Jarrett : 1993 Accord EX (2)

[Jarrett]

When reassembling my JDM 1-piece headlights this week I accidentally let superglue drip onto the inside face of both lenses. It happened while reinstalling the trimmed headlight shroud back onto the lens. I tried to clean it off with acetone somewhat successfully, but there was still glue reside left. My only recourse is to polish the inside of the lenses. The fact that the glue is in the corners, along with the presence horizontal upraised lines, make this a bear of a task to get perfect. I'm off to go buy a 3M headlight restoration kit now to see if that gets me anywhere.

[STREET-SPEC]

When i polished the inside of my taillight before, and then cooked it,the inside keeps turning cloudy from the polish . Fyi.

I guess u can get the polish off tho after u fix it.

[c91bse7]

Your gonna want to get some kind of uv coating to put back on the lense, if you don't it'll just turn yellow after a while

http://www.autogeek.net/optimum-opti...t-coating.html
Something like this would probably work

[Jarrett]

Well, I kept promising to make progress on the car once I was finally able to take vacation. This past week I had a few meetings with the City of Houston office of Public Works and Engineering to get all of my outstanding punchlist items signed off. My portion of the construction project is now complete and I've taken a week off to come home to Bryan to work on the car. So, here's what I've been holding on to for the past couple of months to years, depending on the parts.



#1 Tein Super Street coilovers w/ pillow ball mounts
#2 SPC rear upper camber arm
#3 CD5 rear crossmember
#4 Progress 22mm rear sway bar
#5 Function & Form rear lower control arms
#6 Custom aluminum & chromoly rear toe arms
#7 CD5 rear disc knuckles
#8 BB6 rear hub/bearings
#9 Ultra Rotor CG2 slotted rotors
#10 BB6 rear axle nuts
#11 CB7 front upper control arm anchor bushing (for lower shock mount)
#12 Power Stop ceramic rear pads
#13 Goodridge stainless braided rear brake lines
#14 CD5 EX 27.2mm front sway bar
#15 Prothane 27.2mm sway bar bushings
#16 Prothane front sway bar end links
#17 Moog '04-'08 TL outer tie rod ends
#18 CB7 shock forks
#19 CB7 modified lower arms (reamed ball joint hole and Energy Suspension bushings)
#20 Moog '04-'08 TL front lower ball joints
#21 '04-'08 TL Sport/Type-S front knuckles
#22 Ingall's UCA anchor camber kit
#23 Timken '04-'08 TL front wheel bearings
#24 '04-'08 TL front brake dust shield
#25 '04-'08 TL Sport/Type-S front caliper hard lines
#26 Goodridge '04-'08 TL stainless front brake lines
#27 Ultra Rotor '04-'08 TL Sport/Type-S slotted front rotors
#28 Brembo '04-'08 TL Sport/Type-S front 4-piston calipers
#29 Power Stop ceramic front pads
#30 generic front traction bar
#31 Custom aluminum & chromoly caster arms
#32 Custom aluminum & chromoly torque mount
#33 Blox aluminum lug nuts

[c91bse7]

The TL knuckle works on the cb? Any other mods needed besides the tie rods and lower ball joint?

[Jarrett]

The axle splines match perfectly, but I have yet to determine if the length will still be correct. I'll figure that out once I get it installed. I haven't seen this done before, so I'm having to figure it all out as I go. So far, everything has been pretty straightforward.

The knuckle is the same general shape as ours, so it becomes a matter or verifying that it matches up with the four mounting points.

The upper ball joint matched, so that was taken care of.

The outer tie rod hole was too large so then I decided to see if the TL outer tie rod (which shouldn't have too many problems fitting to the TL knuckle) would thread onto the CB inner tie rod. It did perfectly. Two down, two to go.

The lower ball joint tripped me up for a while. The ball joint shank was pressed into a sleeve that sits in a larger hole in the control arm. When I removed the joint this sleeve was stuck to the ball joint and looked as if it were all one piece. If you've ever seen aluminum Subaru lower control arms, you know what I'm talking about. I began to wonder how I was going to ream a hole out that was nearly twice the diameter of the CB ball joint shank. Then, I ordered a new ball joint and saw that it was not there. I figured it out and proceeded from there. The TL ball joint shank had the same pitch as the Prelude ball joint so I found a machine shop with the correct reamer and had them modify the lower control arms. The ball joints fit perfectly, so that was taken care of.

For reasons unknown to me, I choose the least practical ways to sequence things. I waited until I had paid $75 to have the lower control arms modified, $80 on new Moog ball joints and $90 on Moog tie rod ends before I felt it worth my time to test the axle in the TL hub. Because God felt sorry for the wit he failed to bestow upon me, it fit perfectly.

