A Sentimental Honda Civic Restoration

[Roverjoe]

Hello Guys I thought i would share the journey of my 1998 Honda Civic 1.8 VTi Restoration. Its a vehicle that has been in the family since pretty much new. My Nana and Grandad bought this car a few years after it was registered. It was bought from York Toyota as we believe the previous owner part exchanged it for another vehicle. It's a car that has been apart of my Childhood from start to finish, I used to go out in the car quite a lot in the summer time, going on trips to the coast and other places, we even went on holiday to France in it a couple of times. Unfortunately though in 2010 my grandad passed away hence leaving the car to us, but we just never got round to using it sadly so it ended up being sat around not doing much. Im Thankful that during now and then that the car was not taken in for scrap as it would have been a massive shame. The car was not totally left to waste away, the car was regularly started and moved within them 13 years of not being on the road, but with it being laying on grass this meant that the underside was going to be problematic down the line. My Nana fell ill with Alzheimer's around 2014 and ended up moving in with us so we would care and look out for her, and when i started to learn how to drive in 2017 i really wanted to try and get the car back on the road to try and get her to relive some of the memories she had in the car. Sadly we were not able to as she passed in 2020, so the aim is to get the vehicle restored back to how they had the car. Its a car that i want to have look clean but also have the characteristics of the car still there so it tells a story. With it being a VTi they are very hard to come by these days as many of them were scrapped for their B Series engines, Lots and lots were modded by boy racers and in the end a lots of them were scrapped due to Rot on the front floors and jacking points, (Rover 400/45 owners will know the pain of this). You will be pleased to know that this car is staying 100% standard and will be restored to a standard which i looks factory. 

 

Heres some photos of the car in 2020 where it was layed up and some of the Rot investigation i started:

 

Thankfully the car is not in such a state as it was there, I am currently on with restoring the car and have nearly finished the passenger side of the sill!

More Photos and Updates to come

[Roverjoe]

I Thought i would also add to the original post by showing some more photos when i got the car moving and onto solid ground to take a more in depth look as to what needs sorting on the car bodywork wise and what panels and such will be needed. 

For starters the Front wings, they are not too bad considering these cars love to rot here too. one of the common flaws with these civics is the drainage and the seam that runs along the side of the A Pillar loves to seep water through into the cabin and make your footwells nice and wet.  Another common area for these to rot is the scuttle panel behind the trim and windscreen, i was lucky enough to find out that my scuttle panel is remarkably solid!

 

Upon Further inspection here is some more rust located on the sills, floor and arches.

 

Next update will probably be me showing you the recent work thats been happening with the civic, now that you guys know where the areas of concern are. I cant wait to get it all sorted so that i can get it back on the road for next years summer! We are hoping that it will be there for FOTU 2024

[jonny69]

Jesus H, wasn’t expecting the sills to be that crusty! Love the shot you took down the inside of the sill. 

[Roverjoe]

1 hour ago, jonny69 said:

Jesus H, wasn’t expecting the sills to be that crusty! Love the shot you took down the inside of the sill. 

Yeah its pretty bad, surprised how bad it was to be fair although the sill covers didnt help i dont think. i will be replacing the entire sill on that side i was very lucky to find a brand new side panel so that will be used for the upper bit and i will be welding the lower sill using the panel i fabricated myself

[Soundwave]

Really love that you're doing this, and your reasons for it. Sometimes, you've just got to throw economic sense out of the window and do what feels right!

[Roverjoe]

1 minute ago, Soundwave said:

Really love that you're doing this, and your reasons for it. Sometimes, you've just got to throw economic sense out of the window and do what feels right!

Exactly, its too sentimental to get rid and it will be so worth it to see it back on the road again all in one solid piece!

[Roverjoe]

So I thought i would share some of the panels that i have managed to source over the past year or so, For starters thankfully a lot of Rover 400 and 45 stuff is identical as the bodyshell is the same. i managed to find an entire side panel to use for the replacement of the arch and sill it seems that the rust on the arch has blown the seam all the way up to the rear light so an entire side is very handy as it has everything i need. Bear in mind i will not be chopping out the whole side, just the bits that need doing haha. 

 

 

Next up is these two Rear inner wheel arch sections that meet up to the sill. i was very very lucky to find these as they are pretty much non existent now. 

