Calabek : 1987 Accord Aerodeck LXR-S

[Calabek]

Ye boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

KSport finally hooked us up.





You'll have to excuse my photography. I'm usually much better but shooting on super bright days into the direct sun still gets me.

It's fucking perfect. Like Mona Lisa... if she were drawn in crayon. We left a little bit of height. Personally, I think absolute final form perfection would be another inch down, but the cops here man... not friendly. It'll already attract enough attention, I'm hoping the fact they can finger my gap should give me a bit of relief.

Tyres still sticking out the guards, but it looks so badass. A real muscle car of the 80s... JDM style.

Anyway, we fit a few heater hoses today, special ordered the top rad hose and I'm going back in tomorrow to help mount the battery, roll the guards and do some elec/susp checks.

So close!

[2ndGenGuy]

Man that does look hot!

[Calabek]

Thanks dude!

Back at the shop today. Completed suspension checks and put all the pins into the ball joints. Then we took the bumper off and to my surprise, managed to straight it out a bit (see pictures). I thought it was a goner, but looks like ABS + a good ol' heat gun will get it going. Took the opportunity to give the rusty number plate holder a lick of paint

(Before)


(After)


I also took some time and started removing green tape left on by an ex-associate of SLT. Tiresome work but got about half the drivers side fender done in a couple hours. Glass cleaner that had alcohol and some elbow grease did the trick 👍🏻



So close. This car is looking so mean. More to come.

[B0CKS]

Ye boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

KSport finally hooked us up.





You'll have to excuse my photography. I'm usually much better but shooting on super bright days into the direct sun still gets me.

It's fucking perfect. Like Mona Lisa... if she were drawn in crayon. We left a little bit of height. Personally, I think absolute final form perfection would be another inch down, but the cops here man... not friendly. It'll already attract enough attention, I'm hoping the fact they can finger my gap should give me a bit of relief.

Tyres still sticking out the guards, but it looks so badass. A real muscle car of the 80s... JDM style.

Anyway, we fit a few heater hoses today, special ordered the top rad hose and I'm going back in tomorrow to help mount the battery, roll the guards and do some elec/susp checks.

So close!

That rear view is hands down the best image ever uploaded to this site.

You are doing god's work man, beyond excited to see this finished.

(alsooo... I'm sure it's in this thread- but what lip is that?? That's the perfect look right there!

[Calabek]

Thanks B0CK! That makes two of us, ey. Shouldn't be long now. Got some more work done today, I'll get onto that in a sec. But to answer your question, it was fashioned from 2x DA3 front lips joined in the middle. It looks like the JDM options ones that say "ACCORD" on them. It's a good fit too, but falls short on the sides where the bumper meets the wheel. Meh, still looks dope imo.

Onto todays goodness. I had to work today but whilst I was gone the battery relocation got smashed out and I had these snaps sent to me. 👌🏻 Fashioned from some spare steel and welded to the chassis. Gave it a lick of paint and blends right in.





So good to get it out of the bay. This provides a much cleaner look. A great spot for it.



Note: Not installed in above pic. Just showing where it's located in case you couldn't work it out.

For you eagle eyed followers you probably remember a different design posted up last year. Unfortunately it was lost in the shop move. No matter.

Not sure if upper rad hose came in today. Might not be back into the shop til Monday. Chat soon!

[B0CKS]

Wow I hadn't even realized there was a second kind of lip, I searched wide and far before I had one specifically pulled and shipped, but it's the common < DA3 section one, and yours looks suuuuper nice. Might have to sell mine and start that search over again- since that's very much the right look.

And dangit dude, everything you're doing to this car is the right thing. I've got a Optima Red-Top in my monochrome engine bay and it always draws my eye, I hate to copy all your homework but jeez that battery location has always been such a good idea. How are going to access it? I noticed you cut that wheel liner, are you just be able to pull a section of it down??

[Calabek]

Wow I hadn't even realized there was a second kind of lip, I searched wide and far before I had one specifically pulled and shipped, but it's the common < DA3 section one, and yours looks suuuuper nice. Might have to sell mine and start that search over again- since that's very much the right look.

And dangit dude, everything you're doing to this car is the right thing. I've got a Optima Red-Top in my monochrome engine bay and it always draws my eye, I hate to copy all your homework but jeez that battery location has always been such a good idea. How are going to access it? I noticed you cut that wheel liner, are you just be able to pull a section of it down??

Hahaha yeah I'm a big fan of it. I was surprised how well it came out given it was a DIY job.

Thanks so much man. I'm really proud of everything.
Copy away if you've got yourself a welder. Like I said, it's such a good spot for it because it's literally just an empty void of space.
As far as I'm aware we've planned to run cables back up to where the battery used to be and have a couple of terminals there that I can toggle if need be so when in storage I can make sure there's no draw on the battery and so I won't have to take the bumper off to take the terminals off... if that made sense. It's late here and English don't do too good.

