'86 AR Civic Shuttle 4WD - 05/06 Jublilee Update

[BiAS]

About 2wks before RRG11 I got a phone call from theundertaker asking what a Civic Shuttle was and why he'd had a phone call off our old boss asking if he was still interested in it. I knew which one it was straight away, back in March 09, whilst working at a restoration place with theundertaker a customer brought his 4wd Shuttle in to have the remains of the exhaust welded back together as Honda say it's NLA and no-one seems to have made a pattern one. I didn't do the work but took the opportunity to take some photos of the rear end while it was jacked up, 5 linked live axle btw. The owner turned up at this point, saw me taking pictures and we had a chat about the car.
Fast forward to early August this year and having not used the car since 2009 the owner wanted it to go. He'd owned the car since 1987, taught his daughter to drive in it and didn't really want to see it scrapped, remembered that I'd shown interest in it and got hold of my old boss. Old boss had got me and theundertaker confused and missed a digit out of the owners phone number when he'd written it down as well. Between us we'd managed to work out which village he lived in so after work that day me and 24vster drove around the village until we found the car, parked under a hedge and looking a bit sorry for itself. After a chat with the owner, a cursory look over and a jumpstart a deal was struck and I arranged to return the following day to collect it.
Considering the petrol was at least 2 years old it drove surprisingly well. It's 56k, 2 owners and came with every MOT from new and even the original brochure.
Perhaps this requires some pics:
When I first got it home,


After a wash,


I then had to exercise every last bit of self control and leave it alone until after RRG when I'd have more time and hopefully have made some progress towards selling the Cinq to finance getting the Shuttle back on the road.........

[tumult]

really quirky I love it, have you got any plans for it yet or are you keeping it standard

[camerashy]

[BiAS]

........Interesting fact (well maybe) Honda produced the Shuttle for the first year with a button on the dash to bring in the 4wd, and no viscous coupling for the rear prop. From 87 the Shuttles all had permanent 4wd and a viscous coupling which only sends 30ish percent of the drive to the rear wheels. My one, happily, is the earlier one............
............which means that with the front driveshafts removed and the button pushed it's rwd
So obviously the first thing I did when I got back from RRG was to remove the shafts and make it rwd.
Shortly followed by a service, new cambelt, dizzy cap and rotor arm


Next up was to investigate why the n/s wiper arm had so much movement at the base, enough to have smashed open the hole in the plastic scuttle trim.
Ah yes, that'd do it. Looks like it's been repaired (badly) twice before

Unfortunately the first time it was welded they'd left the plastic spindle in and melted it. A trip over to Quarry breakers yielded a couple of likely donors from a Rover 214, not the same, but close enough to be able to create a hybrid.

A bit of scary 'welding next to the windscreen' later

And the wipers were restored to fully working and attached.

Obviously, the next thing on the list was to address the vertigo inducing ride height. The front is torsion bar so that's easy enough and some generic ebay coilover sleeves arrived to sort the rear.


Which resulted in 5" removed from the ride height



Better, but I'd run out of travel on the shocks, front and rear............

[Brian Damaged]

This is just SO much

[backzilla]

loving this.

[swollen]

Need to get the 4WD stickers redone as DWD... Drift Wheel Drive... *Ahem*... ;D

[CharlesK]

Love this, can't wait to see how it turns out

[Steve]

Inspired thinking dude! This just reeeks of uber WIN

[micrat]

yes! i love shuttles and this is the ugliest (by which i mean coolest looking) type! is it a twin-carb d15 jobby?

also, don't know if you remember my drifty fx-4 plan we discussed at the gathering, imagine that and this twinning in some uber-amazing random drift off

[crazymonkey]

All those images of modified shuttles just came back to me. Looks like you have everything worked out

low mileage as well.

[grizz]

As always.... onto a winner.

[lewist123]

Ha, love it!

Plenty of potential right there.

