End of ‘Phase One’

It’s been a strange few weeks with work on the car close to coming to an end for now. I was hoping to have a new garage and workshop built by now but for one reason or another it hasn’t happened as quickly as I’d have liked and I’m still clearing the land where it will be built. Due to limited vehicle access to the plot (can’t get anything larger than a 4×4 down the access road) I’ve had to clear over 15 tons of stone blocks by hand and have still to clear an area 10ft deep x 30ft wide x 9ft high of soil, rubble and stone. This will take MANY weeks to do when digging and removing by hand. In reality it’s going to be late autumn before I can get the garage built and start work on the car again.

So, where am I up to?  First off, the car runs fine. I’ve tweaked the timing, bled the brakes (and checked the new copper pipes and flexi lines for leaks), replaced the clutch fluid and started repairing and priming all the plastic parts on the car. Both front and rear bumpers need significant work to get them straight again as every corner of the car has been heavily scratched and dented, sadly not too uncommon on a 4WS car!

The old clutch fluid was black and watery. Could have been the original fluid from 27 years ago!?

The rear bumper still needs some filler and reshaping but it’s getting there. As previously mentioned, I will be changing the black strip around the whole car to body colour. This will also be the case with the headlight surrounds and bonnet lip to tie in the colour-coded ‘look’. The door strips took significant time to repair as the ends had split due to water ingress. This had rotted the metal frame causing the part to distort. Thankfully they were repairable with some plastic/rubber repair filler and many hours of slowly building up layers and adding strength to the weakened parts.

One other job I’ve done is to change the colour of the wheels. I never really took to the dark matt finish on the Lenso Spec C rims so I’ve opted to change them to Honda Solaris Silver (NH536M) which was used on the 94-97 NSX seven-spoke wheels. Having previously owned a ’96 NSX I knew I’d like the shade and thought it’d work well with the Prelude’s green/blue hues. Here’s one prior to being polished….

So here’s how the car looks now. The windscreen is out and a new one has been ordered. This will be fitted once the frame and roof have been cut out and new metal welded in. The bodywork will be having all the dents, ripples and creases pulled out and I’ll be filling the rest (which can’t be accessed) before cutting the outer sills away and replacing the rear arches and inner wells. This won’t be tackled until the garage is built and ready for use so it might be a few months away? In the meantime I’m going to start working through the myriad of parts that have been removed from the car and the donor to evaluate what will be going back on the car and what will be stored away as spares or sold on to other owners/restorers.

So, the blog updates might be rather infrequent for the next few months, but rest assured, they will start again once I’m in the workshop and tackling the bodywork!!! I’m aiming to have the car back on the road next spring upon which it’ll be travelling to Performance Autoworks in Swindon to have the engine rebuilt.  Maybe I’ll get to a few shows next year and get the chance to enjoy the fruits of all the labour???

Fingers crossed!

First Start in 6 Months…

It’s been a good week for the Prelude. First off, I’ve managed to complete the reinstallation of the suspension and brakes and I got the chance to see the car sat on its new wheels and tyres for the first time… before being put back on stands!

So with everything bolted and torqued up I decided to fit the new exhaust and refill all the fluids and have a go at restarting the car for the first time in six months.

I wasn’t sure whether the fuel would still be OK and I also needed to set the timing after fitting a new distributor. Having removed most of the engine bay I must admit I was a little nervous turning the key for the first time…

Thankfully the car was fine and since recording the video I’ve tweaked the ignition timing so it’s spot on. The coolant has also been bled and the PAS fluid topped up too.

So, the next job was to start on the mammoth task of the body work with the first area being the windscreen frame as the drivers-side top corner has rusted through as a replacement windscreen had been fitted at some point and was slightly misaligned causing water to trap there.

The screen was rather difficult to get out as the fitter must have used about 10 tubes of screen sealant to fit the replacement and it took a lot of time and effort to cut through it all without being gung-ho and damaging the frame. I wasn’t worried about cracking the screen as a new one is going in. The current one had two very large ‘star’ chips that weren’t repairable and wouldn’t have got through an MOT. On removing the screen I was pleased to find that the rest of the frame is in perfect condition which is a huge relief!

