[windraver]

Sooooo... I did something I never thought I would do.

Given that my mystery smoke was still occuring at high RPMs and high speed (freeway test) and did not seem to lessen, my assumption is that coolant was still leaking into my combustion chambers... somehow.

So my options...

1. Tear apart the head and replace the head gasket again. Inspect the cylinder walls for cracks and either replace the shortblock or get it "fixed"
2. Swap the spare engine in.. but rebuild it first.
3. Pour in some of those "stop leak" stuff that I normally would never recommend anyone use.

Well I went with K&W Fiberlock headgasket and block leak sealer. Dumped 1/3 of it into my radiator and let it circulate. Took it for a spin on the freeway and no smoke. Yay! Next question is... when will it clog my system and cause me to overheat? That seems to be a common issue in the comments and reviews. So in short I still don't know where it was leaking but I confirmed that it was leaking coolant. So time to schedule a smog and hope I pass!

 

[shorty_boy]

Good luck man. I hate that gunk, but you have to do what you have to do. I would look for a replacement engine now.

 

[windraver]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the CRX is BAR Legal and Smogged!

Next up, suspension, brakes, and body work!

 

[ScottMog]

Nice work!

 

[windraver]

Lesson Learned

When installing engine mounts follow torque specs and sequence!

Reason? Improper sequence and torque will cause excessive vibration and noise. The body/frame of the car will shake like and merely idling will drive you nuts as every loose body panel or metal will rattle.

The solution? Simply correctly torquing down your engine mounts in the correct order.

For those with a D15Z1, you can find the sequence and torque specs below. I have other specs throughout my manual if anyone needs but its a definite must follow. My car is much smoother now that I've done it right -.-;

 

[Rex All Day]

Torque specs will bring you very far with your car. Do it right the first time, every time. Great job so far!

 

[windraver]

Did some fabricating on my old nose piece. So much plastic is missing so I'm trying to slowly reform and mold with some ABS Glue. Pictures to come.

 

[mibars]

What was the main reason for failed smog? And what was the reason for the white smoke?

 

[windraver]

What was the main reason for failed smog? And what was the reason for the white smoke?

High CO and High HC. That is caused by excessive unburnt fuel and not fully burnt fuel. The fix was a Catalytic Converter replacement and MAP sensor replacement. MAP sensor would regulate the fuel based on the air intake. The Catalytic converter would burn remaining CO and HC.

I think my compression went up when I replaced the sensors and fuel injectors. This likely caused a small crack somewhere in the engine causing a coolant leak. White smoke basically steam/coolant. The engine was likely leaking coolant somewhere into the cylinders. This then caused one of the cylinders to misfire, fuel to flood, and the spark plug to foul. I couldn't find the leak so I got K&W Fiberlock headgasket and block leak sealer and it sealed my leak. No more smoke. The risk is that a lot of people overheat their engines as it clogs the coolant lines. So far so good though so I'm on a look out for it.

 

[windraver]

Update!

I was still getting a lot of vibration from the engine so I began looking into solutions to reduce the rattle.

One thing I found was FUEL INJECTORS! Given that I already have 4 "new non-oem" injectors, I took a risk of installing them again.

Immediately after installing them, upon starting the engine, the engine ran worse than before as it was misfiring. Quickly saw that the smoke was back and indeed it was coolant again. Pulled plugs on the injectors and found that cylinder 1 was not firing. No reaction from pulling the fuel injector.

So I turned off the car and started pulling plugs. Saw that cylinder 1 not only was fouling due to fuel but was also covered in oil. The valve cover gasket was leaking oil into the spark plug. I clean up the oil and wiped down the fuel. I then swapped out only the fuel injector for cylinder 1.

Started it up and the car ran like a charm but was still smoking. I added some more of the KW fiberlock seal and let it run. After 20 minutes, the smoke was close to gone and after driving around the block, it was gone completely. I guess the stuff works... except my heater no longer does >.<... I'll fix that next.

Another thing I noticed was the car ran sooo much smoother.

I really have a few questions in mind though:
- How does a new injector cause a misfire in the cylinder?
- How does an injector foul the sparkplug?
- How does the injector cause a leak in the cylinder?
- Will all new injectors do the same thing or is this specific to the injector I removed?

I plan to do a voltage and air test on the injector later to figure out if it's faulty or leaking.

On the positive note, the ride is a little better.

I still have to figure out why it it that the car stalls out when cold occasionally. This occurs after I shift to down to neutral from 3/4th gear and step on the brakes. My theory is that there isn't enough of a dampener for the throttle when I release it and that the application of brakes on the cold engine puts enough of a strain on the low 600 RPM idle that it simply dies. Theory but we'll see once I do some testing.

