DaX's N600 Restoration
 

First off I'd like to thank Matt for re-lighting the fire under my *** and getting me re-interested in owning a Honda N600.

This thread will document the restoration of a Honda N600.

As some of you may know, I bought one on eBay a few weeks ago that Matt found for me - there is a thread HERE that talks about it. Yesterday I received two more 1971 Honda N600's for a grand total of three of these cars.

Here is a picture of my stable...in this picture is ALMOST as much horsepower as in a D16Z6!

https://photos-819.ak.facebook.com/ip...44819_6459.jpg

The car that I will be restoring is in the foreground left. The other two cars will be used for parts. I probably won't be starting this restoration until a few weeks out after my house is built. The cars are currently stored at my dad's house.

My goal is to have a running car that is registered and insured by April 1, 2007, so that I can show at the annual Georgia Tech Auto Show. The restoration won't be complete by then, but I would like to be able to show my "work-in-progress."

Additional pictures of my N600's can be found HERE. I will be updating these pictures from time to time, but I'll post in this thread vital shots.

Good luck, Dax. Looks like fun.

There's something inherently amusing about looking at 3 of the same tiny cars packed in the same space. I have a couple of pics like that from when I was a VW Rabbit "restorer" in my university days.

I like the 2-tone green one best.

The link to more pics requires registration, though. Is that right?

so the car you'll be restoring is the one with the headlights seen in the picture?

Facebook wants me to log in to see the pictures. :(

hmm
 

I logged in, and it still wanted me to log in :confused:

Ok, I think I fixed the link on the pictures. Try it now.

Yes Compaq, the one in the pictures where you can see the headlights is the one I hope to drive.

:thumbup:

parts cars are good for this type of thing.

BTW... wanna send me a few parts I need? Pretty please?

It does my heart good to see the 600's. Reminds me of my childhood. Use to see them alot. Seeing we had Fiats, the little Hondas, Subaru's, Opels and other small to micro cars where always picked out. Simca's, Austin's, MG. The list could go on and on.

There is a Honda dealer in Tulsa that keeps a 600 on the sales floor. Ive also seen one on the sales floor in Lawton.

Lucky Americans. The car was never sold here (an odd reversal of Canadians often getting the small cars first). The first 600 I ever saw was Matt's, right here on this site.

I'm already unloading a fuel door to the person on the list that has been after one for like 3 months, haha. What parts are you in need of?

I'm looking for some of the little screws that hold the knobs on (like two of them) as well as the little L-shaped metal brackets that hold the top of the bumper to the car (where the car attaches to the bumper overriders).

I went and dropped $150 at the paint store yesterday -

*Lightweight Filler
*Etch Primer
*Roll of 80 grit 6" discs for stripping
*DA sander

Running total: $1575.81

I have nearly all of my turbo Civic parts listed for sale to generate some more revenue. Matt - I may need to get that guy's contact info from you that has the NOS fenders.

I'm DYING to get started, but I can't yet. The car is at my dad's house, and I'm waiting for my house to finish being built (should be about 1-2 weeks). After it's built, the cars get moved to my house and I can work on them every day!

So I've sold nearly all my turbo Civic stuff. With the money I'm buying a set of NOS fenders for my N600 (all three cars either have very rusty fenders or very beat up fenders or both) and a very nice air compressor.

I have started disassembling the front end on two of the 600's, as can be seen below:

https://photos-313.ak.facebook.com/ip...62313_5643.jpg

https://photos-315.ak.facebook.com/ip...62315_6084.jpg

The green one is the one I'll be restoring. As you can see, the yellow one has serious rust damage throughout, but miraculously, it had the best bumper and grille on it.

I have bought a new set of Kumho Power Star 758's (145-80-R10), picked out my four best wheels of the fourteen that I have, had the rotten tires dismounted, and am having them sandblasted today.

I have taken a wire brush wheel on a drill motor to the front valance on the green car and brushed out all the rust pits, then primed over with etch primer. The sheet metal is so thin, I was able to bend some of it back into place by hand. I'm going to borrow my uncle's body tools though to properly work out dents and dings.

Anyhow, I'll update again once the wheels are painted and tires are mounted.

PS, Matt - you have a PM from me regarding wheel paint.

Soo cool. this is one thing that people will stay around the site to watch! Keep up the good work!

Hi DaX

If you have a air compressor get a sandblaster for it.