 

I Then Bought a Cutout to help me build up the passenger side sill at the back, I only wanted the top section as mine was rotten through. so i cut it out and went to get it acid dipped to remove any rust from the panel which thankfully it had very minimal amounts of rust. I also managed to get a boot floor cut out as the boot floor on mine the area where the spare wheel screws into was non existent. 

 

And Finally i could not find the lower sills as NOS panels anywhere so i decided to get some 1.5mm Sheet steel and fabricate them myself using the cutout i have this made it much easier to get the right shape. I did a welding course at college in summer and the bloke who ran the course very kindly let me borrow the huge folding machine they had so i was capable of making a sill which was close to original as possible. The Sill on this car and the HH-R Rovers they are in three sections. The Front where the jacking point and outrigger is, The middle section and finally the rear where the suspension mounting areas are. I made the rear pieces and one middle section. i will have to come back to making the jacking points some other time as they will require more measuring to get right. 

 

More Progress Soon!

[JMotor]

Nice to see an MB6 getting restored. Great work so far 👍. Do like a good resto thread.

Just a shame so many were killed for their B18's. But they were rot prone and could be had dirt cheap at one point.

I had a VTi-S MB6 a long time ago. Bloody rapid thing. Sold it due to rot creeping in unfortunately.

[Roverjoe]

1 hour ago, JMotor said:

Nice to see an MB6 getting restored. Great work so far 👍. Do like a good resto thread.

Just a shame so many were killed for their B18's. But they were rot prone and could be had dirt cheap at one point.

I had a VTi-S MB6 a long time ago. Bloody rapid thing. Sold it due to rot creeping in unfortunately.

Yeah they are honestly horrendous for rust, some are good but some are bad theres no in between. However i dont think the Hondas suffered as much as the 400/45 and ZS as they were more protected with underseal but when they go, they really do  go especially the Project Drive cars that had virtually no underseal on them at all

 

Theres a video on youtube that explains why they rot here its pretty interesting to see, and this example looked pretty bad! 

 

[Roverjoe]

 

 

When i was prepping the Near side for welding back in summer, i had to scrape off this underseal stuff that was put on, i suspect from when it was new. It was the black sticky stuff that thankfully was easy to scrape off and rub down with thinners to remove the residue. At first i thought that the back side of these sills are going to be rotten under it but i was pleasantly surprised to see that this underseal did the job very well especially when the car has been sat on grass for over a decade! 

Upon further investigation i spotted more of this gloopy substance on the front, i scraped it off on the outriggers where these cars rot like theres no tomorrow, the existing rust stopped at where this underseal was sprayed so whoever put this on im very thankful lmao. 

This meant that there was less work than what i was originally anticipating, there is some small blemishes on the back sill however those can be cleaned up to bright metal pretty easily. 

 

All i need to do now is remove the rest of it. 

 

Having nearly welded the Nearside sill i will have to get some photos uploaded of the recent work. its not pretty as its my first ever go at welding and  bodywork however so far i think its going well

[JMotor]

Do remember patching that area on my Mothers' facelift 45. 

For that very reason, lack of underseal or what was there had peeled off.

As for the welding, so long the weld has actually stuck it'll be fine. Amazing how welded areas look after the seam sealer and gravitex is sploshed around. Given the thread a follow, as I'd like to see how this one turns out.

[Roverjoe]

yes i was a bit concerned with some of the plug welds so i had to redo them with a bigger hole, i used a 5mm punch but it did not seem big enough to get the heat in to allow for the metal to fuse together. useful tool though , its a Clarke Hole Punch and Flange tool which is attached onto an airline. ill get the photos of the work uploaded tonight 

[JMotor]

Same tool as I have. 

Found myself going around the holes again with a bigger bit. Still it's a handy thing to have.

[Roverjoe]

So first things first with the resto, i needed to replace the boot floor section as it was pretty rotten what turned out to be a smaller area turned out to be much larger in the end, the grommet holes after grinding down had weakened quite a lot so i just decided to replace the whole lot the panel i put in was loads better. the central piece which the spare wheel screws into was that rotten it just snapped off in my hand, (cool souvenir i guess)

 

But yes, here is the state of the boot floor, before the welding. As said, the areas i grinded were too thin to weld to by the time i got to fresh clean metal so it just made sense to use more of the donor panel.

here is a test fitment with the panel, not cut to size yet but wanted to make sure that all of it was lining up well.  for those wondering this panel was taken from an R8 as they share the same rear floor panels.

