Bridget The Midget - My 1988 Honda Civic Project
A while ago I was desperately looking for a new hobby. No, I am not done with computers, I just needed a break form them. A longer one, perhaps. The opportunity presented itself in form of a lil' car, which I initially called Squeaky, due to amount of plastic interior components which seemed to move and rub a lot. It is 1988 Honda Civic hatchback, standard edition, 1.5 liter engine, and almond cream body paint.
My reasoning was quite simple. My primary vehicle, 1996 Nissan Pathfinder, gets 16 miles per gallon, this puppy does twice as much. After doing a little calculator work I discovered that in seven months of using it, with an average of 160 miles a week of travel, the car will completely pay for itself in gas saving alone (assumed gas price was 3.60 - we already passed that in California... :-( But it will also provide additional benefits such as decreased environmental impact, and, of course, a new hobby.
The car itself initially cost me 500.00 and required a new alternator. My new hobby, and adventure was about to begin. Removal and installation took me a few hours, but this first task made me feel good and hopeful (like I know what I am doing kind of thing...). Well, after making it "drivable" it was time to make it legal to drive. Next step: SMOG CHECK!
BOOOO!!!! It failed!!! Due to high HC emissions at idle. It scored 133, while allowed limit was 120. And what to do with that? I know, research!
| Item | Price | Source and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Initial price | 500.00 | Negotiation ongoing |
| Alternator | 125.00 | Kragen |
| Sum | 625.00 | So far so good! |
Comments (1) Apr. 09, 2008 19:35
Civic Seat Pan Swap - revisited
Seat pan swap revisited- Civic hatchback 1988-89 to 1990-91 upgrade.If you own either 1988 or 1989 STD or DX hatch, you probably already researched ways to ditch your regular seats for some nice Si seats from either 1989 or 1990-91 hatchback.
Hopefully you did your research, and you ended up doing the seat pan swap. But chances are that you ended up with the tilt lever on the opposite side. I spent some time today staring and staring at both of my 89Si and 90Si seat pans, and I decided to try The Other Method.
Justification:
I want lever to be on the outside, where it should be. I want my seats to be bolted in all four corners. I want it to look neat.
Tools needed:
12mm and 14mm wrench, grinder, drill with some sharp bit for spot welds, and finally - welder (yup! but there is an option!).
Here are both 1989 and 1990 pans side by side. Both of them are from a diver seat. Notice the difference in location of hinge bracket, rail bracket, also a stance of mounting rails. Pans alone are almost identical, including used and unused rivet holes. Note that 89Si bolt in perfectly to the floor of 1988 and 1989 STD hatchbacks (that’s what I have and tried).
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/89Si_pan.jpg
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/90Si_pan.jpg
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/89Si_90Si.jpg
My solution: Obviously for clean mounting and positioning in the car I need to retain the stance of the 89Si pan, but then the back support would not need my requirements (tilt lever). So I need to switch the hinge bracket to the other side. But then I would have the backrest mounted only on one side, so I also need to switch the bottom bracket that on 90Si is used to support tilting mechanism, as well as hinge and a floor-mounting rail. The hinge bracket is held in place by 4 spot welds (x) and 3 insanely sturdy rivets (o). The bottom bracket is held by 11(?) spot welds.
Here are both brackets before removal.
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/hinge_brkt.jpg
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/lever_brkt.jpg
Next step will be to remove hinge bracket from 89Si pan, and prep pen for welding. Now, if you don’t feel like welding, you can easily get away with just bolting both brackets to the pan. There are even predrilled holes that will help you with positioning both of those brackets, and it would look sorta like this:
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/brkt2_switch.jpg
http://radekonline.com/download/seats/brkt1_switch.jpg
Nov. 28, 2009 09:13
Lets put it all down
I started scribbling in my notebook about the things I wanted to do with Veronica, and all the things I wanted to do to her (that just sounds dirty!), and came up with almost three pages of stuff! Lets see them in somewhat chronological order:
EXTERIOR* Tuneup, smog check, and registration
* Remove and sell motor and tranny
* Cleanup the engine bay
* Windshield removal
* Pulling dents (roof, pass side, running board, front bumper filler, rear bumper filler)
* Paint job (prep work and component removal done by me: fenders, doors, hatch, spoiler wing, rear quarter windows, antenna, roof strips, front and rear bumper fillers )
* Sand and respray bumpers and trim
* Seats
* Gut everything out, sell anything that can be sold
* Rewire door speakers, tweeters/crossovers, rear speakers, hatch harness/ wiper, seat belts
* Fix seatbelts
* New carpet wit old hardware
* Dash swap
* Interior plastics - consider sanding down and respray
* Install speaker pods and cargo tray
* Original: brown bottom / tan top
* Swap: black bottom / gray top
* Swap respray: black bottom / tan top
* Original respray: black bottom / tan top
* Wire tuck
* bronze hatch/rear windows
* Power windows / mirrors
* SiR wing w/LED
* Red trim stripe
* Rear disc brakes swap, front upgrade
* Tilted steering wheel
Nov. 21, 2009 08:45