It is better and cheaper than sanding discs and wire wheels in the long run.
It also makes cleaning up suspension arms etc a snap.

Just be carefull about blasting large flat pannels (roff -bonnet etc) as the heat can change the metals shape, and or pit it badly..

Also dont be tempted to use sea sand , the salts will increase the chance of rust again , and I believe it also has a high silicon content which is quite poisonous.

While I did think about sandblasting the whole car, containing the media (or the lack of the ability to) is what made me change my mind and go with a sander. Not only am I concerned with getting sand all in my car parts, my wife would have a fit if there was sand everywhere. She's already going to have a fit when she sees how much dust that sanding generates.

I have found when thinking about doing a whole car its better , and a lot faster to send it out and get it bead blasted insread.

Bead blasting is done with small balls of plastic (or other things) and is gentler on the metal.. and is less messy to clean up to prep for paint.

It doesnt get everywhere like sand does., so painting inside frame rails is easier.
You dont need to clean them out b4 hand.

I hate rust. :(

Looks like you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Good luck with it. :thumbup:

Looking good. Cool little car. Hope to see lots of pictures and updates in the furture.

Hi 90CivicStandard - ?I hate rust?

Rust is natures way of helping your FE by weducing vehicle weight. :D

Rust is good :thumbup:

lol.

I suppose that's a "the glass is half full"- way of looking at it.

Well I got my wheels back from the sandblaster - they really did strip them down to bare metal. One of the wheels was more rotten than I thought, as the sandblasting process blasted a hole right through the wheel! I will pick another wheel to have sandblasted this week to replace it.

I have painted and clearcoated the three wheels that made it through the sandblasting. They look excellent...I can't wait to mount the tires. I'll be posting pictures soon.

New total is $1707.08.

I was lucky to only have a little surface rust on my rims. Actually, on the INSIDE of the wheels I had a lot of pitting due to rust, but luckily it was all gone with my wire brush.

Oh yeah, I'm certain that you can sell your left over car parts for a good profit to make up for some of the initial cost.

The coolest Honda in the world I rekon :thumbup:


https://www.honda.co.jp/SEEVERT/galle...mage/Vamos.jpg

The thing I hate about rust is that it's like cancer: if you don't get rid of ALL of it, it comes back.

I once sand blasted 5 wire wheels myself. They were extremely clean but it took forever, and got slower toward the end (the sand gets smoother and finer as it gets recycled).

Is there any chance of just getting the car dipped? It means totally stripping the body of all non-body parts, but you'll have NO rust.

Doubtful. I'm not THAT hardcore of a restorationist.

Sorry to be slow posting pictures...but I just moved into my new house this weekend. Things are crazy, and I still need to get one more wheel sandblasted and painted before I can move my 600 to my house to work on it.

I'm hopefully picking up a 60 gallon Ingersoll Rand air compressor this week.

FINALLY got to touch the cars last night in what seems like forever.

I didn't get the air compressor yet...it may come as late as tax season - things needed to be purchased for the house, and those took precedence.

I started disassembly on the yellow N. I have completely disassembled the car from the rear all the way to the back of the driver's seat (with the exception of the fuel tank, rear suspension, rear bumper, exhaust). I hope to have the car totally stripped in a few weeks so I can uload it, either for a free pickup of the frame, or to send it to the crusher.

As an aside, I think I'm going to try to make reproduction lenses for the N. I have some experience with silicone molding, and I think the hardest part will be getting the color right, which I should be able to do by about the 5th lens.

:thumbup: Ooh, I've always wanted a nice little car like one of these, can't wait to see more work get done on them.

Great project DaX, can't wait to see it finished.

If they turn out good, and you want to make a few bucks, I could send you some S600 lenses, and if you're able to reproduce them I'd buy a few sets from you.

Sure. It will be a few weeks (months) until I attempt this, but you just gave me a little more motivation to try it out...maybe I'll grab some lenses this weekend and mold one or two of them next week.

It's either make new lenses for my N, or sit down with them for hours with buffing compound trying to remove the oxidized layer, all while trying NOT to remove the lettering detail on the lens.

I'm certain there are plenty of people willing to pay for new lenses for the N... I'd do it just to have new lenses.

Ok, so I actually took apart a rear lens today and cleaned it up. It's going to be a little more difficult than I originally thought, as the lens is two pieces glued together - the red outer lens (for the color) and a clear "diffuser" lens to scatter the light, which is glued inside the red lens. I'm trying to be really careful to take the clear lens out - it appears to be held in with a few key drops of super glue around the edge, which I am working at with a scalpel.