[Calabek]

Heading back into the shop tomorrow. I've got a detailer coming down to see what he can do about the paint although I already know the hood and roof are a lost cause as I barely got any clear coat on them when I did my rattle can job a few yeas back. So I'm trying to organise a vinyl wrapper to come down and do the in a standard gloss black on the roof and bonnet until I can afford a full respray. Still waiting on quotes, but I'll post up some shots of what the detail comes up like tomorrow.

Forgot to update about this, but I bought another climate control a couple months back.



Saw it for sale in the 3geez group, spoke to the seller and he only wanted 40NZD shipped. Couldn't pass that up. Besides, the buttons on this one are better than mine and it's good to have a spare * just in case *

[Calabek]

Detailer and I rocked up to the shop on time, waited around for a few hours before getting a message it wasn't opening today. No explanation either. So unfortunately no updates today.

To make it up to you, here's something I tackled over the last week.







I had a spare Aerodeck tail light hanging about so I turned it into a lamp for my bedside. No modifications made to the tail light so if I ever need to use it for the Aerodeck it's good to go.

[Calabek]

It turns out you can polish a turd 😂


(Please note that feral green tape has now been removed from both fenders)



For those who didn't know, the car has a metallic flake through the black from factory - hard to capture on camera.





It came up pretty schmick. Didn't think it was salvageable. I still wanna look into getting the roof and bonnet wrapped. I just don't think there's enough there to make it a good looking ride.

Went down to the auto shop where we ordered the top rad hose as we got a notification it was in Friday. Also picked up thermostat, some coolant, hose clamps, battery terminals etc etc. Final touches. Unfortunately however, the auto shop told us they couldn't find it. They were showing stock of it, but nothing. They looked for about an hour and it still didn't come up. Super bad luck because that was the only one left in the country. So looks like we're back to playing the waiting game until we can source one.

On the plus side, we might finally be able to do something about that faded as rear hatch!

[Dr_Snooz]

Can't you just use a universal flex hose? Car's looking epic, BTW.

[Calabek]

Can't you just use a universal flex hose? Car's looking epic, BTW.

Good question. The universal hose kinks So unfortunately no bueno. We're hoping the stock hose will do the goods as it's shaped correctly. We managed to order it again and it was in Firday, but the fuckers lost the order.. AGAIN.

So in my last post I mentioned I was looking at getting it wrapped. Got a few quotes and the cheapest I found for gloss black was $600 install on site. Honestly not too bad, so I tried to tee up a time we could get him down to the shop, but instead was offered a respray on the panels for the same price. Not gonna say no.

We got started.







Roughed up the surfaces, then hit it with primer. Still showed a few worry spots.



I won't post all the shots... you get the point. It wasn't looking too too bad. Then we hit it with the base and ugh... it just looked fucking horrendous. Mainly because those panels had been resprayed so many times in the past. We found like 3-4 different coats.

It was so bad I didn't even take pictures. So before we got any further we pretty much decided we may as well do it correctly so we picked up some paint stripper and... well... decided to do it correctly.



First time seeing this process. It was wicked.



Check out the bottom corner of the bonnet. Scary stuff.

Finished up the night with this. Still unsure how we'll tackle the roof and hatch. But that's future Anthony's problem. Will be back on it next week. Until then!

[Dr_Snooz]

Paint stripper. Sweet Jesus. That crap should only be sold with complimentary liver transplants.

[Calabek]

Managed to strip the entire roof today. Hopefully getting the painter in tonight/tomorrow to get it finished off.



Did an electrical check and everything is A-OK. Also put on the replica JDM fuse box cover sticker. If you want one shoot me a message, $25USD shipped anywhere.



Ugh, I love how good this bay looks.

Literally just waiting on the top rad hose now and we're at turnover. 🤙🏻

[Calabek]

** Drum roll ** We have start up!



Have a fucking listen to that exhaust note too. Jesus, I still can't wipe the smile from my face. The video doesn't really do it justice, the thing rumbles hard. I could feel it in my chest yesterday. The popping you can hear is because we have an air leak in the Webers. It's been found and will be fixed today.

You may not have been able to see it in the video, but here's the coolant overflow. Since the mount for the stock one were already being used, Jake donated his Asahi overflow from his ED. Glass > Plastic (excuse the dust)



I'm going down today so I'll get a snap of the paint work. Nothing done on the roof yet, waiting for good weather down here still before we do it. However the bonnet has been fixed up and primed. Looks brand new. Super smooth.

[Dr_Snooz]

That's super sexy! Congrats!

[Calabek]

I was hoping my next post would be one of me flogging the car down the street.
Unfortunately not I'm afraid. It's officially been 2 years since they've had it. I gave them notice. So the car will be done by 24th of Feb or I'm taking it elsewhere. (Time of posting this - 22nd Feb)
Since then progress has been speedy.

Paint has been finished. He went with a Satin finish. I would have preferred gloss... guess I'll give it a couple weeks and see if it grows on me.





Hid the light relays. Looks much cleaner now.



The biggest Japanese car event in my state is happening 24th Feb - I entered the Aerodeck and it was accepted. Hoping it's done.

