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Got the grille fitted to the car, that was the easy bit as the rest of the day turned into a bit of a nightmare! Could probably do with painting the metal behind black (its not quite as obvious in real life) but other than that im happy with it for a DIY job We then tried to swap in the MG ZS 180 steering rack that I bought... what a pig of a job Once we've eventually wrestled it into place after removing engine mount and subframe bolts, we found it didnt fit because these pipes are shaped differently, meaning it fouls on the engine mount bracket (the factory MB one so I can't even blame this on it being a k swap!) MB pipe: So I had to remove the rack from the car again and then remove the pipes from the MB rack and swap them to the ZS one. I've never seen that mentioned before but it's worth knowing if you are attempting this... Didn't get as much done as i'd like but onwards and upwards

Fingers crossed you've got it sorted. 👌

20 years that's some going & must also be some dedication Simon, I've seled the other top areas around the rear of the weather strips right at the back quarter below the roof rails, it p**sed it down today & the area that was getting all the water on the drivers side is dry as a bone, I did however still find maybe 10 to 20ml of water in the wheel well that had drained down from the side to side seal there, the one under the boot catch & inside the well, I'm hoping that it's just residual water from the previous day slowly making it's way out, but I plan to get the hose on it again to check it, but may not have to after looking at the weather report, seems p**sing it down again for a few hours tomorrow, so one way or another I'll find out if there's still a small leak, if there is I am now clutching at straws on where the heck it could be getting in, but I really want to eliminate every single leak no matter how small, fingers crossed but it's not the easiest of areas to check with no exterior seal there or any obvious areas above now where it could be getting in. if it is still leanking a tiny bit I have a hunch it's inside the tail light where the panels join, but I have looked at them very closely & although they look a bit ropey on the photo, I can't see as much as a 1mm gap anywhere, but will be getting a little tiger seals on them just in case.

Nightmare these leaks Simon, great to hear you've still got the VTI, wish I still had mine, I sold it as figured I'd pick another up, but ever since I sold her the prices have been rising fast. I have been back a it this morning, I think I may have nailed down the leak, I'm going to try & get a "how to lock down those water leaks" guide done if it works, as I've about got a handle on pretty much every possible place it can get in & was doing, I'll patch this area up first & have the hose pipe back on it to be sure before I do though, figure it may help others out in future & maybe keep a few more of these from getting scrapped. if this fixes it, the other decks getting the same treatment as that one also leaks into the spare wheel well, though luckily not a tenth as bad as this one, mad as she's got 100k more on the clock & is a little older to.

I should have updated this a little Simon, but with no traffic at all I've been asking on some of the FB groups, you are spot on though as I had all the roof rails & weather strips off the roof & found an area rigth at the back of one on the drivers side where the seal had given way, this has been dealt with & it's reduced the leak from a torrent to a trickle, but there's still water getting in, I suspect from the top panel join behind the tail lights, I did seal up the bottom joint with tiger seal, but soon as the weather lets up I want to do the top ones as I suspect they are my culprit, I suspect it's getting in there & trickling down to the inside near where the rear sunroof drain exit pipes are located, well a little further back directly behind the lights. But I'm also getting it coming through very slowly in the spare wheel well at either end of the top panel joint/seal, someones already been quite happy with mastic sealing it all up from the inside already (before I get her) but that's not solving the problem just delaying it, I want to tackle the cause not the symtom & get her water tight the right way as water inside the panels you can't see will as we know not end well. I really hope it's just as said water coming in from the tail light top joint & making it's way down to this join in the panels in the well, god knows I've plugged enough leaks now, at least I'm moving in the right direction, I'm not doing any other jobs on this one till I get her 100% water tight as would be throwing good money after bad.

Great to see you are still on here Simon, it's been a while for me so I'm as guilty as the rest for not posting, but it sure is quiet, was really hoping to get some advice on my bloody water leak issues, I''ve been trolling the forum threads trying to find answers, seems I bought myself a Sievic, it's in good nick but OMG is she peppered with small leaks all over the shop, slowly getting though plugging them all. you've always been a huge help when I've posted previously, you still running the 1.8? I miss mine.

Coming together mate. Glad those bolts worked out.. I'll store that one in the memory banks

It's been a while since I did it, but I think I just used some plastic trim pry tools to ease them off.. As always warm weather is your friend when old plastic clips are involved....