In addition to the Brembo calipers and 12.2" discs, this upgrade affords me the benefit of all standard parts. I didn't want any adapter brackets or custom axle races in order to get them on. I also gain a larger and much stronger lower ball joint, outer tie rod joint and wheel bearing. This will add to driveline and steering durability for years to come. I'm very anxious to get this thing finished up and driving!

[c91bse7]

Hmm good info to know, I'm almost positive those calipers will bolt to the cb knuckle but from my research finding a rotor with the correct spacing makes it difficult. I never did get my hands on a set of calipers to try it out. Your way seems a bit more practical though as you know it'll all work together and you get new better designed components!

[Jarrett]

Right! Assuming I did just bolt them to the factory (insert compatible 5-lug knuckles here) knuckles I would have to drill the mounting holes out, first. The bolts that hole the floating bracket onto our cars is 12mm bolt with a 17mm head. The ones that hold the Brembo calipers on are 14mm with a 19mm head. Drill them out to 14mm and it would done. Most of the radial spacing that's achieved to allow a 12.2" rotor to fit is in the body of the caliper itself, so you'd be able to fit a 12" rotor in place. But, like you mentioned, you would need a custom hat height. That's where the expense comes in. the cheapest pair of custom rotors I could find were nearly $650! Add that to the cost of $300 Brembo brakes as well as $100 for the hard and soft lines and you're at $1050 with the risk of not being able to get a set of rotors the next go around. Not to mention that's a wear item!

My method certainly wasn't cheap, either. But, as I said, it has the luxury of using all OEM or shelf parts.

The stupid rain is set to ruin my plans today. The car is sitting with the rear end jacked up and nothing underneath it. I went and purchased roll on bed liner last night and put the first coat on before going to bed. Once it clears up outside I'll go put another coat on. I also need to fix my heater core and install my OEM alarm this break. So while that's drying I'll be pulling the dash.

[oneoffaccord]

Wow this build looks very promising. I will have to stay tuned for the updates.

[Straight Success]

Damn, that's one serious pile o' nice parts. This thing is going to be another serious lady.

[Jarrett]

Picture vomit.

My girlfriend has a D5000 that we're learning how to use and we're having issues that we're not sure whether they are camera or Windows Picture Viewer related. All that to say that many pictures are currently missing so be satisfied with the random ones instead. By the way, if the pictures are awful and out of focus, those are mine.


Rear suspension out and off to the side. The Accord that's next to mine will be getting many of these parts. It had them from my previous coupe, then a friend needed a rear disc conversion, so it's been sitting on jack stands in the rear. This will get that car back on the road.




Simple Green in the wheel wells. I didn't get a picture of the first coat of bed liner, but I will once it's all done.




Also, I pulled the dash out to get to the heater core.

[excalibur02]

reemed out lower control arms for the knuckles. That's what I had to do way back in the day to fit my prelude knuckles.

I have a question tho. Would you be needing a different axle? I know you have TL Sport knuckles, when I did the front prelude knuckle 5 lug I had to use a different axle. Nope sure how it would work with the TL-S.

Would you also be changing the rear trailing arm bushing?

[Jarrett]

Axle length is still to be determined. Check out post #51 for the steps to ensuring fitment. That, as well as the resulting camber are the the only two things that are still up in the air at this point. I shouldn't have too much of an issue with camber as long as the axles are of sufficient length.

Supposing that I do run into problems that cannot be addressed this week, I can just put the Isuzu Oasis knuckles with 11.8" brakes on from my previous Accord. That will get my driveable.

[Jarrett]

More pictures for you. Some of these should illustrate how excited I am to be working in the rain.

I finished rolling bed liner into the rear wheel arches. I think it looks pretty good. Dirt should hose off of this a lot easier than the softer rubberized coating that's beneath this. And because it's a deep black, pictures of the installed parts will look much better. That is if I can figure out how to focus this camera.






I wasn't very excited about the rain getting on parts at all, but I rationalized it by saying they were all going to get wet anyway. Mating surfaces are getting wiped and dried before installation, though.






CD5 crossmember (30mm wider control arm placement), FF2 control arms, homemade chromoly toe arms, stainless lines, Tein SS coilovers and SPC camber arm.






It is still raining this morning, but as soon as it subsides a little I need to get out there to mark the holes on the crossmember to drill for the Progress mounting brackets. Then I'll torque down the axle nuts and install the brakes. I should have the front end well under way at some point today.

[Chrisnick]

Very nice! Quite interested to see how the front setup turns out.