If all goes well, I'll separate the lenses with no damage to either. If all doesn't go well, I'll end up breaking one of the lenses, which won't be a *terrible* situation. If I break the red lens, I'll carefully remove the unbroken clear lens, then take apart another rear lens, this time being careful to only inflict damage on the clear lens, so in the end I have a separated, good set of lens pieces.

I might be molding the lens as early as this weekend.

Smithenhiven - do you know if the S600 has two piece lenses?

It's just a one peice, so hopefully it'll be pretty easy to replicate. I've got a set of NOS lenses, so if you do decide that you can replicate these, I can mail you one (the original doesn't get damaged during the process right? I assume you make some kind of mold on the original, so I'd hate if it got scratched or damaged in any way [I paid $300 for them]).

I'd also like to get replicas of the front parking lenses, and turnsignal lenses, which are also one peice. Hell, while you're at it, if you can make a replica Radio Delete panel, and a few other plastic interior parts, that'd be awesome.

I guess I'm getting a little ahead of myself, lol. But there is some money to be made doing this. NOS or very good used parts for S600's are very hard to find, I'm sure many people would pay good money for nicely done replica parts.

Cool. One piece lenses will be cake. Yeah, the parts won't be harmed - if they're NOS they probably don't need to be cleaned, so they'd just be put in silicone and placed in an oven at around 50C to speed up the curing process. If you're really worried about the lenses in the oven, I can omit the oven process and let the molds cure overnight.

As far as the other lenses go, I see no problem. If any of the lenses are multi-colored (half amber-half clear, etc), I might have trouble with them, but you can send them anyhow and I can at least have a mold of it to play with. For multi-colored lenses, the deal is to probably do a partial cure and then pour the second color before the final cure.

Let me try getting this N lens apart and get some molds made. If all goes well, I'll get you to send me the S lens and I can make a mold and go from there!

Dax,

For the colors, wouldn't the easy solution be do make the lens clear and then just paint the colored portion accordingly?

Probably, but I'd like to play around with dying the plastic. I'll be able to get more consistently colored lenses if I know the weight of dye to add, instead of eyeballing a coat of paint. The company I'm going to buy my supplies from (www.alumilite.com) with the exception of the silicone (we have PLENTY of "expired" silicone at work to play with) sells dye for the plastic. If you're curious, I'm initially just going to buy a small bottle of red dye and a 32 oz kit of the Alumilite Water Clear.

Well I got the right rear N brake lens separated...but ended up having to break the red part. It's cool - I have three sets of lenses, so I accepted the fact that I'd need to break a set to get it apart. Now I need to break another set but keep the red part of the lens in tact. I may try to make a silicone mold of the clear insert for the rear right brake lens next week...very busy with other stuff at work this week and probably won't have time.

I got to thinking about it. I'm probably going to need NOS lenses to make high quality reproduction lenses. The UV deterioration on the outside of the lenses I have caused the surfaces to pit (it looks matte) and if I cast molds of these, the repro parts will be pitted as well.

If you're still interested Smithenhiven, I'd be willing to cast molds of your NOS S600 lenses though.

In other news, I am nearly through stripping the yellow car, and have someone coming to pick up the unibody after Thanksgiving. I hope to finish stripping the car this weekend. I have added more pictures of the nearly stripped car HERE.

https://photos-573.ak.facebook.com/ip...32573_2911.jpg

https://photos-558.ak.facebook.com/ip...32558_8825.jpg

Yes, I am still interested, and I'm glad you posted about this again because it reminds me I was meaning to ask you about making rubber parts in the same fassion. I've got one original S600 floor mat with a rubber "Honda" insignia on the mat. That peice is very easy to remove, and it's in very good condition, and I was wondering if you'd be able reproduce that as well (with some kind of rubber material perhaps?) Here's a picture for reference:

https://www.geocities.jp/enjoy_honda_...568/img056.jpg

If you don't think you can do this, or don't have the materials, that's OK.

So I'd at least like to send you one NOS front turnsignal lense, and one NOS rear brake light lense (they're the same for Left and Right). I was hoping to send you a NOS parking light lense, but I don't seem to have one of those in NOS.

Would you like to PM or email me your mailing address, and I'll mail them down to you?

O, my names Jason btw.