Civic #6 - EK4

[nobbs]

It's been a while since an update.

Not much happened with the car in November/December 2016 as I was in Sydney for a lot of that time.

One thing I did was remove the old Pioneer splits because I didn't like the look of the tweeters mounted on the interior side mirror triangle pieces. I got new triangle pieces and got some 2 way coaxials for the doors to tidy the interior up. I also got some plain black throw on seat covers to protect my standard seats from the harsh Perth sun. (Once again no pics as I was lazy).

I went down to a local Japanese parts shop to pick up some items for a mate; I ended up buying a new Spoon Duracon as my old one was telling its age... the oil cap wasn't for me.



Then I took a couple more pics before I said goodbye to the civ for the year.

[nobbs]

At the end of last year I got offered a job locally in Perth, which meant that I wont be traveling to Sydney monthly for work/parts collection. Due to this, I prepared to bring a haul back with me to Perth during my Christmas holiday trip.

First, a good mate of mine offered me his EK9 steering wheel. Ideally, I want a Spoon steering wheel however, living in a nanny state has persuaded me to keep the car as low key as possible; meaning that the airbag was necessary.



Next, I reclined my SR3's all the way back (with the rails removed) and put them into semi custom boxes ready for the flight back to Perth. It's definitely interesting traveling with bulky car parts. This trip I had the SR3's and 1.5 large suitcases full of parts on top of my regular luggage.





In a separate box I packed my rails along with a few other bits used bits that I needed (more on that later).

I mentioned earlier that I am planning to do a full major service in the near future also. WA is a bit dear on parts so I got as much of it as possible in Sydney. In this box were the below items.



I picked up:
OEM timing belt (not pictured)
OEM cam seals
OEM crank seal
OEM water pump
OEM tensioner kit
OEM thermostat
OEM clear side indicators
OEM base plates for my MRacing mirrors (current OEM base plates are cracked)
Aftermarket rear engine mount (not pictured)

I also acquired some facelift rear lights with the clear indicators however, I had to leave these in Sydney for now as I had no more luggage space!

Back in Perth, the first thing I did was unwrapped my SR3's to see if they arrived ok.



Sucess!

I then went ahead and installed my EK9 steering wheel.



My bro had one of these Enkei wheel covers from his wheels laying around so I asked him for one to protect my steering wheel... JDM yo!



I gave the car a wash and it was officially out of its 4 week hibernation.





The day before I came home I got a text from my neighbor; they accidentally opened their car door into my car making a nice ding/scratch on my passenger front guard. Normally I would be pissed but, we live 200m from the beach and Fremantle is well known for its strong afternoon/evening winds... they opened their door and the wind blew it into my car. I cant blame them as its happened to me into their car however, I didn't make any damage. They offered to pay to have it fixed and now that its happened, at least they wont make the same mistake again.



Ouch.

Last Saturday I took the car to get the ding fixed via paintless dent removal; I also paid extra to have a few other dents removed. In total they guy removed 5 dings.





I touched up the little scratch with a tiny brush and touch up paint. The scratch didn't bother me much as I do plan to respray this car in the future.

After that I dropped by the local Honda dealer to pic up an OEM VTi-R decal that I had ordered about 6 weeks back... delivery took ages as they had to order it from Japan, and it got lost in the Melbourne warehouse for a bit somewhere along the way too.



And fitted.



This same day I also removed some ancient sub/amp wiring which was useless as I'm not planning to run any doof doof.



Goodbye mess!

Now, I have mentioned that I'm planning to respray in the future... the body was really bugging me but now that all the major dings have been removed, it wasn't looking so bad. I had some gloss black vinyl which i got off Gumtree about 4 months ago; the plan was to wrap my roof with it as there was major paint fade however I put this plan aside as my new plan was to fast track a paint job. After an expensive holiday though, and thinking it through again on my return to Perth, I decided to give the DIY roof wrap a go myself. Realistically, I could get a cheap paint job soon however, I thought if the wrap turned out ok then i'll just save up for longer for a better paint job.

After watching countless DIY youtube videos, I took the plunge and gave it a go myself.



I removed the roof rails and decided to wrap the side sections of the roof also as these were also faded.

After trimming all the excess vinyl and tucking the extra wrap into the crevices; the end result was better than I expected considering I was battling the ocean winds due to the fact that I don't have an enclosed garage.



There were some very small bubbles but overall I'm content with it. Below is a comparison of the passenger roof edge before and after wrapping... the whole roof was faded like this before pic (excuse the very dirty car)





And a drivers side pic.



Overall I'm very happy with the progress. Next up I need to finish up my collection of parts for the major (fuel filter, drive belts) and get them installed.

Aside from that, I've been exploring photo locations near my place... here's a couple from the weekend.





That's all for now. I really should take all these pics with a proper camera in future!

[felixR]

Congrats on the new role Alex!

Nice detailed updates.