Here is the panel i cut out i was glad i cut out more than anticipated as the rust had crept under the underseal. In order for me to do this properly i wanted to but weld the new panel in, which resulted in a lot of hours spent testing fitments and making sure i dont trim too much of the material.

 

Heres some of the welding i did, not too bad for a first attempt, a bit bird crappy in some places but thats to be expected from a novice. Although the majority of it, i was really happy with and the main thing was penetration was plenty and the fitment was spot on. 

Here it is all painted and seam sealed, I am probably thinking of coming back to this actually and removing the seam sealer and grinding the welds down now, as ive been looking at finger sanders, using a standard grinder i could not get into the ribs of the panel. I also had to do a slight repair to the area in the middle as there was a few pinholes which needed to be addressed. 

 

Those are the welds on the underside, so plenty of penetration. 

Its far from perfect but for a first attempt at a body repair im pretty pleased and i can always go back to it if i want to tidy it up  i think the most awkward part was doing some upside down plug welds to fit the tow eye mount back on to the new panel. but managed to get it all on in the end and gave it a test to see if it was strong by jacking it up there and it was all solid and fine so im pleased

[Roverjoe]

So the next job was to tackle the Passenger sill since this was the easier side. Here is what it looked like before:

Now it wasnt too bad on the outside, however inside was a different story, the rust had progressed to a stage were there was quite a lot of heavy pitting. especially around the reinforcing panel which was connecting the lower sill to the back section of  the sill, seems like water must have got under the panel. There was also heavily pitted areas where the inner arch is spot welded to the back of the sill too where the trailing arm bush bolts to something which needs to be solid. thankfully the rust on the back arch did not spread too high, seems like the sills were treated with some sort of cavity wax which is nice to see. 

For starters i removed the top sill to gain more access to inside to see what i was working with. 

Here is the Panel that i made from sheet metal using 1.5mm borrowed the big industrial metal folder at the college course to create them, was pretty chuffed with the result. 

I chopped out the bottom section as it was rotten, also cleaned up the surface where the reinforcing piece was, it came up quite nicely thankfully. 

I cut out out the bit that was rotten near the bush mount. cleaned up the surface behind it and made sure that it was weld through primed. theres a nice access hole inside of the car where i can inject some cavity wax to prolong the repair. 

A new piece was made and ready to be welded in. 

 

The next job was to create a small piece of sill section to be welded to the middle sill section. this was where the rear sill panel was spotwelded to. rather than messing around removing them to find rust trapped between the two panels i thought it would be best just to get rid and put new in. 

I also fabricated a new reinforcing piece to go in using the same 1.5mm steel. 

 

I also eventually thought to remove the jacking point as i just knew that there would be rust trapped behind it, so i thought i may as well just remove it make a new jacking point and clean up the area behind. 

Here is the new jacking point piece i made, used 1.5mm again, still needing to create the fold at the bottom which resulted in me cutting some slots in the panel hammering it 90 degrees then welding up the cuts i did to make it exact to how the original was made. 

So in the end here is the welding sorted with the end piece and also the lower section. 

Here is the backside of the sill. 

 

and here is what the sill looks like from the front and below. I made sure that it looked original by following the factory methods, as shown from by the other side:

 

Here is the Reinforcer and Inner arch all welded in too, Terrible welding on my behalf which i do apologise to the professionals lol, the metal on the NOS panel was very very thin and i struggled to not burn holes in it so it looks terrible, but it is strong so i reckon once i get the finger sander in there that should hopefully be all flat once sanded down. 

 

Next up was to create the piece of metal that joins the arch to the sill as shown on this reference photo:

 

 

So i managed to get that sorted even did two tacks in place on where they would be on the original panel, do note that the panel is fully seamed from the inside. 

and Finally the Jacking point. I was pleased with half of the plug welds, although the other 3 did penetrate they weren't as good as the first 3 that i did but are still properly fused as you can see

Overall though i am happy so far with the work ive done, and for a beginner who has never done this before i have really enjoyed the progress. For those wondering about the jacking point, i lowered the car and tested it out and it does in fact support the weight of the vehicle. 

