WWD's very unmodified 01 4DR DX

[WrongWheelDrive]

Hi all, WrongWheelDrive here.

Engine/Performace:
Hah!

Suspension
Koni STRT's
185/65/14 General Altimax Artic on OEM 14x5.5 steelies in the winter
195/70/14 Doral SDL70's on another set of 14x5.5" steelies for the summer.
(worst.tires.ever.)

Interior/ICE:
Junky aftermarket head unit
Alpine Type S speakers

Cosmetic:
Scrapes, dents, dings, and scratches.


I'm no stranger to Hondas but I recently got myself into my first accord. Sixth gen of course!

I signed up for this board to learn a little more about the in's and outs of these cars, this place seems like a good community. I guess this is my intro post and "build" (more like maintain) thread all in one. I like to have a place where I keep track of everything I do. So lets get to the meat and potatoes.

The car is a four door, 01 Accord DX. 5 speed of course! Purchased with 177k on the ODO, 188k now and still just getting broken in. The car seemed clean and I needed a new daily after throwing a bearing in my civic. Now for some pictures, nothing exciting going on there, so I'll link to some pics of my other cars.

91 CRX DX, S/C'd K20 swap
90 Civic Sedan DX, D16 VTEC neverending project

 

[WrongWheelDrive]

Well, I guess I should start of explaining why I bought my sixth gen. I had been dailying my Z6 swapped ED sedan, which then spun a bearing at an autoX when I discovered my chipped ECU has no rev limiter. (8600 RPM on stock motor = bad!)

Decided it was time to grow up a bit and get something more modern, pedestrian, and reliable to daily. Enter my accord, affectionately nicknamed the "ABored" or the "Aboredtion". Picked up with 177k on the clock from some dude on craigslist. Massachusetts car it's whole life yet surprisingly clean, drove alright, and the price was right. I pulled the trigger.

Now, no 15 year old car is perfect. The problems I knew coming in: Drivers rear door does not open. Drivers front door did not always lock. Light for the clock on the dash was out. Shocks weren't the greatest.

Additional problems I new after driving it home:

The infamous EVAP problem. Good thing a full tank of gas and clearing the code makes it go away for a bit, allowing me to ignore the problem while passing an inspection

It didn't take me long after driving it home to start ordering stuff.
First was the light for the clock.

Second was some shocks. Koni had their "shock value" sale going on, it was hard to say no to a set of STRT's for a little over $250. Yellows were tempting, but no need for adjustable rebound on a daily.

When they arrived, I was a bit upset. lets just say the packaging job was less than adequate...

One of the bodies was dented, and all of them were dented, marred, and scratched. Unsatisfied, I called tire rack customer support. By the time I got off the phone, I already had a notification for a new set in the mail, complete with a shipping label to send the old ones back. Talk about customer service!

The pinch bolts in the front forks decided they wanted to remind me that this has always been a new england car and snapped at the heads.

Had to run to a junkyard and grab another set of shocks and forks to use as donors. Fortunately, those were more cooperative.

Anyways, shocks on.

I went ahead and put some synthetic oil in the motor and Pennzoil Synchromesh in the transmission. I love the synchomesh, It's cheap and I've yet to find a transmission that doesn't love this stuff! Adjusted the valves too since they were ticking.

Not long after I blew one of the crappy paper cone speakers out. I had some alpine type S's from my civic sitting around, I figured I'd swap those in. Not so fast! my type S's were spade connectors, and our 6th gens obviously use a honda plug. In addition, the bodies were too deep for the stock cups that sit in the door, and even if I cut out the back, the holes didn't line up anyways. So I improvised. I cut a piece of plexiglass to fit the speaker body, and drilled 2 sets of holes. One to mount to the door, and another to hold the speaker. I then wrapped the plexiglass in a piece of dynamat for insulation, and bolted it all in. I used some $2 adapter pigtails from ebay to make the spades work on the car without cutting the wiring up. Works great!

 

[WrongWheelDrive]

Then, winter came. Winter has never been kind to me or my cars.

First, I had the flex pipe blow out on me.

No biggie, I'll just order another one.
But wait... rummaging around in my glove box, I noticed a receipt for a flex pipe, dated just a few weeks before I bought the car. Hmmm, what do you think is the real culprit?

Clogged cat of course! Being cheap, I ordered a $60 Eastern "Eco 2" catalytic converter. part number 82724 for those curious. Not a bolt in affair, but a hell of a lot cheaper than one that is! On it goes along with a new flex pipe.

The flange that bolted to the cat was done for

So I used some spare exhuast tube and just welded it directly up to the end of the cat.

Whoo! All better, no codes. Not one week later, I get highsided on a snow bank and tore up the exhaust where it meets the resonator. Whoops! But nothing the handy welder can't fix.

A rear brake line had enough as well

Finally, all seemed well. time for my annual inspection in January.

Wait, nope. Fail. They spotted a small rust hole on the passenger side rocker, my rear bumper support was dying, and there was some rot on the subframe. Surprised I didn't catch any of this while under the car to redo the exhaust, I took a look for myself.

