Let me start this out with a story. Back in 1994, my sister bought a perfect 1989 black CRX si for $6000. In January 2003, when I got my license, she gave it to me. So what if it's quarter panels were kind of rusty? It was my car. Maybe it was too powerful for a 16 year old (we bent the suspension, but fixed it with junkyard parts), but it was fun to drive and it got great mileage.
In October, I was waiting to pull into my driveway, and I was rearended by a lowered, riced out nissan pickup. The cop said judging from the skid marks, he was probably going 50 mph. Ouch. Well, the poor crx had sacrificed itself for me, and the truck wasn't in great shape either. If I ever get the pictures scanned, I'll post them here. But for now, I'll say one thing to describe the damage: The rear tires were pushed ahead, all the way into the seats. The left side trailing arm ripped the driver's seat off the floor.
The car still ran perfectly fine, and I parked it in the driveway until spring, when I started stripping it down. My neighbors love me I'm sure.
In January, I convinced my brother-in-law to take me to a dealer's auction, where I came across a golden-colored-beauty. We bid $500 dollars, but after auction fees, paperwork, and dmv fees, it cost me about 765 bucks.
On the drive home, the only thing that distracted me from the 264 thousand mile old balljoints was the bent shifter and the layer of cigarette butts covering the floor. But I was happy because it has very little rust compared to my crx.
I spent the whole month of may in my autoshop class swapping the engine/tranny/wiring/dash/door panels/fenders(civic ones were rusted)/front bumper(to match the fenders) etc. over to the civic.
A blown headgasket and then a blown engine later, we have my favorite car:
(well, I guess that was summer 2005. But it's the only one I have online of it intact).
The Wisconsin winters have finally taken their toll on this car, however. Now that I have a beater, I've started stripping this beauty down to get the buildup it really deserves. I knew my welding class would pay off.
Anyway, you probably want more pictures than you would text, so here we go.
It's almost as stripped down as you can get while still be able to move it around under it's own power. Next week the engine and wiring gets pulled.
(See the rust? This is what happens when people are lazy replacing your windshield...)
More rust...
Look at the rust into the channel...
You can see through rust!!!
On my last trip to California, I cut some rust free rear quarter panels off a 1991 STD. I have pics, but they're on my other computer. I'll edit them in later.
Wish me luck!
p.s. Some people have told me to just junk it and start out with a rust free shell. I don't like that idea for many reasons. I believe a rust free from the factory 88-91 civic to be sort of a unicorn, you can see it, you can experience it, but you can never really have it. Seeing the inside of those quarter panels shows where the factory missed many times with seam sealer. I'm going to rust proof much better than Honda did. Plus I just like this car. They may be plentiful now, but if we throw every one away, we're not going to have an abundance of these cars for very long.
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