CyborgGT : 1993 Accord EX wagon

[CyborgGT]

A wagon appeared at one of the junkyards, so I went to see if it had anything I wanted. I'm really needing a cargo privacy cover, but no luck yet. Turns out the car's interior was in beautiful condition, though. Too bad I don't care for the blue or I might have grabbed it all. It's always sad to see perfectly fine, un-wrecked cars in the junkyards.






I took the carpet, though. It has minor staining, but looks like it will clean up really well. I figured it was worth the $25 it cost to use as a temporary replacement for that awful rug that came with mine. This blue one would probably be a great candidate to keep and dye black later on as well. For now, I think the blue is dark enough that it won't be painfully obvious, especially once I put the black floor mats on top of it.




My third brake light was missing the little rubber piece that (mostly) closes the gap between the plastic and the glass, and I remember being able to see the reflection of the light in the rear-view mirror while driving it home that first night, so I grabbed this one. I need to find an unbroken clip for the bulb door, so for now this little bolt is holding it in place.




The wagon also had rear mud flaps, so I had to have those. I'm hoping that they're real wagon flaps and not just '90/'91s that were crammed in there - they have the Honda logo. But they seemed like they fit fine on the 'yard car...

[CyborgGT]

Adventures in old car wiring...








What a fire hazard. All the plastic is hardened, and snaps when you try to move it around. I just patched it up, and swapped on some plugs I grabbed off a fifth-gen. This harness only needs to last for some test drives, and won't be reused with the H. One thing I didn't have that this job inspired me to pick up tonight was a fire extinguisher for the garage.

The distributor was then put back on, but I left the reverse switch not wired up. I saved the harness from my old H-swapped automatic sedan, and since I want to remove the auto-related circuits from the engine harness to clean it up, I'll wire in the reverse lights at that time. Looking at the FSM, it should be a simple matter of connecting that reverse switch to the matching wires that plug into the old auto shifter.


A fresh RyWire harness is definitely on the wishlist now...

[Straight Success]

Oh, the funs times of wiring correctly.

[Grumpys93]

I couldn't agree more on the fun times of old wire harness. I actually picked up a fire extinguisher as well when I brought back a 5th gen with a h22 in it. I wanted to engine only but didn't trust the shady electrical work that was done to the harness. I still have that extinguisher and hope I never have to use it before it expires.

[CyborgGT]

It was actually really nice out today while the sun was still up, so I took the opportunity to clean the new carpet in case it's a while before I get another day like this. Here it is just after a thorough vacuuming. Luckily a lot of that brown was just looser dust and dirt. I took a carpet cleaner to it and lifted more of it out, but it got dark by that point and the photo I took turned out all washed out from the garage light. Super excited to put this thing in, though.




ABS bracket, with its elongated holes. They needed a bit more stretching than this, but it's all fitted to the traction bar now.




Replaced the coolant line under the throttle body, and reinstalled the important parts of the intake and the battery tray.




The car seems to have a parasitic draw that killed the battery I bought right after purchasing the car. It would die just while the car was parked and turned off, but the headlights would also dim sometimes when I applied the brakes while the engine was running - I can't remember if it did that with the stock lights in, but I noticed it with the HIDs installed. I'm hoping it's just the alternator, so I'm swapping in the known good one from the H22 for now. This one's showing definite signs of age.

[Straight Success]

Have you considered steam cleaning the carpet just for that extra freshness?

[CyborgGT]

I've been thinking about it for the RSX, since it's been so long since I've detailed that car's interior and it really needs it. Maybe it's something to do to both cars at once this summer.

[SSMAccord]

The carpet looks great. And it seems like the manual swap was a breeze also.

[CyborgGT]

I ran into some tedious mini-jobs getting it done, but the swap was actually easier than I thought it would be before I started.

[CyborgGT]

So the trans conversion is finally driving. At first, there was an issue with the clutch pedal/master cylinder travel not allowing the clutch to disengage. The car could still be driven like that, but you basically had to work around not having a clutch pedal. The hole that the MC rod pins into was a bit elongated in the first pedal I had picked up, so today I swapped in a different one and I think it's solved the issue...




