CyborgGT : 1993 Accord EX wagon

[SSMAccord]

Good updates. The grille looks like a really fresh take on the CB design.

While l like the 3 badges on the rear, I think I am partial to just the "H" and the Aero R badge.

[CyborgGT]

Had time today, so I went down to sand the filler after it cured overnight. Scuffed up the rest of the surfaces that I'll be respraying, so Saturday I'll be able to get right to it.

[CyborgGT]

Ah, so I'm old-fashioned cool. Like an automotive hipster. Greeaat. There are so many 3-letter brand names out there now, I wonder if any of them actually stand for anything.


Anyway, I got the car mostly back together this weekend. First, I stuck a cheap turn-down exhaust tip on so I can finally get it back on the ground again.




The hub centric rings that Discount Tire provided don't reach the hubs on the car to be able to actually center the wheel, so I have some others on order that don't have such a deep chamfer, hoping for better luck. Until they arrive, I'm relying on the lug nuts for a sorta-centered install. At least I'm not driving on them.




I spot-sanded and resprayed the door molding, then let them 'bake' in the hot sun for a while. No photos, but I used Dupli-Color filler primer on the side window verticals and grille pieces. The verticals were top-coated in Rustoleum semi-gloss black - I was very careful to spray very light coats this time, holding the can further away, and they turned out well enough. I chose semi-gloss to better suit the eventually-tinted windows, and Rustoleum was the only brand I was finding with that color.




For the horizontal grille pieces, I used Spectral Paints' Seattle Silver and clear. Maybe it's just the characteristics of metallic paint not being compatible with rattle cans, but just like with Automotive Touch-Up's cans, Spectral's kept spitting out solid droplets. These pieces now have faint freckling, but I can live with it. They look great otherwise, and after mocking them up in place under the hood line, going with body-color was definitely the right move. This grille is going to be a really nice piece when finished, but that will have to wait, since there was some pitting in the body of the grille that I missed. I laid some new filler on it, and will try to finish it up next weekend.




Wiper arms are finished and re-installed. Also coated in semi-gloss.






They may not be JDM slim, but USDM sedan moldings are definitely a step up from what came on the wagon.










I also mounted the rear red 'H' and messed around with emblem arrangement to see what made sense. I eventually settled on this, but it's going to mean removing that cool "Honda World" emblem. The "Aero R," by the way, is too long to fit on the panel that the LX/EX is fitted stock, or I'd have done that.






This was a possibility, but it's too many emblems. I'm half-tempted to leave the "Accord" emblem off as well, and just rock the "Aero R" by itself.




The car badly needs to be lowered with those wheels on, but damn it's starting to look good... if you don't look too closely, that is. There were so many times where I just stopped and stared at the car, thinking about what it's going to be very soon. I might need to request some vacation time from work once the engine's back from the machine shops and really put the hammer down.

[HenRoc]

Id still rock Rotas. Seems like everyone flocked to JNCs and STRs. Lol

[CyborgGT]

Hard to go wrong with bronze, imo. It goes well with pretty much any body color.

[SSMAccord]

Good choice on the wheels. Bronze will look nice on the wagon.

[CyborgGT]

Alright, here's where I lose everyone's interest...






Excuses come pre-prepared:

1) The car's going 5-lug at some point, so it's hard to want to spend much money on wheels right now.

2) The H22 demands more rubber on the ground pronto. The long-term goal is for 8, maybe 9" wide wheels. I've been thinking about how to pull off a subtle all-metal wide-body as well.


I went to Discount to get them mounted and balanced, but the wait time was too long for today. But does anyone know why tire shops charge different rates depending on wheel size? Sounds like a corporate rip-off, considering it's the same exact work on the same machines that practically do the work for you. It really enforces how glad I am that I don't need to take my car to a shop for pretty much anything else.

[CyborgGT]

I removed the interior door panels and squeezed the door protector clips from inside with pliers, using a plastic trim tool to initially pry the rear ends of the strips off the outer door panel until I could get my fingers around it.

For the clip at the front end of each strip, I couldn't reach them from inside, but the door protector will slide forward off the clip, like how the side skirts are removed. There was still old adhesive I had to clean off the paint, and for that I used Goo Gone and plastic scrapers from Harbor Freight, and it didn't even scuff up the paint.

