My Project

[TheTerrorist_75]

Well my speedo went again. I grabbed another cluster and that didn't work so I bought a new VSS and still no go. I have cleaned up and replaced many body grounds and nothing. I have an idea that the speedo wiring harness or dash plug the the cluster plugs into is shot. Time for a tach.

A buddy smashed his truck and destroyed the front end. I was lucky to buy the only surviving tires (back). I paid $40 for a pair of B.F. Goodrich 235/70/15 All-Terrain T/A mounted on steel 5x5 GM rims. The tires had less than a 1000 miles. With the 225/75/15 M/S tires I bought last year mounted on the front the truck looks and sits nice compared to the stock 205/75/15 that came on it.

I found and fixed my last oil drip. The oil sending unit had a pin hole. I also found and fixed a couple of vacuum leaks plus I put new rear brakes on. The old GMC runs like a top and rides great. Now it's time for the interior. Buckets and CD player next.

[JDoors]

... A 5 SPEED MANUAL!!!!, ... Only 3 amenities it's got is A/C, Power Steering, and a CD Player (after market, my old JVC). We haul, lawn mowers/other lawn equipment, recyclables, loads and loads of crap from Lowe's, tools, automotive parts, motor oil, you name it. ... piece of crap Mazda B2300 at work. My god that truck is pathetic. No balls whatsoever. can't even go on the interstate without having to down shift and cut off the A/C on every damn incline. ... this truck is also known as a Ford Ranger .

My Jeep Comanche pickup was more truck than creampuff-with-a-bed. I ordered it with the five-speed, NO AC (which I rarely but occasionally regretted -- one trip was SO hot I thought I'd pass out, I kept using ice out of the cooler to keep from frying), NO radio (however, my family & friends eventually bought me a radio and speakers as gifts, must've thought I was missing out on something), I originally planned on ordering it without power steering! The dealer talked me out of that, said it would REALLY hurt the resale value (not that that mattered in the long run, drove it for thirteen years! Only stopped 'cause someone t-boned it).

My roommate had a Ranger and yeah, it was s-l-o-w. We were both returning from a long trip and I didn't realize the reason he was getting so far behind was, not because he's a slow or careful driver, but because he COULD NOT keep up. I stopped at a convenience store to let him catch up and that's when he told me he was running as fast as he could, over-revving the engine the whole time. The Jeep? There was no evidence whatsoever that I was running hard -- I was just quietly and calmly cruising at a high rate of speed (both had four-bangers and manual transmissions, I was carrying an extra passenger and cargo, mine was four-wheel-drive, his was two-wheel-drive).

[Bubba Bob]

I find it hard to believe that he couldnt keep up, unless something was wrong with teh truck. What speeds were you doing?

I test drove a late 80s Ragner before I bought my F150. The late 80s I4 had like... 88hp & 120ft/lbs tq? That little truck had plenty of power. Wasnt built for the autobon but cruised at interstate speeds just fine. (mid 80s)

Edited September 2, 2007 by Bubba Bob

[Honda_Boy]

This Mazda B2300 (Ford Ranger) is a 2002 with 35,000 miles. Well maintained, it just sucks. Slow as crap and what feels like no torque despite the fact edmunds says it's got like 157 (I think) torque. I think it's just a terrible transmission in it. When I get on it in this truck and shift, it just falls flat on it's face. Still when you have to down shift to climb a small incline on the interstate and the dern thing still has trouble, that's just pathetic no matter what you drive. My old Civic didn't have any trouble like that and it had 109 TQ and 125HP and a tranny with longer gears than my current car. Then again I could still shift into 5th at 35 in it. I can't shift into 5th in the Mazda until about 55-60.

[TheTerrorist_75]

Every Ford Ranger I ever drove acted like it's rubber band was streched too much.

[JDoors]

I find it hard to believe that he couldnt keep up, unless something was wrong with teh truck. What speeds were you doing?

I test drove a late 80s Ragner before I bought my F150. The late 80s I4 had like... 88hp & 120ft/lbs tq? That little truck had plenty of power. Wasnt built for the autobon but cruised at interstate speeds just fine. (mid 80s)

I really have no explanation, it came as quite a surprise to me that the Ranger wouldn't be capable of keeping up (even with a lighter load and a lighter total vehicle weight). I was never aware of any problems with the truck, it was, as far as I know, in good shape. This was long ago so it's not like I remember the exact speed I was traveling. It was ... less than a hundred but more than seventy, I suppose.

But now that I think about it, at the time there was such a thing as "showroom stock" racing which included a class for trucks. Very few modifications were allowed, and only for safety. The Comanche won so many races it was eventually saddled with having to carry hundreds of pounds of ballast.