Lewis

[BiAS]

.............so after 2 evenings of browsing the 2 online shock dimensions catalogues I identified some potential donors for rear shocks. The ideal one was Volvo 850 rear so another trip to Quarry breakers, where initially my hopes were dashed as they drill and drain all the shocks on the stuff in there. I decided to go get one anyway so that I could make sure that it'd fit before I ordered some. The first one I found was the bottom of the pile and as such the bottom bolts were inaccessible, the 2nd one was a massive lucky break, entirely accessible, not drilled and in perfect condition. Win, pair of genuine Volvo shocks for £10! Also picked up a pair of twin carbs off a 1.6 Concerto, complete with manifold and air filter for £25.
I took a risk and ordered some 1st gen CRX front shocks which as far as I could gather had the same fittings and would be shorter.
I was in luck again,

Went down to my local wheel shop to borrow a wheel so that I could figure out what offset wheels would fit as the standard steels don't have the offset marked on them. They had one of these

Had an old Megane bumper down the side of the garage that I'd been meaning to throw away, glad I didn't as it donated its rubber splitter


Finally I got an offer on the Cinq, sorted out a deal for £550 and a packet of beef Hula Hoops. I agreed to deliver it up to Tim (Bratman) on when I went up to see my son in Bridgwater, this meant that I could start shopping for wheels more seriously and get an MOT booked.
Having fitted my new shocks, regained suspension travel and welded the remains of the rear section of exhaust back up I was off to MOT on Saturday............................
...............Which it passed with only 2 advisories
One of which was for exhaust deteriorated and the other for a rear lower shock bush deteriorated (not causing play, just cracked)
Kept being drawn back to the same set of wheels on ebay, a bit of googling for the offset found an ad on here for the same set of wheels. Having got the sellers email address off here I sent him a message asking whether he'd finish the auction early for me, which he did. The deal was done and the wheels were mine.
Massive thanks to macca of this very parish for that, and for getting them couriered to me. Cheers dude
Sunday after spending the day with my son I drove the Cinq up to Tims, sorted the cash and ate the Hula Hoops.
Monday, swapped the insurance onto the Shuttle.
Tuesday, got the Shuttle taxed.
Wednesday and the wheels turned up at work, followed by some new tyres on Thursday and a 2nd hand universal stainless back box on Friday.
Yesterday morning I went and got the tyres put on the wheels, the wheels on the car and the tracking sorted.
Back at HQ again I set to work making an arch roller, spare wheel off, I reckon this tyre has been on the car from new, check out the rubber peeling off the sidewall!

Cut the centre out

Weld a chunk of box on

After sacrificing a scissor jack end up with this

Remove the arch liners and roll the arches, drop the ride height another inch or so to fit the wheels. Remove the back bit of the exhaust and replace it with some new pipework and my ebay exhaust can. Start it up to discover that it sounds like a helicopter at close quarters. Go for a rummage in the garden, find the only exhaust box, liberate it from the undergrowth, remove the back section of the exhaust for what feels like the 20th time, add the extra box in and refit. Much better
By that time it was 9.30pm so after some pizza it was time for a roll around town..............

[BiAS]

..................apart from the mudflaps dragging on the floor it's all good, ride quality's not brilliant at the back but that's something I can work on. Of course, it was too dark for decent phone pictures last night so I went out today to get some.

[will930]

epic win! the rear bumper looks like a bench! handy if you go camping!

[Tom Majeure]

You tease!!!

[smithy13]

The back lights look super similar to the ones on my jazz! If we ever meet it'll look like dr.evil and mini-me!

Are those just the civic rear adjustable springs on ebay?

[Mark]

Looks great mate. Does it need to be raised slightly at the back or is it just the way it's parked in the last picture?

[Dez]

I approve
not totally sord on the wheel though. id prefer it on clio turbines myself, detailed in black and polished.

what the specs on them CRX shocks? they look quite short? how long is the body and what diameter is the clampy bit? I'm trying to find shorter for my legnum but it has a stupid size clamp area that I cant find anything to fit, like 44mm or something.