[Tiersin]

Hey guys, I havnt posted here in a while because i'm been up in college without my car . Anyway, i've finaly run into some cash and I've decided I want to finish up my car once and for all. I have two breaks comming up(fall and christmass break) and I plan on doing as much work as I can to get everything finished up in this time. I'm compiling a list of everything I plan on doing so that some of you guys may be able to help point me in the right direction. I will have limited time, so I really want to do everything right the first time.

These are in planned order

Over fall break:
1. Remove POS front bumper(crapy fiberglass thing with holes in it)
2. test fit the new bumper(Wings West RS)
3. Build a set of aluminum and steel mounts for the bumper so its solid.
4. Remove stupid fiberglass fenders (other owner)
5. Remove engine
6. Dissassemble angine and check all the parts
7. Remove all accesories to start preping for paint.
8. start sanding areas of the body.

Between breaks:
1. Find a decent pair of fenders that arnt going to send me under financialy.
2. Buy new corner lights and all the mounts for them.
3. Buy any new internel engine parts that may need replacing.
4. Find a shop to get my car painted

Winter break:
1. Finish sanding the car.
2. Install new fenders
3. get the car ready for paint
4. Paint
5. (while its being painted) replace all engine parts that need replacing)
6. Put it all back together!

If you have any help you could offer me, that would be amaizing. I'm pretty new to a lot of this, but I feel like I can do it. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[rex2nr]

how long are your breaks?

Thats a looooooot of work... gonna take a good amount of time. I would break the list up into more stages... no use rushing anything or you will be redoing it.

 

[downest]

Scott post some pics of your garage...

 

[rex2nr]

I'll have to take some tomorrow

 

[jfish360]

DUDE alot of work and it doesnt seem like alot but beleive me its the little things that build up time. Like your probably going to break atleast one thing if not many more doing all this. I would start to look for a shop right now becuase you dont want to be waiting on that believe me. So just call around and ask around and look around all around :lol: . I hope you have that WW bumper because there not really easy to get. trust me unless your really lucky or wanna pay alot. Take your time to because once you rush and get made **** is going to break.

 

[ComposiMo]

Advise? Take your time, and "plan before you do"... and i don't mean just make a small list, i mean figure out EVERYTHING about each step on that list. Don't rush the project just to get it done within one of your breaks. If it takes a bit longer, then let it... i can almost guarantee that it will

Also, take lots and lots of pictures, and keep posting them up here for all of us to see 8)

 

[Tiersin]

Thanks guys. I can see what you meen. I will be taking a LOT of pictures, so dont worry about that. I will not rush this. I've lerned my lesson on that before. If I cant get in done in the timespan, its no biggie because I will have spring break and all summer to work on it too. A appreciate all your advice. Pics will come soon.

 

[jmart]

I think you can get everything done that you want for the Fall break period, except for the body prepping. if oyu know what you are doing you can pull that motor in a day by yourself. then take another to disassemble. but if you're not that fast/experienced then give yourself at least another day for that. Then give another dday for removing the bumper and fenders and fiddling with the new one. Another to fab up a custom mounting solution for the front bumper. no sure what you mean by "accessories" that you want to remove, but i suspect thats another days work. Thats probably about a week right there. Also, unless you have a garage, the winter days are only going to get shorter.

Not sure how long your Winter break is, but if its only two weeks, and you also celebrate chrsitmas and new years, you may be tight on time to rebuild the engine and prep the body for paint. The body work takes a lot of time and attention to detail, as does the engine build. The reason why honda eninges last so long is really just attention to detail during production.

So ya, good job making a plan. I'd just say make the plan a little more modest. We all inevitably think we can get more done than we can until we've got a lot of experience under our belts.

 

[Tiersin]

Alright, so i'm a good deal underway. I took all your advice and i'm planning on an extended time for this project. I've started taking the motor apart, and I've found what could have been my problem all along. After I got the head off, I took a straight edge to the deck and found that its quite a bit warped in some areas(overheated pretty badly a year ago). I'm planing of having the head milled, so should I just take out the whole engine and get it milled as well. I dont even know if this is possable because I dont know just how much you can safely take off before you start running into problems. Other than that, I have a few other questions:

What head gaskit should I use? I had a MLS gaskit on there and I dont like em. Would a honda one work fine? I just dont want to use a metal one.

New rod bearings. Should I get them since it will all be apart anyway? Also, they come in standard, .25, .5, and .75 oversized. I should get regulars right?

If i'm taking the engine out, i'll have to take the axles out. I've never done this. Is there anything to look out for?