Ohh...

The infamous "AC vent drips on your rear crossmember and destroys it" failure. No wonder my car was a bit "hoppy" from a stop ( I thought it was a dying motor mount) and there was an odd clunk over single wheel bumps.

Yeah, rear bumper support was bad too...

By the time I got it off, this is all I had left

Old vs. new

So I ground the studs down, welded some bolts to the unibody, and bolted the new one on. Good as new!

The rocker rust was totally there too. It didn't look bad, at first. I was just going to do a small patch, but as I started cleaning it up to get to bare metal, I realized it was much bigger than I though, and water had been sitting in the rocker, slowly eating it away. So I cut out the affected area, and welded in some new material. This is what I ended up with.

.

Lastly, time to replace the rear crossmember. What a pain that is. Getting to some of those power steering lines was a nightmare.

Everything about this was a nightmare. 1mm turn, flip wrench. Repeat ad nauseam. Ended up just cutting the high pressure line to get a socket on it, wasn't coming out any other way.

Old crossmember out

New crossmember shipped up from Georgia

When all was done, I made sure to reroute the A/C vent, in hopes that it never happens again. Stuck a piece of hose on the vent, routed it through a conveniently sized hole in the crossmember, slashcut it and put a clamp on it so it wouldn't pull back through

Finally time to get inspected again, and I get another "fail". WTF! putting my exhaust back on I stressed the last original flange and formed a leak.

They wanted to charge me $150 to fix it. I told them I'd bring it back the next day with it fixed if they wouldn't charge me again for the inspection. I didn't have any flanges of the right size, so I used my "hot metal glue gun" to make my own gasket

Finally passing inspection, I got a big F U on the way home

Fortunately, it was patchable.

So far it's been a journey just getting this thing to be reliable. Next up is to fix the rear door that won't open that I've still neglected to fix, and then maybe I can focus on doing something a little more fun with the abored!

 

[RedRyder]

Wow, that's quite a journey. You are a good storyteller lol. Major props for doing all that work yourself, unfortunately things like welding are outside my skill set (I've been wanting to take a class). Anyway, hope the car will be pretty solid given these major fixes, and maybe you can start to have a little fun with it.

 

[Sil2DrV6]

Props to your awesome restorations. The car must be happier than ever since you became the owner. And I agree; This is a fun thread to go through. Keep up the good work.

 

[WrongWheelDrive]

Thanks guys. I've never had a shop touch any of my cars and I intend to keep it that way!

Got the airbags replaced last week under recall, and I found out my car had been to that dealership before, about 2 years ago while being owned by an auto auction company, who I assume bought it from the original owner. I had them print out a report of the last time it came in, and lo and behold it had a laundry list of problems back then too! Most of which I have corrected in my journey with this thing. Makes me angry that the guy I bought it from passed it on without disclosing so many known issues. Only one that I hadn't taken care of was the ball joints that were reported bad.

So I went ahead and replaced the lowers this weekend, what a pain to get the C clamp on the knuckle. At least you don't have to take the knuckle off the car! Ended up machining down the race of a ball bearing to make a pressing tool that "fit" the casting to get the new ones in. Really glad I did it before driving 1000 miles this coming weekend, the old ones were the originals with 188k, and they were in BAD shape, like ready to separate.

Also caught a torn boot on the drivers outer tie rod , and the ball joint wasn't that great either so I went ahead and replaced it.

After all that, the car was a lot less squeaky(ball joints) and the shake I was getting intermittently, which I assumed was my tire out of balance as I accidentally knocked some wheel weights off, went away (tie rod end). Car is running better than ever, so I rewarded it by ordering the parts for a CL-S rear sway bar

Next up is finding some wheels, I've got a particular set of old-school wheels that I am interested in

 

[Russianred]

Great work comrade, I see you are right next door in NH! Nice welding and fabrication.. I would love to learn. I have plenty of welders MIG/ARC and equipment but no gas, and always de-prioritize investing in it. I probably will soon..

 

[WrongWheelDrive]

Great work comrade, I see you are right next door in NH! Nice welding and fabrication.. I would love to learn. I have plenty of welders MIG/ARC and equipment but no gas, and always de-prioritize investing in it. I probably will soon..

No need for gas to learn! The MIG actually gets a lot of use with flux core as well as gas, flux makes dirty work(like rusty new england exhuasts) much easier. But it certainly is messier. Best way to start is take some scrap metal pieces and try to glue them together until you get the hang of it! Do it enough and eventually bigger jobs become possible

 

[Russianred]

I can see myself doing this very soon for my Ford F150 truck rocker panels, I just ordered them, and then will likely end up welding them. Might have to reach out to you for some tips!

 

[WrongWheelDrive]

Put the 20mm TL 6 speed bar on the back of the car.

Contrary to popular belief, I did not have to bend the exhaust hanger.

Mmmm, greatly reduced inside wheel spin while turning and increased body control. Car feels much less like a yacht, although it is still some sort of smaller boat!