When you go to reinstall, push that front clip through the hole and into the pocket of the door panel. It can be tricky to get out of the door, though. For the front doors I had to undo that one 10mm bolt that holds a plastic wire harness protector and then pull the front window track down (there's a small section at the bottom end of the track that slides off the rest of it). Then just get something long and thin to get in there and move the clip to where you can reach it by hand.

[Fleetw00d]

How did you get the door protectors off, doesn't look like you damaged them or the paint at all? I had a heck of a time taking them off Ruby without damaging it (even though I installed all new parts after the paint job)?

[CyborgGT]

I'm liking Duplicolor's 'bumper and trim paint' so far. I had time to go out to the car today (it's half an hour away in another city), and what is painted is still not 100% cured, which leads me to believe it'll probably still be somewhat soft and flexible in the end, and more resistant to chipping. We'll see though. I plan on using that on the wiper arms, but then go with a normal semi-gloss black paint for the window verticals.

[SSMAccord]

On the satin black parts that I painted (cowl and wiper arms), I used a black primer so that if it got a stone chip it would be black underneath. The black primer is a Rustoleum product though... Duplicolor primer is usually pretty good, the Duplicolor satin black paint did not work well for me though.

[CyborgGT]

Duplicolor is what I'll be trying next, I didn't like the Rustoleum. For the moldings and side skirts, I didn't use primer. If they chip from the tires kicking up rocks or someone's door in a parking lot, I didn't want that gray showing through.

[SSMAccord]

Sucks about the sudden passing of your family's dog. That is always a difficult situation.

The painting of the parts looks good though. Which primer are you using? I usually use the Duplicolor primer. Rustoleum in the white can takes quite a long time to dry. The Rustoleum home interiors product dries more like a normal spray paint.

[CyborgGT]

It took some digging on that site, it's weird how some of the sidebar options disappear depending on what you click into, but I did find the two different terminal types that I need. Cheap, too. Thanks, sonik.


This weekend was a bit of a bust, though. The big project that I've been picking away at on my weekends is the trim. Grille, cowl, wiper arms, side skirts, thinner sedan side moldings, and the vertical trim between the front and rear door windows, all sanded and ready for paint, and I was due to finally finish it by tonight. It started out going very smoothly, the Dupli-Color trim paint was laying own onto the cowl, side skirts, and door moldings very well.






The verticals aren't going to receive the natural physical abuse that those above pieces are likely to see, so I wanted to give them more attention. I went to spray on some Rust-Oleum filler primer, and it came out a complete mess. On one of the pieces I tried skipping the primer and going straight to laying down the paint - another Rust-Oleum product, another mess. I had another unrelated project I was trying to paint at the same time, also using Rust-Oleum brand paint, and that turned out shit as well. Screw that brand. Comes out too heavy, and the overspray is obnoxious. I was going to use that filler primer on my grille that's all cut & filled, stripped of chrome, and ready to finish, but now that's stalled until I get another brand of primer.

The next day, I go to at least try to install the trim pieces that were done. Side skirts, fender molding, and cowl are on and looking good. No wiper arms, because of course they're waiting on primer as well.








The door moldings, however, went sour and need to be redone. That was from my own impatience, though. I thought that by now they'd had cured enough to handle, but when I went to remove the adhesive from the backsides, which I forgot to do beforehand, the Goo-Gone dripped around to the fronts and ate into the paint:




But at least some tires came in, courtesy Uncle Sam and his stimulus check. The ones that came with the car were pretty dry-rotted. Look for the hint at what else he threw in, due to come Wednesday. Hey, I'm doing my part in stimulating the economy in these hard times, these companies and the couriers they use have employees to pay!




But to top it all off, my parents' dog had to be put down after very sudden and very bad health issues hit her. I do love animals, but this is the second dog in my life to die on me. Being so aware of their short lifespan makes me never want to get another pet.

[sonikaccord]

Anyone happen to know what kind of pins (is "terminals" the correct term? sorry, electrical noob here) that our interior connectors use? The power folding mirrors I picked up a while back came with a bit of a mess of a harness that I'm wanting to rebuild. I found this site to supply OEM-colored wires without having to buy enormous lengths; I'd really like to do it properly and avoid solder joints.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/hd-series.html

I might be interested in that degree wheel too! I'll trade you for a clean custom harness .

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