 

[hatze19crx]

Sup guys, I just purchased an 1986 crx and I have alot of questions on how to repair rust . Please lol

 

[hatze19crx]

Sup guys, I just purchased an 1986 crx and I have alot of questions on how to repair rust . Please lol

 

[windraver]

Sup guys, I just purchased an 1986 crx and I have alot of questions on how to repair rust . Please lol

I don't think I'm the best person to give you rust pointers but I would suggest you create your own build thread to get some input from people. I know phatboycrxhf is the best rust repair guy I know so you can check out his work and get some pointers:
http://crxcommunity.com/viewtopic.php?t=6287

 

[daveb91]

Is this thing running well now? Must be the longest running project on here that still gets updated. Lol! The KW didn't plug the heater core up did it?

 

[windraver]

Is this thing running well now? Must be the longest running project on here that still gets updated. Lol! The KW didn't plug the heater core up did it?

Hahaha yes it did plug up the heater core. I seriously have some updates to post. I'm sure I'll get it allup for Xmas

Pictures and stories coming soon!

 

[blue90ZC]

i ran across your post while doing a google search about how to fix or replace the headlight beam adjustment parts on a 90 crx, cause my horizontal beam adjusters have broken plastic pieces on them, which cause the headlights to be loose and move around, so i was trying to search for detailed pics of them from the backside and stuff, ..... and in the google image search results it had a pic of that red crx you did in photoshop with the pop-up headlights on it, and that caught my eye, just cause i've never seen a crx with pop-up headlights before, so i clicked on it which brought me to your post,

then i read through it all, and thats a great idea how you came up with ways to get pop-up headlights to fit into the crx body lines perfectly, and would probably be how it would look if honda designed it with them, it looks like a mixture between the 1st gen integra & a crx, which is cool, cause i've always liked the 1st gen integra,

its funny how you are a lot like me, i thought i was the only obsessive compulsive A.D.D. type of person who always makes long lists titled (things to do to crx), and then underlined or crossed off all the tasks i completed on the list.

so i was browsing through the pages of the post, kind of waiting to see the part where it is totally completed, showing a pic of the car with the body all filled in and paint matched around the pop-up headlights, but near the end you got side-tracked and got a better, newer motor and ended up working on swapping it in, then i got to the end, and realised you never showed a pic showing the pop-up lights and body work all done, painted white, where the gap in the front between the lights in front of the hood is all filled in and stuff . . ., just curious, have you finished it all now? where its all filled where that gap was in the front edge of the hood & stuff ? and painted over the bondo white to match rest of car ?

plus, i like how you put that cupholders in front of the shift console, thats awesome, usually people think the only solution to putting cupholders in a crx is to get one of those slim things that mount in the head unit part of the console that has a sliding thing that comes out with 2 cupholder holes in it, etc . . ., but i don't ever see peeople putting them in the front of the shifter area ?, which is weird, cause its a good place.

i also got another idea which i saw while doing a google search, i saw one guy with an integra who modified his e-brake handle to make it shorter, to make room in front of it, and he cut and mounted a single cupholder insert in the area of the shift console right under or in front of the e-brake handle, and since making his e-brake handle shorter, it worked and theres room to put a cup in the holder hole and not in the way of the e-brake going up and down, i think he cut his e-brake handle shorter since its one of those oem rubber type ones, but with mine, i would have to use a hacksaw or something ?, cause i have an aftermarket aluminum e-brake handle cover.

i like the how you ordered that alternative middle part of the steering wheel, where the horn is, that fits your year crx, cause it looks a lot better in my opinion, i remember seeing steering wheel like that in a picture of a red 87 crx si in a european english magazine, which had the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car, i guess those steering wheels were in the ones from europe?

 

[windraver]

just curious, have you finished it all now? where its all filled where that gap was in the front edge of the hood & stuff ? and painted over the bondo white to match rest of car ?

Thanks blue90ZC for all the kind comments. I've been so busy I didn't get a chance to respond until recently.

This brings me a mini update with more to come over this weekend!

The engine is running decently and I've been more focused on body work lately. I added more bondo to the nose piece of the car but it was still pretty rough and definitely could use some sanding and more bondo. The fenders were reinforced with additional ABS but light pressure continues to crack them.

I had a lazy moment and took the car to a body shop which turned me down saying it was too much custom work out of their league. My buddy who was going to be my ride home said I should just replace the fenders and nosepiece with metal. So I went out and picked up a MIG welder.

As you can also see from the picture, I have a spare D15Z1 engine there. I plan to rebuild it to swap out in the long term future when the current engine dies on me especially given that coolant leak I had.