But is it normal for these cars to have to completely floor the clutch for full disengagement? My experience with manual cars is pretty limited, but a friend who's owned several manual cars of different makes said he's not used to having to press the pedal flat to the floor. Compared to the other manual cars I've driven, it does feel a bit odd to me as well. Adjustment for the master cylinder rod is maxed out, and bleeding the system further (he has a vacuum bleeder) isn't changing anything.

[Raf99]

So ya, you're master adjustment is out. The pedal should go to the floor for disengangement and as the manual states the engagement point should be close to the floor too. (check your manual, you know what diagram I'm referring to)
Now some vehicles (Ford Ranger or a tractor) the disengage/engage point is far higher. I've personally never understood this as you have to hover your leg/pedal mid way before the catch point. I prefer my catch point near the floor. So where's your master cylinder adjusted to? (the rod / bolt that goes through the pedal assembly under the dash)

[CyborgGT]

It's set somewhere in that pedal free play area after the rod is fully extended out of the master cylinder with the pedal released. I think before I left it last night, I threaded the rod back into that pedal U-bracket a bit just to remove most of the even more annoying free play before applied pressure actually starts acting on the cylinder.

... hope that made sense.

*ED. - or maybe it was the cruise control switch I screwed in to take up the free-play slack. Either way, the rod and pedal can't be extended out of the master cylinder any more than I have them. A bushing is supposed to be in that CMC pin hole as well, so that's on order. Fingers crossed it makes enough of a difference, even though that thing's got to be incredibly thin...

[CyborgGT]

This weekend's project: putting that new carpet in.


Icky.






Found hints of rust and moisture. Since the wagon is completely the wrong chassis to choose for an all-out performance car, I don't care so much about its weight. Therefore, at some point, I'll be removing this factory deadening material and go all out with good aftermarket stuff to help make the car more comfortable. We'll see then how bad it is underneath.






French currency? Cool looking coin, and it's even period-correct!




Seriously, how does this much dirt cake up under the carpet?




After a vacuum...




After some scrubbing... with engine degreaser. I wasn't after a full detail today. Given that I'm working out of a storage unit with too little room to spare outside of the car, and in the cold, I don't have the time to keep my interior disassembled for as long as that would take. Another job for when the sound deadening is upgraded. I got most of the dirt out, though, and that was the main smell this car had; no smoke or old food, it just smelled dusty.




Anyone know what this connector under the passenger seat is for? It's wired up, but doesn't plug into anything. Those rare power seats, maybe?




I took a picture of this carpet tag I noticed, thinking I'd look up the company and maybe find another source for NOS carpet. Turns out the large, multi-country manufacturer of our carpets went under a while back after some accounting fraud scandal...




These are the last of the photos until tomorrow. I actually finished putting the interior back together, but it got dark by that point and I wanted to photograph the contrast of the blue and burgundy, so I left three of the seats unbolted and tucked the car back into the garage for the night. I'll show that tomorrow. The camera seems to be making the blue more vivid than it is in person, but I'm surprised at how good this has turned out. Some black material (the long-term two tone goal) for the main door inserts might just come much sooner than originally planned.

[CyborgGT]

Interesting... P/S fluid had to be topped off again after the trans swap, and is now foaming over. I did use OEM Honda fluid.




Anyway:






I am loving the hell out of this. A little contrast has made a massive change to the feel of this car's interior.

[Raf99]

That looks nice man. Quite the color mix, won't see that anywhere else haha. Also looks like you could sleep on that floor. A lot of work right there. The foam in the PS res means there's an air leak in the system I believe. There's different ETCG videos etc. on them trying to fix this, some never do and simply get a new pump. Assuming you had to top off the fluid implies there's a leak somewhere? And the wire..hmm not sure. Doubt it's for the japan version which has the 1 power function, and it's not the seatbelt. What's the color of the wires I wonder...