btjtaylor

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.

Managed to spend a good day on the car for the first time in a while Fitted a Leoch XR600 lightweight AGM battery in a custom made battery holder from Alloy Race Fabrications. Drilled into the factory battery tray and used some rivnuts to bolt it down. I will probably end up relocating the battery eventually but the stock battery was completely knackered so it made sense to upgrade to a lightweight one. Also fitted a twist-style battery isolator to prevent the battery from running down when the car isnt being driven Took off the entire front suspension to start refreshing everything with new upgraded parts Fitted hardrace compliance bushes and lower control arms Installed roll centre correction lower ball joints

Ended up with a spare pair of headlights so thought I would have a go at making some EK9-style ones (like this) Melted the glue and opened the lights (10 mins in the oven at 120c) Removed the chrome surround and the orange lenses for the indicators Scuffed up the chrome with a scotchbrite pad to key it for paint Gave it a few coats of high temp graphite paint Went to put the lights back together and found the amber bulbs I bought don't fit. Apparently this is a common issue as they're "keyed" differently to the white ones, so I filed off one of the pins which actually seems to work... Quick sand and polish and here's the finished result! I will probably give it a more agressive sand and apply some clear coat at some point but happy for now, it looks 100x better than the stock ones imo

Yes, pirate's black is definitely the best colour - personally I wanted any colour but silver... but went and bought a silver one anyway. Part of me wishes I held out longer to find one in that colour but its very hard to find clean ones these days so I prioritised lack of rust over it. I saw an old thread on here with someone who painted theirs championship white, that would also be cool.. that or phoenix yellow!

Nice car, factory wind deflectors are always a good choice I spent far too much money getting some JDM ones for my accord !

Stripped the rear arms down (photo half way through the job, lots of swearing and removing of extremely rusty bolts later). One of the attachment points for the handbrake cable totally stripped so I had to drill it out and use a helicoil on it, which wasn't a brilliant idea as the insert was deeper than the hole and I had to cut the helicoil down to size with a pair of snips, hopefully it'll be ok, i'm sure I've done worse in the past... 🤪 Scrap metal anyone? Wire brushed as much of the loose rust as I could and gave them a few coats of Hammerite "direct to metal" paint, looking much better. In an ideal world the hubs could do with coming off and the whole arm being sandblasted but it's good enough for underneath the car i'm sure Next job is to press out the bushes once I have access to a press Cleaned up the brake callipers and brackets (which under the terrible paint job seemed almost brand new!) and gave them a coat of Jenolite silver brake calliper paint which came out really well

Managed to pick up a few more MG ZS 180 bits off a car being broken - A set of disc rear trailing arms, complete with calipers (almost look new although with an unfortunate colour paint job..) There is a lot of general grot and surface rust but they should clean up well enough. The rear caliper brackets are an abolsute nightmare to find so this is a good result. It also avoids having to change my wheels/front hubs as with the MG parts I can stay with 4x100 which is a lot easier/cheaper. - Steering rack. The MB2 came with a very slow rack so this will be a nice upgrade (it might even be too fast, but we'll see) The rear arm bushes are totally gone but I have a set of Hardrace ones to replace them with along with other arms etc so hopefully none of the 20+ year old rubber should get reused. I still need to pick up a few bits like an MB6 brake master cylinder/booster and a proportioning valve but I will tackle that later, trying to get all the suspension overhaul completed for now.

Fitted a Hybrid Racing shifter and gear knob over the weekend alongside some new shifter cables. The shifter feels amazing, very direct and the shift has gone from a sensation of bushes resisting the shift to feeling more like it's connected directly to the gearbox. Also looks much better in the cabin that the plastic box of the DC5 shifter that was in before. The shifter cables were a bit .. interesting. They are a cheap Chinese clone of K-tuned race cables. I eventually got them fitted but one of the connections to the shifter box had been drilled incorrectly/unfinished so it did not fit over the lug on the shifter. Luckily an 8mm drill bit fixed the issue ... you get what you pay for! Normally I would not buy knock off products but the price for the real deal K-tuned cables is absolutely insane (over £500) which I just don't have the budget for. I did look at buying Hybrid Racing cables which are a little bit more affordable but HR told me that the length is shorter than OEM (which were already a fairly tight fit) so they would not be suitable. I think this is down to the longer wheelbase of the MB platform meaning the shifter gets mounted further from the engine than a shorter wheelbase care like the Civic EG (or similar) that their cables would've been originally designed for. Currently also trying to sort an issue with a whine coming from the power steering. It sounds like there's air in the system but I have made sure it's bled with a vacuum bleeder and all the usual methods and there's no air bubbles in the reservoir which makes me think it must be something else. Weirdly, the steering actually feels OK, but the car almost sounds like it has a supercharger. I did replace an O-Ring in the power steering pump feed which I found a few references to online as it can get old and brittle and pass air but this did not help. I read that misaligned belts can cause this issue and my aux belt tensioner is slightly outside of the range indicated on it so I will try a slightly shorter belt and see if that helps. If not, the only other options seem to be that either the hose feeding the pump is too long (I mounted the reservoir on the passenger side where there is more space and the pump is on the drivers side), or the pump is broken. One is a load of hassle rerouting everything and the other is another expense so neither option seems particularly appealing. Hopefully the belt cures it (although I suspect not).