That's more like it - 34mm piston calipers did the trick

I think I must have got real lucky on at least 1 aspect with the car I just picked up as it has a set of these on, good thing as there's anough not so great points, but her it's 26 years old now, so you have to take the rough with the smooth, I was hoping to pick another set up for my other deck, but seems they are near impossible to find. That headlight conversion looks the mutts BTW, very classy

Suspension all refreshed now Hardrace front ARB bracket bushes (21mm for anyone wondering - it was quite hard to figure out the size without measuring it in person!) and hardrace front compliance bushes Mostly new bolts … a few still on order (if you look really careful there's a subframe bolt missing) 🤪 Hardrace ARB droplinks (to fit a civic EG - the ones to fit an MB6/DC2 are a different shape)

Rover bolts came in clutch so the part numbers above are correct for anyone who's curious. Some of them were in MG Rover branded bags which was a blast from the past, they must've been 20+ years old! Removed the engine oil sump and fitted the 4PistonRacing baffle plates, really nicely designed piece. Much easier than weld-in baffles. Realised a massive fail with the rear brakes. The rear arms I bought were off a ZS 180, and came with 260mm discs installed. I purchased new discs and pads, and I could not for the life of me get the discs and pads to fit. I tried EVERYTHING, figuring I was doing something wrong. I then got my father in law to try and he couldnt get them in either. In the end, I looked up the part numbers on the rear calipers and found out they are for a ZS 120 which has 240mm rear discs and thinner pads.. so that explains it. The previous owner had obivous bought the wrong calipers, but managed to force the disc and pads to work .. somehow. I think they had removed a bunch of material from the pads .. the mind boggles. New set of ZS 180 rear calipers on order... an unexpected expense I didnt need but at least i've got to the bottom of the mystery (apparently the 30 in the part number means 30mm piston. Correct ones have 34mm pistons).

I have had the 1.8 / 1.4 / 1.5 & now just got a 1.6, I always just have a straight pipe fitted from the cat back myself, will make it a little more noisy (in a good way IMO) & will not impact the performance, all comes down to preference, they are only designed to quiet them down, 1st thing I usually do when I get a new one is get a full stainless custom pipe put on, it's more expensive than putting a standard one on, but you only have to do it once. As for the difference, that sadly I am not able to help you with, but I can't see there being a huge difference, as said it's only there to tame the noise down.

Good shout I had a quick look and it seems to be the same issue as the EK ones After doing a bit of reading, it looks like the MB rear bolts are based on European standards. The JDM cars are based on JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard). I knew something wasn't quite right because the rear bolts are 13mm / 15mm heads and normally on Japanese (at least JDM model) cars its 12/14. I've managed to order all of the rear bolts using the MG Rover part numbers instead. There are a few front suspension bolts that remain illusive, I may have to either try and clean up the originals or order generic bolts. I made a spreadsheet to try to figure this out (my starting point was based on the bush diagram from the powerflex website). Once I finally get them all replaced i'll post up a list somewhere, it might help someone else in the future.

That evaporust looks like pretty good stuff when I saw Edd China use it on youtube. Would eg bolts be a better match? The MB suspension stuff tends to be eg /dc2 related rather than ek.

Had a few days of time owed from work so spent a couple of days on the MB. Made good progress refitting all off the front suspension and then fitting the rear disc arms. The only snag is annoyingly I had to put a load of rusty old bolts back into my nice clean arms as I managed to order bolts for the rear of an EK civic not an MB. Turns out all of the MB bolts are no longer in production anyway so I'm going to take all the spares i've got and give them a soak in evaporust and see how they turn out ... next best thing I suppose. Calipers, brakes and feeding the handbrake cables up into the car to go but it all looks like it should fit Hopefully have the car on the road in the spring!

Yeah was a bit unexpected but got there in the end. The pipes were not the easiest to get off - after a bit of heat and loads of wd40 they did eventually shift but they're a little chewed up. I managed to get them on tight but if there are any leaks I fear I will have to remake them which won't be the easiest as there's quite a lot of tight bends. Potentially I could also use some kind of flexible PTFE pipe and AN fittings to make the routing a bit easier. Apparently on other hondas (eg/ek/etc) you can just swap the pinion shaft piece across rather than changing the entire rack as it seems like the racks are all the same it's just the teeth on the pinion that affects the ratio so I would probably try to get another MB2 rack (they're a lot cheaper!) and swap the pinion over from the ZS one rather than another attempt at removing the pipes.

The grille looks cool, nice one. Shame that there was the hassle with the steering rack though, at least there was a fix for it, but definitely good to mention it. At least you had the old pipes intact too do the swap

Made a custom EK9 style grille to go with the headlights Dismantled the grille, scuffed the chrome surround and rattle can painted it the same as the body (Titan Silver NH614M) Here's it drying, I didn't paint it on the dining table, i'd not be alive to tell the tale! Removed the inside of the grille with a dremel and then painstakingly cut some black mesh from ebay (as close to the EK9 mesh as I could see from photos) to size and sandwiched it in between the grille pieces Hopefully it fits on the car properly as I had to remove a lot of material... will find out tomorrow!

Looking at these photos again it felt like a shame to put rusty parts back on the car As I'd already installed the ball joints and I didn't really fancy pressing out the wheel bearings I masked up the arms and knuckles as best I could and gave them a few coats of the same Hammerite paint i've used on the rear arms Pretty happy with the results all things considered. It's not a full strip down and restoration of course but it looks a lot better and should protect it for the next few years.