And now that I'm rememberin', my first car, the Opel Manta, was completely banned from showroom stock racing because it won too many races (they continued to allow the sedan version, as opposed to the much sleeker Manta coupe).

Of course I also owned a Mustang, a model that's won its fair share of races over the years. My current Explorer seems to be my first vehicle that's not known for it's racing abilities.

[Honda_Boy]

Disappointment. All the time.

OK, I get news on my favorite local automotive forum (TennSpeed.net) that there was some company having a sale on hoods. Any and all hoods, no matter the car model, $125. I thought "HEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL YEAH!!!!! Finally I can replace this banged up hood and get a nice OEM style Carbon Fiber hood. But alas, to my extreme disappointment, the only hoods available for 96-00 Civics was OEM Style CF for 99-00. No 96-98 ones like I need.

Crap.

To get a a good idea on how much of a deal this was, a ViS Carbon Fiber Hood Brand New for a 96-98 Honda Civic straight from ViS is $560.

[JDoors]

... OEM style Carbon Fiber hood. ...

I would have assumed they meant direct OEM-style replacements (as opposed to custom parts), but hey, sometimes you run across lucky deals so it was worth hoping. Unless I'm simply unaware that Hondas came with carbon fiber hoods from the factory ... seems unlikely though.

Didja ever get the hatch done?

[isteve]

I have a 4 liter ranger that is plenty capable of hauling quite a bit weight up any hill. The 4.0 has over 200hp and over 230 ft/lbs of toque. The I4 and 3.0 V6 use the same auto transmission that shifts way to early and need to be downshifted to climb hills. But with the manual transmissions they really do pretty well.

[Honda_Boy]

OEM style CF Hood. Which means, it's shaped like an OEM hood instead of one of those crazy ricer hoods. It's the same as my Lip. I have a Carbon Fiber Mugen Style lip (not sure of the brand. I think it's JDM Sh!t and yes, that's an actual brand). It uses the Mugen Aero Design but is made from Carbon Fiber. The actual Mugen lip was not made of Carbon Fiber (I think it was originally urethane or fiberglass or something).

Soon, I should be rockin some new headlight housings. My dad said if I wait, he'll order me a new set of authentic JDM (J-Spec) OEM Honda Civic SiR headlight housings and I'll pay him $25-50 every week till I pay him back. Still it'll be nice to have some pretty, all chrome headlight housings and city lights. I'm just tired of the awful looking ones I have now.

I washed the car and totally cleaned the interior out real good. I'll get pics up in a little while.

[Honda_Boy]

So my day started with with gettin up and going to college at 8:00. Come home at 9:30 then go back at a 11 and come back home again at 12:30. Well I eat, and then watch some anime. So for some reason about 2ish I decided I wanted to see if I could play my MP3 player through my CD Player in my car. After unsuccessful attempts I screw up and break a wire or 2 in the harness (old harness that was on the verge of breaking anyway) and one of the wires happened to be the power wire. It ripped out of the harness and couldn't be put back in.

SO I cruise on to Electronic Express (a run originally intended to only take 20 minutes) to buy a new harness. First I park and see my friend John walk out. He had gotten an old (but crappy) CRX so we talked for a about 5 minutes and he left. I walk in, ask for a harness for a 96 Civic. I buy it ($19.65) and walk back out to my car. I start to leave and low and behold another friend, Adam, shows up. I haven't seen him in forever. We talk for a while and catch up. He gets a call from our friend's wife sayin that her car can't get started. She asked Adam if she could pick Rob up for her. Holy crap I haven't seen Rob in a while either. So we decide to screw with Rob and take my car (though radioless).

We surprise him with my car rolling up. We take a few wrong turns gettin back (we didn't care. we were catchin up and arguing about Honda/Toyota/Nissan motors). But I drop Adam off back at his car and then me and Rob head to a gas station for drinks and head for his house. I chat a little with him at his house and check out a motor he's workin on (Bubba, you'll be happy to know it was a Ford motor. I have no idea what it was though. I only know Honda/Toyota/Nissan/Chevy motors). Finally I go home to get back to my chore.

I get home grab my wire stripper and replace my old harness with the new one. Yay!!! my radio works again. I reset all my audio settings and reset the clock and I'm almost good to go. Well the thing never fit right since I installed it and could never figure out why. I figured out today. I had a lock tab bent out on the bottom keeping it from going all the way in. I bend it back in and BAM!!! slips right in perfect.

