not sure if the corresponding bolts are there too.
In reply to clutchsmoke :
Thank you sir!
No dice. I've got mounts, but no bolts.
In reply to clutchsmoke :
Appreciate you looking!
Having a bit of a scope-creep situation here. I painted the core support because it was primer black, and now it's white. Well it looks a lot nicer than the rest of the bay now and I think I want to do the whole bay while the engine is out. Really shouldn't be that much more work, some scuffing, some wiring removing, some taping, etc. I just think I'll always wish I had painted the whole thing not just the core support. SO I'm putting it here in hopes that it motivates me to actually do it.
Tune in next time to see if I follow through!
painted bay inspiration perhaps
I'd absolutely do the whole bay while you're there. I've seen some really good ones done with just a paint store mixed rattle can. Yours should turn out well with better equipment, and it's an ideal spot to practice.
In reply to solfly :
Funny you should post that - I actually read through that exact thread and that's kinda what convinced me to do it.
In reply to Run_Away :
It's gotta happen. The core support has flaws but it already outshines the rest of the engine bay and that just doesn't look right.
I learned to spray on floorboards and engine bay. Once i got ok at that, flat panels were easy.
So go for it!
Decisions have been made. Took some steps backward to make better steps forward.
I still need to remove the clutch cylinder and push some wiring through the firewall (passenger side fusebox wiring, seems to be hanging up on something) but everything came apart pretty well. Happy with the decision- the bay is pretty shabby looking.
Of course this now opened pandoras box to 'tuck' the proportioning valve and hide some wiring, so we'll see how that all plays out in the future. I'm also tempted to remove all the factory HVAC stuff and build/modify something to have a stripped down heating system. Heater core, some tubes for defrost and floor heat, and basically just an on/off switch for a blower motor. The car is going to be a summer toy, but it gets cold here in MN and not having heat/defrost sucks.
Spent some time with the Civic this weekend. Engine bay is painted, ex-wing-holes in the trunk are filled and that's touched up, now I need to sand the holes along the rocker for the side skirts and touch those up and the body will be as painted as it's going to be for now. The bottoms of the doors are a little shabby, those may get touched up eventually. Then I still need to paint the hood, front fenders, bumper covers, side skirts, trim I don't have, mirrors... Woof. I did buy a respirator which was a huge improvement.
This is what about 2 hours of taping looks like. I don't hate painting but man what a process. I'm sure I have over spray EVERYWHERE still.
Here's my awesome outdoor paint mixing booth. Super sanitary and clean.
I used a couple bungee cords to keep the hood suspended so I didn't paint over the hood prop rod.
Which lived in this general area.
All primed
And painted! There are some pretty big runs on the engine-side of the frame rails, but it's not likely anyone will look close enough to notice those. I may try to sand them down a bit, I may just leave them. Not going for perfection, just a little added cleanliness.
Which brings us to Sunday - Had a little time in the evening so I went back out and did some more sanding and taping.
Spoiler holes filled & sanded, trunk lid taped off. I'm hoping that my tape-line will sort of disappear under the curve of the trunk lid, but I could be wrong and it would have been better to just run a line straight across the trunk.
A now very dirty garage with a Civic covered mostly in masking tape and paper.
A painted trunk lid with no un used holes!
A lot of 'stuff' landed in the paint so it's going to need a light sand or buff come springtime, and I'm sure my bodywork isn't 100% and will show through if you look closely, but I'm pretty happy with the results.
Like I said previously, I'm not anticipating this being some show winning project. I just want it to look less shabby than A.) it did when I got it, and B.) than the majority of unfortunately poorly modified Civics running around my area. If I can make it look somewhat unmolested and a little shiny, I'll be extremely satisfied. I've had cars with a lot of 'patina' over the last 10 years, I'm ready to have one that actually looks different when it's clean vs. dirty.
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