Next up was to go to the donor car and remove the screen from that and then cut out the section of roof and frame that I need. Having removed the screen and drilled out the spot welds (the ones I could see!) it became apparent that taking just the ‘top skin’ wouldn’t be easy as there are about 4 panels and reinforcing sections all welded together and I couldn’t work out where they were attached. Having struggled for about an hour I decided the best route was to remove the sunroof panel and cut out the whole section I needed and then liberate the outer panel and frame lip once it was off the car. Shame I didn’t think of this to start with as I’d saved myself a whole heap of time!!!

 

So, I’ve just got to cut out the rusty section on the project car and weld in the good piece from the donor. Maybe I’ll wait until the garage is built as I don’t really want to be welding outside on the driveway but at least I’ve got the section I need and I’m pleased to discover that there was no additional hidden rot behind the windscreen. I’ve got a few more bits to cut out of the donor before it goes to the great Honda showroom in the sky so I’ll get a list together before attacking it with the cutting disc.

Next job is to start preparing the plastic pieces that I’ll be colour coding. This includes the door ‘bump’ strips, bonnet lip and headlight surrounds.

Time Spent: 660 Hours.

Slow Progress is still Progress!

It’s been a mad few weeks for me with my ‘actual job’ (which isn’t restoring the car!) so sadly the Prelude has had to take a back seat but this hasn’t meant nothing has been done – far from it!

First off, I’ve managed to complete the aircon restoration work having already replaced the condenser, seals and pipe insulation. The last part needed before re-gassing with R437a was a new receiver/dryer. I had ordered a replacement from RockAuto in the USA but when this arrived it had no aperture for the pressure switch so a couple more hours of internet research were needed as everyone I found seemed to be listing the Prelude dryer without the switch connection. Eventually I found that the 1990 Accord dryer measure exactly the same and I ordered one online. This is the NRF 33024 and thankfully it’s a perfect fit. It would make sense that the Accord and Prelude of the same year would use the same part as in the UK the aircon systems were not standard and fitted as an option by dealers.

I’ve decided to move to a ‘drop in’ replacement AC gas as opposed to stripping and resealing the compressor to work with R134a which is the replacement for R12 (now illegal) and used widely. Although R437a doesn’t produce quite as low temps it will work much better in an old R12 system as it pressurises at a similar rate to R12 unlike R134a which much much higher and increases to risk of leaks in older systems.

Next up is the start of the suspension and brake reassembly. Here I have to give my good friend Gareth Davies of Chartist Garage in Hyde (UK) who kindly pressed in the new bushes and bearings for me. First slight surprise was that the front track-rod ends were slightly different. Thankfully the exact same length and fitment but the tapered shaft that goes through the knuckle was much longer than the original, so much so that it meant the lock nut couldn’t be tightened enough to secure the joint.

Weirdly enough both original front rod ends had no boots on them and were connected directly to the knuckle. As expected both, which looked original to the car, were utterly shot! To fix the issue I’ve used 3 x M14 washers as spacers to allow the nut to secure the joint, which seems to have worked perfectly.

This has been the only issue so far with rebuilding the front of the car. It’s so nice to be working with so many new parts and seeing the whole thing come together. I’ve been very slow and methodical putting everything back in place and have used the shop manual to get the exact torque settings for every bolt. Here’s the list of new parts just for the front suspension/brakes.

New Shock Absorbers (KYB)
New Springs (lowered 30mm)
New Upper Shock Bushes
New Track Rod Ends
New Lower Ball Joints
New Upper Ball Joints
New Lower Control Arm Bushes (inner and outer)
New Wheel Bearings
New Control Arm Bolts (Shock)
New Anti-Roll Bar Links and Bushes
Newly rebuilt Brake Calipers (new pistons, seals, sliders etc)
New Braided Brake Hoses (Goodridge)
New Brake Discs and retaining screws
New Brake Pads

And here’s how that all looks…

I quickly fitted a wheel just to be 100% sure they cleared the caliper without issues (as they ET38 offset and a 7″ wide rim). Thankfully they do!

Next up is to finish bolting up the rear of the car and then move onto filling the fluids and getting the car running again so I can check for leaks and set the timing. Very pleased with progress so far though it’s looking more like I’ll get this car ready around next spring/early summer. No point in rushing!!!