Hmmmm, I look at the car. It's filthy. Right then and there I decide to wash. It's about 5:30 ish. I grab my Mr.Clean Auto Dry and get to work. Of course it takes me longer than your average person cause I have 64 wheel spokes to clean and clean between (16 spoke wheels). So I get it all clean and pretty and shine the tires. Well the interior is just a disgrace. Hasn't been vacuumed in ages and crap piled up. So I decide an interior cleaning is in order. So I vacuum the front (It really needed a vacuuming cause of the wire bits from the new harness install). I then pop the hatch and pull all the crap I had back there out. After a while of emptying crap out of the "trunk" (which included random parts from my old EG and the current EK, anti-freeze, a bottle of water and TRASH, lots and lots of TRASH) I finish. I put my tools, roadside kit, and back pack back in. Next, the back seat. Oh boy. It's the apocalypse back there. After a long, LONG time cleaning out back there. I get most of the crap out. I break out the Uniblab (as my dad has dubbed the Shop-Vac since it reminds him of Uniblab from the Jetsons) and get to work. Finally I get done. The first tire shine didn't work so well so I blast them again.

Finally I'm finished at about 9 - 9:15. Phew. One hell of a day. So I have a load of pictures which include my new EM1 99 Civic Si center console and crap from the car.

Crap from the back seat and "trunk"

A whole bucket filled with trash from my car. It was empty when I started. The bucket to the left was about half full when I started.

Ahhhh clean interior

some crap that's staying in the car

DASH

[Honda_Boy]

New center console

The CD player FINALLY fitting correctly

My EX gauge cluster

Amber back lights

Edited September 7, 2007 by Honda_Boy

[Honda_Boy]

The hatch in the garage

no flash

Engine bay

Another Angle!!!

Fun day.

[TheTerrorist_75]

I think I have more junk stashed behind the seat in my GMC than what was in your whole car. I keep saying to the crew that I am going to drive the GMC down the boat ramp on the river and open both doors to clean it out. LOL! The only vehicle that stays clean except when hunting/fishing is the Ford.

[JDoors]

Seeing how much stuff you keep in your car I give you two weeks before it's stuffed to the gills again.

Lessee ... in my Explorer I have a blanket, a collapsible umbrella, ... ... some tapes in the console ... ... ... Oh yeah, a multi-tool also in the console ... I think that's it. But then I haven't cleaned or vacuumed the interior in ages (though the boys at the lube-joint vacuum the front every so often), so ya got me on that point.

[Honda_Boy]

Well folks, I am down in the basement as we speak, priming and sealing my new hatch. I know it's not the ideal conditions. It's supposed to be below 60 and humidity is supposed to be lower than 60% but I'm tired of waiting. Plus this isn't meant to be permanent. I just want to get the dut tape hatch off ASAP. I'll have this one painted eventually. So many times I was gonna but then crap came up. Oh well. Wish me luck. I've never painted before. It don't look horrible so far. The fun part is gonna be gettin the little SOB on the car. I have to reattach all the plastic, change out the hatch locks, run the wiring through it and then bolt it on. This gonna be really fun.

[Honda_Boy]

Here it is.

I just spot primed the inside trying to get the spots that were sanded down to bare metal (to keep it from rusting). No ones gonna see this side.

[JDoors]

We'll see how it turns out. If it looks good I'll be sending you my step-bars for refinishing. Thanks in advance.

[Honda_Boy]

Well me and my friend are gonna try to get the hatch on today if we can. It's gonna be time consuming. I expect it take at least 2 hours. I need to run a stiff rope through it when i get home so I can pull the wires through.

[Honda_Boy]

Well, we did it. New hatch installed and fairly painlessly. I thought the wires were gonna suck. Turns out the biggest pain in the butt was the spoiler. I scratched up a few places so I may touch up a place or 2. Most of it is under the spoiler where I don't care. Oh boy it looks so much better without the giant smashed in spot and duct tape. Though i must say it sucks not matching. I'll get pics when I can.

Edited September 13, 2007 by Honda_Boy

[JDoors]

Do you mean not matching like, "I can tell the difference," or not matching like, "Look at that car with the hatch from a different car!"?

[Honda_Boy]

as in the hatch is primer gray on a Midori Green Civic. And when you open the hatch you still see quite a bit of red and black. When it's closed though, you just see gray. I'm bout to go take pics when my digi cam's batteries are recharged. Anyway, I did mostly for functionality and not aesthetics. I now have a hatch that won't leak and I can actually see out the rear glass now. There was some faded stick on tint in the original and the glue had warped and made it hard to see. Now I have crystal clear glass back there.

Tomorrow I'm goin up to Darrell Waltrip Honda/Volvo and pickin up new badge anchors so I can have my H badge on it.

Edited September 13, 2007 by Honda_Boy

[Honda_Boy]

Finally

[JDoors]

I thought you were gonna paint it green so that's what I meant by 'matching.' Still, looks better even in primer grey.

Maybe you didn't notice but you picked up a piece of road junk, there's a big ol' coffee can stuck under your bumper.

[Bubba Bob]

^^^^ :D **rolls on floor laughing**