Hadn't had much time to work on the Civic recently as I would've liked but i've been busy in the background collecting all the parts needed to finish this (the car now looks like a rolling parts department) A few bits still to arrive but very exciting times ahead..

I looked into this for my car but the short answer is you can't find anything new any more. I was tempted to buy some from another car with similar size discs and modify to fit but I haven't tried it yet The MG Rover part numbers are SMD000080 (RH) and SMD000090 (LH) - there are some on ebay but the prices can be a bit silly If yours are not totally rotted away you are probably best off removing, soaking in some evaporust, good wire brush session and then painting them yourself. I fear that due to the age of the cars they might be too far gone though (the ones on my 2010 accord are too far gone for that and that's 10 years newer!) Cars that i've found being listed as cross compatible if it helps your search: Rover 200/ 25 / MG ZR Rover 400 / 45 / MG ZS Integra DC2 CRX Del Sol EG/EK Civic Many of these cars came with rear drums which might be part of the problem. It seems like it's a lot easier to get front ones, for now at least.

Nice - I have seen those blackline LSDs and was dubious due to the low price but i'm glad that it seems to be working out for you. Quaife is about double the price ~£400 vs ~ £800.

I don't have it to hand but I will check the car next time I am with it and let you know (it's not parked at my house unfortunately) - probably at the weekend If it helps there are some results for the rover part number (RGD10001) on autodoc RGD10-001 A.B.S., ASHIKA | RGD10001 in AUTODOC

I noticed the same thing but honestly I am not sure of the positives/negatives of each type - I think the style you show in your photo will also work fine, it's just a different design. It seems like Rover prefer the flat piece of metal and Honda use the rod type. Personally I would go with the Rover style as its guaranteed to fit but I think either will probably work OK.

Beautiful car! LSD and eventually a turbo and is on my list of "eventually" plans for Phase 2 of my car (I best actually drive it in "Phase 1" first though...) Which LSD did you go for? I'm thinking a Quaife ATB might be the way to go (so my friend tells me anyway) but im undecided at the moment

Welcome, and nice work so far :) For the anti roll bar - I fitted a Rover 20mm (from an MG ZS 180) unit and used the following parts, if it helps (I keep meaning to make a post about this as I struggled to find the info when I was sorting mine out). I imagine most of the parts are similar to the 16mm, according to the internet the drop links are the same, only the bushes changed to accommodate the thinner bar. 1x MGZS Anti-Roll Bar (#1 in diagram) 20mm thickness. Not available new any more. 2x MGZS Anti-Roll Bar Mounting L Brackets (#6 in diagram) Should come with the ARB above. As above, no longer available new 8x M8x16 Bolts (#12 in diagram) Part number FS108161 4x for mounting the arm L bracket to the car 4x for bushing holder clamp https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/fs108161-bolt-flanged-m8-x-16mm-multiple-applications-all-models?_pos=1&_sid=8a59d95b9&_ss=r 2x Bolts + washers for drop links to car (#9 in diagram) Part number RYG10035 + WC110061 https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/bolt-flanged-head-anti-roll-bar-link-to-lower-arm-rover-200-400r8-400-45-zs-ryg10035?_pos=1&_sid=55e521b1c&_ss=r 2x Bolts + washers for drop links to ARB (#11 in diagram) Rover part number RYG10034 Honda part number 90162-SK3-000 BOLT, RR. STABILIZER LINK (M10X50) https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-RYG10034 2x ARB Drop links (#7 in diagram) Part number RGD10001 https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/rover-400-45-mg-zs-rear-anti-roll-bar-link-bush-kit-rgd10001 2x ARB bush bracket (#4 in diagram) Part number EGP1714 https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/mgf-tf-rover-45-mg-zs-rear-anti-roll-bar-bush-bracket-egp1714-genuine-mg?variant=43335747174563 2x Rear Anti Roll Bar Bracket Bush 20mm (#2 in diagram) Powerflex PFR42-515-20 Superflex 0266/20K Rover Part number RGX10017 https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/mg-zs-rear-anti-roll-bar-bushes-rgx10017-superflex-pair?_pos=3&_sid=9ed9f4d9a&_ss=r 1x Powerflex Rear Anti Roll Bar Link Bush Kit (#3 and #8 in diagram) PFR25-111 Part Number RGX10003 https://www.tegiwa.com/products/powerflex-road-series-rear-anti-roll-bar-link-kit-honda-civic-ej-ek-ballade-95-05 2x ARB end metal bush collar (not included with Powerflex kit - #5 in diagram) Part number RGX10004 https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/rover-200-400-600-45-zs-rear-trailing-arm-anti-roll-bar-collar-rgx10004?variant=44419224240291