 

All i need to do now is fit the top piece, may be doing that tomorrow.

[AnnoyingPentium]

Cracking work here. 👍

[Roverjoe]

1 minute ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Cracking work here. 👍

Thank you!

[stuboy]

bloody good work!!!

[JMotor]

I'd say that's pretty good for first goes at welding.

Also impressed with the metal fab. Keep it up, your doing great 👍.

[juular]

What an effort. This looks amazing.

[RoverFolkUs]

Nothing short of incredible work, especially the fabrication side of it. 

I love this Civic/400/45 platform and as you say, it's especially rare with the 1.8 lump in it. Well worth saving. 

I've seen 'professional' jobs done far, far worse than that

If you want to come and do my sills, the kettle is on, because I can't be bothered 🤣

[juular]

13 hours ago, JMotor said:

I'd say that's pretty good for first goes at welding.

It's damn good full stop! Especially the fabrication. I'd be welding one bit of metal in and hammering it till it fits, bit this is on a different level entirely.

[chodweaver]

Totally agree with the above comments - your fabrication and welding are both excellent and streets ahead of what many charge lots of cash for. And worlds away from mine. This Honda's future is looking very bright!

Big fan of these cars - had a rare spec 1.6i SE on a W plate - cooking lager by comparison with the 1.8, but it was a nice drive and a nice place to eat up many miles.

Keep up this brilliant work, and the thread!

[High Jetter]

As above, I love a good resto thread and this looks to be a very high standard of workmanship. Well done!

[Roverjoe]

Wow! i did not expect to get such a response from so many people, Theres so many of you! Thank you ever so much it means a lot. Hopefully the Civic will be ready in time for next years FOTU so if you wanna come over to see the car feel free!

In other News i was browsing the Ebay as you do, and came across 2 sets of playing cards from the original dealership that the car came from back in 1998. Baden Powell of Scunthorpe. A nice little parcel shelf decoration for the shows i think!

[LoftyvRS]

Kudos to you for getting stuck into this. As said before the sentimental value of a car often outweighs any commercial sense so go for it!

I think you're being harsh on your welding skills, they look pretty good to me, and the fabricated panels are an absolute credit to you.

Your Grandad would be proud. 

[Roverjoe]

1 hour ago, LoftyvRS said:

Kudos to you for getting stuck into this. As said before the sentimental value of a car often outweighs any commercial sense so go for it!

I think you're being harsh on your welding skills, they look pretty good to me, and the fabricated panels are an absolute credit to you.

Your Grandad would be proud. 

Thank you for the Kind Words I appreciate that 

[Mally]

You are @SiC AICMFP

[Tepper]

As the others have said, that's lovely work - I'd be more than happy with that. Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

[Roverjoe]

Hello guys another update to the civic, ive finally managed to get the outer piece welded on. It was a bit of a hassle however. Every other repair panel ive made seemed fine to weld to however the genuine body panels are just terrible to weld to and i have no idea why, so there was plenty of crappy plug welds and blown holes. 

I spent a few hours making sure that everything was lining up right making sure that the 1mm gap was present. This side shown here welded up really well however once i started work on the other join, the gap on that side had opened up leaving me with a gap of about 5mm to weld up which i really was not happy about. But i managed to somehow get it welded up thankfully. shown below, by the time i had got this done it was getting dark so i had to do the rest today.

 

 

Here is the join which i grinded down, this was probably the best side and for a first attempt im pretty chuffed, theres still some more work to be done regards to grinding but thanks to the clocks going back and the nights rolling in i have less time in the day to do so. Its by no means perfect, i still need to build up them plug welds as the metal just blew through at the slightest bit of welding. 

 

After a bit of primer it didnt look too bad. however it will need some more tidy up work doing to it tomorrow...

 

That was the good side, now for the side which was worst thanks to that 5mm gap that i had to fill.

 

Its not brilliant but the main thing is, is that the panel gap lines up right with the door, There are some pin holes that need to be filled and theres a section of metal which has just got a bit too thin from grinding so i will have to build that back up and grind it back into shape. Ideally i want to use as little filler as possible. 

 

Fingers crossed i can get this all neatened up tomorrow so that it looks like it hasn't been done.