We found that the dual linkage setup we were running was cheap china ebay crap. The rod was flexing in the middle causing the issues we were having. So we're getting rid of it and making up another. I'll include pics once it's on. It should mean the car runs perrrf.







I guess you'll hear from me in a couple days with either good news of bad news.
Car needs a centre muffler something stupid. You could hear the thing from the other side of Straya.
Anyway chat soon.

[Calabek]

^ Click to play




Here's a look at the new linkage kit. Simple stuff and works well. Car worked perfectly as soon as we started it up, idles perfect at 950 rpm.

He'll be tuning it later tonight and finishing up some smaller pieces before the show Sunday.

I am nervous as fuck though, the thing is so loud. It needs a center muffler. Worried about the 5-0.

[Oldblueaccord]

DANG....wrong hand drive very nice.

[B0CKS]

^ Click to play




Here's a look at the new linkage kit. Simple stuff and works well. Car worked perfectly as soon as we started it up, idles perfect at 950 rpm.

He'll be tuning it later tonight and finishing up some smaller pieces before the show Sunday.

I am nervous as fuck though, the thing is so loud. It needs a center muffler. Worried about the 5-0.

So geeked to see this!! Congrats man, its been a long time coming! Looks like you'll make it to the show in time, that's so rad!

And on a different note- I'm the guy who was asking about throttle linkages on FB, what kit did you end up going with? If you have sort of a link that would be awesome, my scrolling hasn't resulted in any kit that looks like yours, and I'd like to get a known working kit rather than chancing it since your initial linkage was (unfortunately) garbage.

Thanks man- and it's been a long time coming- glad to see it's wrapping up, this is certainly one of the coolest 3geez on the planet!

[Calabek]

DANG....wrong hand drive very nice.

haha, that's what we call LHD over here. :P

So geeked to see this!! Congrats man, its been a long time coming! Looks like you'll make it to the show in time, that's so rad!

And on a different note- I'm the guy who was asking about throttle linkages on FB, what kit did you end up going with? If you have sort of a link that would be awesome, my scrolling hasn't resulted in any kit that looks like yours, and I'd like to get a known working kit rather than chancing it since your initial linkage was (unfortunately) garbage.

Thanks man- and it's been a long time coming- glad to see it's wrapping up, this is certainly one of the coolest 3geez on the planet!

Aw thanks Seth, yeah it's been a journey for sure.

So we ordered in two part numbers:



Pictured above - 45041.009 Throttle Leveller



Pictured above - 45048.005 Balance Leveller

I should probably also note the kit I was referring to as 'cheap china ebay crap' was actually a Redline kit. So... buyer beware.

[Calabek]

After work yesterday I went back to the shop and a lot more work had been done. As I got in he was custom making a shift boot, he'd also hand made an antenna block off plate using the rubber gasket from the old one, the rear wiper arm was also painted and the car was running a lot better - less popping from the carbs, there was also a catch can he'd made up from a carby cleaner spray (just for the show as a bit of tongue in cheek).









I'm at work today so I don't think I'll make it back down but from what I've been able to tell he has a wedding to attend today but he should be going back after. Has an exhuast leak to fix, the bonnet trim to put back on, the shift boot to finish and then clean all the dust off.

I'll keep ya updated. Next time you hear from me I'll probably have pics from the show

[Dr_Snooz]

Woohoo!!

[Calabek]

Well, I made it! My first drive with it was.. interesting. The car was running on 3 cylinders the whole way down and died every time I pulled up to a set of lights. It pissed me off given it had been running so well before the day of the event. I didn't really get to experience it.

Got in just before gates close. It was 37C degrees.



I do media for a local car events blog here in Adelaide, SA and I just couldn't help myself but take hundreds of photos of my car and barely anyone else's. It's going to suck when I end up doing the write up, but I just couldn't stop staring at it. I barely moved from where I'd parked it. I gotta say it was easily my favourite car there.





All day I had people come up and ask me about the car. I heard so much positive feedback. I really needed a day like this!



I even had someone come up and ask to interview me about it! Absolutely stoked. Half way through though he asked why I had disconnected one of the spark plug leads and whether it was meant to be connected to the dizzy or not. Hahaha, we must have knocked it off while cleaning in the morning. At least it was a simple problem as to why it ran on 3 and didn't idle.

I also thought the Carby Cleaner catch can was a good 'tongue in cheek' touch. :P





As the gates opened I left. Too hot and too excited to drive it again! It was running pretty damn well now (albeit needing a good tune). As I embarrassingly bunny hopped down the main strait where hundreds were watching me I finally got going and banged it up to 8k RPM. THIS CAR IS A FUCKING MONSTER! And it is stupid quick. I have never driven a car this quick before - you put your foot down and it wants you to go as fast as you possibly can!!

I took it to work and people said it was far too loud. Center muffler required.



This car is a dream come true!



Until next time

[Dr_Snooz]

Hooray for 3geez!!!! Nice work!