Back to the story. On my way to the body shop, my hood locks gave out on the freeway flipping up my hood and smashing it against my windshield. I ended up having to swap out to my black hood and also took the opportunity to modify how my radiator is mounted and put in the stock hood latch(much safer...). Probably going to have to also replace my windshield at some point given that it is somewhat cracked from that incident. Additionally, I took that opportunity to adjust my passenger popup headlight to be more even but found out yesterday that the driver's headlight is too low. Seems like I need to do further adjustment.

As for mig welding, the plan is as follows:
1. Source Integra hood(done)
2. Cut broken CRX hood and merge it with the cut integra hood to create a full metal nose piece. (This will be my intro into MIG welding.)
3. Determine if I can weld and modify the integra fenders to appear similar to the CRX fenders or if I have to merge metal Civic fenders(3G 1984-1987) with it. The issue with Civic fenders currently are that none of them really match the CRX lines. Hatch and Wagon are definitely off and the Sedan/Coupe really is the closest but not even quite there. More on this as I figure it out.

Once that is done then I'll take it in for a paint job.

Additional to-do items:
1. Swap out control arms and ball joints. Got new ones but haven't installed.
2. Replace rear shocks. Got them but haven't the time to replace.
3. Redo the rear trunk cover as it comes apart too easily.
4. Do some reupholstering with the interior.
5. Reinforce the flimsy sun visors. Reupholstering it would be nice too.
6. Put in a newer carpet for the rear trunk.
7. Tidy up the wiring in the engine bay.
8. Reinforce the front bumper mounting. It never really mounted well...

Pictures to come over the weekend as I get started on some of these.

 

[windraver]

Is this thing running well now? Must be the longest running project on here that still gets updated. Lol! The KW didn't plug the heater core up did it?

Hahaha yes it did plug up the heater core. I seriously have some updates to post. I'm sure I'll get it allup for Xmas

Pictures and stories coming soon!

A side note on this... The car was shaking quite a bit from the engine and according to my research, it appears that bad injectors could be a culprit. So I installed back the "new" injectors and immediately sprung back my coolant leak.

From some testing, I figured out the cylinder and put back in an old injector the that cylinder. It was still leaking but running better so I proceeded to add more KW.... ran it for awhile and voila, no more leak...

But now with so much KW in my car, the next morning I found my heater solidly cold but luckily the car was not overheating. That night I went ahead and flushed my engine and heater core. Please note that KW really really sticks itself into every nook and cranny and certainly was plugging up my radiator. It took flushing from various pipes and hoses in order to get most of this junk out of my coolant system. Additionally, the heater core input wouldn't take in and water from the hose so I reversed the pressure and out came that KW gunk. That cleared it up luckily but I'd definitely consider a new radiator one day given some of it is visible just won't come out.

So lesson is use it if you're desperate but note that it really should be a last resort. Additionally, I still don't know what is leaking so I'll definitely consider swapping out to the spare engine one day.

 

[windraver]

So busy nowadays. But! I found time to get started on some welding

Of course you've seen the originals...

The plastic ABS/Bondo/Fiberglass/ABS glue mixup...

Goodness it looks so bad at this angle.... I threw on some rattle can to cover up the pink black white yellow colors

So I went and cut the front of an Integra hood.

And it doesn't look half bad

We can see here that my Drive side light is too low. That will require some adjusting to raise it up.

I always start with cutting a bit less than I need. Now I must trim it away as the hood can't close.

The piece lines up so well with the passenger light though...

But the driver side not so much...

After the second cut. Much better line up. There is some trimming involved still as it sits too high...

I also need to redo the bends given the Integra hood is raised in the center...

Notice the raised center of the integra nosepiece

See how the CRX hood dips on the sides...

Raised center again

So I cut another strip of the hood off for sheet metal and stripped the paint off and grinded some paint off the nose piece as well. The metal will form the angle to later bolt down.

Ready to weld. Held with a few magnets. This is my first weld job with a MIG so be patient!

Done! Kinda... I didn't weld the center raised section as I plan to cut and flatten it down.

I must say the weld is solid. Not flimsy like some old ABS.

Now its time to strip the paint.

I left it at this and that is the end of my weekend. More to come next weekend

 

[windraver]

And it continues!

Just grinded down the welds. Still need to cut the middle bump thought but that shouldn't be too bad.

A Close up of the grinded welds. Much better yea?

After cutting and welding the bump down. Looks a bit sightly but its not too bad.

Now time to do some paint stripping. The aircraft remover didn't do much. I tried to find the quart version rather than spraycan but it was nowhere to be found...

More to come next weekend. some more stripping and paint will make it awesome.

Edit: resized all the pictures. It was taking too long to load this page