24 replies to this topic

[EviltwinCRX]

I am the original owner of the Red 1987 CRX in my profile pic. The top portion of the pic was taken on the day I bought the car when I was 24 years old (in 1987). The lower pic is how the car looks today – 27 years later. The car has been lightly used and never winter driven, no rust and all original OEM parts, same rims, same everything. I’ll post a series of pics and maybe these pics will assist people interested in original restoration.

 

The Evil Twin 1987 CRX was recently purchased after a lengthy search. It is an identical 1987 CRX, Silver edition, blue interior. Not my favourite color choice. My goal will be to restore this Silver CRX Evil Twin to look as close to new as possible. It will never be able to be restored to the same condition as the Red CRX, but it will look nice and serve as a reasonable twin sister to the Red CRX. The Silver CRX was a great find with all original interior parts, fully functional engine, and minimal rust. This Silver CRX will look awesome with some attention to body restoration and new exterior paint. Pics and updates to follow. I am sure that as I pull the Silver CRX apart, there will be many issues that need to be resolved - rust being one of them. 

 

I welcome comments and suggestions throughout.

 

 

Well, since I started this post today let me introduce my Red CRX that I bought brand new in 1987 when I was 24 years old. It was my first car and as mentioned - never winter driven and all stock - pretty much exactly the same now as it was 27 years ago - never been repainted, not lost a part.  Here are a bunch of pics.

 

The First Two Pics were taken on the day I bought the CRX Brand New at the Dealership.  I had owned the car less than 1 hour when these pics were taken.

 

THE RIO RED 1987 CRX IN 1987

 

 

 

THE 1987 RIO RED CRX in 2014 - Original Car, Original Owner

 

 

 

The Evil Twin Silver 1987 CRX Project Car

 

I'll post one pic for now. It's just a side pic of the CRX. I'll organize the pics from the original add pic, to my towing pics and eventual restoration pic. Overall the Evil Twin has all its parts and fully operational, just needs a total restoration and that is where this forum comes in.  I will document the resotration project as I go.  Enjoy

 

 

  The restoration project is fully underway and I'm working on cleaning the engine bay, hood, engine, interior, seeing what the corrosion situation is, plus removing and repairing cracked and split plastic front fenders.

Edited by EviltwinCRX, 17 September 2014 - 01:50 PM.

[EviltwinCRX]

Before I get started with the  EvilTwin Silver CRX project pics. Here are a few more pics of the stock RIO Red CRX.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by EviltwinCRX, 17 September 2014 - 01:51 PM.

[EviltwinCRX]

And a few more pics......

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EviltwinCRX]

Last series of pic of the RIO Red 1987 CRX beofre I start posting Pics of the Project Car - Eviltwin Silver 1987 CRX.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioed, the RIO Red 1987 CRX was my first car and still in awesome pretty much flawless condition, no rust, no corrosion, no parts missing. After I'm done with the Evil Twin Silver 1987 CRX - I will restore the Red Car to as close to mint as possible. It's been great to be the original owener of this car since May 1987.  On with the Silver Evil Twin - which needs a lot of work - but it will be worth it in the long run.

[EviltwinCRX]

As Promised - Here  is the EvilTwin Silver 1987 Project Car  - These Pics are what he Car looked like the day I picked it up from the previous owner. As you can see, the car is there, but in rough shape. The good thing is that it is complete, with no parts missing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More pics to come of this Evil baby. It's gonna be a long project.

[EviltwinCRX]

Picking Up and Towing the Evil Twin home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Twin CRX was driveable, but I had to travel a few hundred miles to pick it up, therefore, I needed transportation to the place where I bought the car, so I used my truck to drive there, pick up the Twin and drive home with it in tow.

[EviltwinCRX]

Update: My updates are about two weeks behind my progress.  Here are a couple othere pictures of the Evil Twin.  Thre is a lot of work to do and I needed to figure out a game plan.  What I did first was clean the interior and strip off a bunch of old window tint. That took a day or so, then I started to get down to work and clean the engine bay area. My ultimate goal is to concentrate my work on the front end, and move my way backwards. So starting at the front end...There is literially 27 years of oil and grim under the hood.  The next series of pictures will show a progressional improvment in the engine bay area.  I used a combination of Gunk Engine Spray and also an compressed air / solvent mix. That was the intial hit, the rest has been done with rags and slovents (to cut through the grim and oil) and lots of manual cleaning. It's a work in progress. Here are the initial pics.

 

Evil Twin - Driveable. The oil on the road is not from the CRX.

 

 

I rented a Storage Garage for the Next Six Months to Do the Initial Work - Eventually I'll bring the CRX home and work on it in my garage. Remember - this is my Project Car - Silver EvilTwin 1987 CRX. Not my original RIO Red 1987 CRX.

 

 

This is Under the Hood - After the Initial Engine Clean - Still Very Grimey

 

 

 

Notice the Yellow Sticker on the Hood - I didn't see this due to the grime. I'll end up cleaning everything by hand.

 

 

 

Yup - Like most CRX's of this vintage -the plastic fenders are cracked - so they have to come off and get repaired.  And here comes the rust - going to lead to lots of grinding and welding repair.

