Updates on my 79, Lots of pictures

[PDXAccord79]

So I now have the oil pan sealed (no pictures), the head is being rebuilt and the engine bay is being put back together. I've also received my KONI inserts and have pics of those as well. On to it!


All hard brake lines are reconnected and the master cylinder is back in. That is the master cylinder/brake booster that came on the car. Amazing what carb cleaner and elbow grease can do.


Another view. This is all original parts.


A good view of the rear mount and master cylinder. The rubber on all mounts is like new. That includes all of the big bushings that hold on the subframe pieces.


Front mount looks like it's new. No cracking or rotting in the rubber.




Radiator, fan housing and headlight buckets in. I have one broken sealed beam and bought the wrong screws so the drivers side sits empty. I might replace them with some BMW headlights and wire them up euro style


Radiator, radiator cap, plug and temp sensor are new. Everything else has been cleaned and reinstalled. I vinyl dyed my fan black. It looks good but I hope I don't stick my hand it in.


Oh ya!

More pictures as I do more.

[PDXAccord79]

Almost forgot about the KONI's:


Fronts. When they say NOS they mean it!


Rears. They're old but it's all there.

They ended up being a little sticky at first but after moving them up and down a few times they got very smooth with good resistance. They feel about as good as other new struts I've purchased so I think I'll run them as-is.

[obdriver6]

Looking good! Did you paint the bay or is that the original color?

[Honda Man]

Dam that looks hella clean man! Looks like its freakin' all brand new! Dam good work for sure. And that bwm headlight conversion would dope to see keep it up man

[PDXAccord79]

The bay looked like this before I started:



Beyond the 30+ years of grime there really wasn't much wrong besides rust under the battery so I took it all apart, cleaned, sanded, repaired the rust with fiberglass and here's where I'm at.

The beamer lights would look awesome.

[2ndGenGuy]

Retrofit the BMW lights so you can use some HID goodness in your car. Looking excellent, sir.

[79cord]

Projector style lamps are usually very deep, continuing much further back behind the lens. this might clash with the body structure in the outboard location since the inner guards are inboard of the lights. "Cristal clear" lensed lights with the more complex reflectors ? or Other standard sized non-sealed beam lamps might be easier/more likely to fit?

Glad to see you're going to such efforts upon the car. Looks very thorough.

[MessyHonda]

nice build.

[PDXAccord79]

Lights off of an E30 look like they would go on without a lot of modification. I'd just need to make the holes bigger in the mounting plate and brackets and use the buckets off of the BMW. The other option is the inside "euro" lights off of a MK1 GTI. There are clear and yellow glass Hella's floating around out there that would work.

I got the head back yesterday so I'll post pictures of that when I get them. Thanks for all the complements!

[PDXAccord79]

And more updates:


Caliper 1


Caliper 2


My strut housings gutted and painted. Koni's go in next!


Everything but the wiring, hood latch, battery tray, washer bottle and heat shield are back in. It's almost ready for the engine.

I'll be getting the last of the small parts on Wednesday so I hope to have it ready by the end of the week! A lot of this wouldn't have been possible without your help so thanks again.

[obdriver6]

I just noticed that huge rad. fan! lol Are those aftermarket sway bars?

[PDXAccord79]

Haha, ya the fan is quite tiny but the radiator is NOS so it should be fine. Those are stock swaybars but I cleaned and painted them and the clips. I replaced what rubber I could but had to use old rubber for the clips that connect the sway bar to the radius rods (found a bunch at pick-n-pull and used the best two). I've been teaching myself how to mold rubber and will probably make urethane replacements this summer.

Eventually I'd like to add a Prelude swaybar to the back and see about getting a custom radius rod/swaybar setup for the front. I don't think I can get anything aftermarket for this old of car.

[2ndGenGuy]

Someone on here just recently picked up a set of Addco swaybars and put them on a 1g. I can't remember who, but it was a very recent build thread on here. He put the part numbers in the thread, and I was able to find vendors online who were selling them. So you might look there.

[lostscotiaguy]

"I've been teaching myself how to mold rubber and will probably make urethane replacements this summer."

If you DO, please document it! I've been tempted to try the same thing for a while, but I have no clue how to go about it.

[PDXAccord79]

And some more pictures. This is getting close to being on the road!


Rotors and drums painted and ready to go


Spindles(?) media blasted and ready for paint


Struts rebuilt with Koni inserts set at max hardness. I also removed one coil from the springs. I still had to compress them a little to get the tops on so it shouldn't be a major drop.


Spindles assembled. Now I can put the front end back together!


And the engine so far. I still need to paint the valve cover red. Looks like I'm one notch off on the timing belt so I'll also need to fix that.

The timing cover was painted using vinyl "dye" that didn't do much dying at all. Some of it ended up flaking and what's left underneath is still that funky yellow color. I'm probably going to sand it again and see if I can get it any better when I adjust the belt.

That's it so far. I have to have it back together this weekend so more updates soon.

[2ndGenGuy]

Looking great! The timing cover definitely looks better in black. I hate that yellow plastic they used, it doesn't match anything. It's so hard to get any paint or anything to stick to them. They seem to absorb oil and they're extremely difficult to clean... I wish they were just black from the factory!

[PDXAccord79]

I soaked it in carb cleaner, then a milder degreaser, then sanded but the stuff still didn't hold everywhere.

I wish I could find a new one but these things seem to be insanely rare.

[Hazwan]

Looking great! The timing cover definitely looks better in black. I hate that yellow plastic they used, it doesn't match anything. It's so hard to get any paint or anything to stick to them. They seem to absorb oil and they're extremely difficult to clean... I wish they were just black from the factory!

OH YES me too. I hate them and I really can't be bothered to get all my A/C related crap just to get the timing cover off ><

OP awesome job btw!