 

 

 

Cleaning Things Up As I Go.

 

 

Left Front Fender - It's Busted but Still a Keeper - These are hard to Find.

 

 

Inside View of one of Three Cracks.

 

 

It's a Mofo Crack !!

 

 

 

NEXT UPDATE -  I'll show the repair on the Fender. To be continued.....

[CRXer87hf]

Nice cars! I look forward to seeing your progress.  If you get discouraged with how rusty the '87 is, I have an almost rust free silver '87HF shell if you're interested.  

[EviltwinCRX]

Nice cars! I look forward to seeing your progress.  If you get discouraged with how rusty the '87 is, I have an almost rust free silver '87HF shell if you're interested.  

I may be interested for sure.  I havent totally dscovered all the rust on this one, but so far it seems limited (but extensive) to the two fron wheel wells. Repairable for sure, lots of cutting and welding I would think.  I'll attempt it and see how it goes.  You are from Atlanta and just North of Toronto, Canada - the challenge would be getting your shell to Canada from Altanta - for a decent price. I'd love to have a rust free shell though

[CRXer87hf]

Yeah, my shell has nothing that bad.  There's a little rust in the back of the rear wheel wells but that's pretty much it.  I can send pics if interested.  It might require a road trip, but I'm a reasonable guy.  Its more important that I get it out of the garage rather than make a lot of money on it.  Just let me know.  I'd like to see it go to a good home.  It'll come with a complete dash as well. 

[EviltwinCRX]

Yeah, my shell has nothing that bad.  There's a little rust in the back of the rear wheel wells but that's pretty much it.  I can send pics if interested.  It might require a road trip, but I'm a reasonable guy.  Its more important that I get it out of the garage rather than make a lot of money on it.  Just let me know.  I'd like to see it go to a good home.  It'll come with a complete dash as well. 

I am interested for sure and since i'm just at the beginning of my project, might be a good idea. SOme of the CRXs in Canada have lots of rust on them (in comparison to what you's see in the US) The Silver CRX in the pics has most rust located in the front wheel wells, plus back - however, surprising all floor boards and under carrage shows minimal rust.  The car was well undercoated - the rust areas seem to be in places that were not accessible to the adverage owner.  It may take two CRXs to make one super good one.  Sure send me pics if you can. I can also give you my email too.

[CRXer87hf]

Sure thing.  I'll take some shots and send them to you.

[EviltwinCRX]

An Update - Left Fender Repair

 

I've read a lot about how the fender of the Gen1s often crack.  In my case with this project, it's the same thing.   The fender pictured was completely cracked in two, plus had three splits in other areas.  I'll show you what I did to repair this fender.  First, I had to remover it from the car, then start the process.  The hardest part was the intial lining up of the two fender pieces. Due ot the curved shape of the fender, it was trickey to line up the two parts - I used a bunch of support matrial to rest the fender part on and give it some stability while I started to tack it back togther.

 

 

 

I'm using the clamps as weights only. The tape is on for inital stabilty and alignment.

 

 

I'm using JB weld epoxy for the initial bond.  The stuff seems good and easy to work with.  It has a set time of 4 hrs and cure time of 24hrs.

 

 

 

 

JB Weld being Applied (You can get JB weld at most Auto Parts stores or places where they sell a bunch of Epoxy Glues).

 

 

 

The seem - JB Welded together and ready for the Next Step

 

 

Next Update - Fiberglass repair and support for the inside of the fender.

Edited by EviltwinCRX, 19 September 2014 - 09:50 AM.

[EviltwinCRX]

Fender Update # Two - FiberGlass the Inside of the Fender.

 

From what I've reserached, if you want to make your fender repair a good solid fix, then it is important or at least very useful to significantly fiberglass the inside portion of these old plastic fenders.  I chose to use fiberglass strands vs. fiberglass weaved cloth. The long strands will make for a firmer, stronger repair that hopefully will last!  Here are a few pics of the process.

 

I decide to do this job in incremental steps - small controllable sections.

 

Cutting out and fitting the patches

 

 

 

 

 

Brushing on the Resin - Helps the Fiberglass Mat to stick.

 

 

 

 

First Step - Cured and Dried about 8 hrs after application.

 

 

I continued on with the rest of the fender once the first section was cured.

 

 

Pic of the inside of the fender - completed (as far as fiberglass is concerned).  I still have some other repairs to do to it, such as the top section where it bolts to the CRX. I need to rebuild this section. 

 

 

I did notice that the fiberglass repair has added some weight to the fender, but the weight issue is marginal.  Gotta LOVE the EvilTwin 1987 Silver CRX - its keeping me busy. Not a bad use of an Air Hockey Table top as well lol.

 

NEXT Post - Showing some improvement in the Engine Bay Area  ....

Edited by EviltwinCRX, 19 September 2014 - 12:03 PM.

[EviltwinCRX]

Just a few pics of the EvilTwin Engine Bay as it gets cleaner.

 

 

Underneath all the Oil and Crap - things look OK.  Lots more cleaning to come though.

 

 

 

I took off the Front Grill - which needs repair - like the platic fenders- cracked.