The story of my Civic begins in January 2021. I was scouring Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace as usual for any cheap old Japanese cars, when I stumbled upon an ad for an automatic 1981 Civic wagon that had been up for nearly a month, that I had somehow missed before. The photos were pretty bad, which was excusable since the car was non-running and in a very tight space, but the price was about $800 which is within my usual budget for old cars. I contacted the seller who ended up being a girl who was just getting out of high school, and wanted a modern car for going off to college in. I agreed to drive the two hours away to look at the car that afternoon. I hopped in my Lumina APV which was my winter car at the time, and drove out to take a look.

The car ended up being in surprisingly decent shape despite the life it had lead for the past few years. There was rust, a few rust holes, and some interior wear and tear, but not so bad it wouldn't be fully useable once fixed. Ten years prior, her dad had bought the car as a toy, as it was in very nice original condition with almost no rust, and a clean interior. Relatively low miles as well. Unfortunately after a while, she ended up with the car, which was on year-round daily driver duty until it stopped running on her.

Here's a photo of the car in 2010 when her dad bought it:



The car was on an incredibly narrow driveway, facing away from the street, and the street happened to be the main thoroughfare into town. The car not currently running made it seem like it was going to be a real challenge to get it out of the driveway. If I couldn't get it running at the house, I was definitely going to have to tow it all the way home. This wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the main issue was I had two days to get the car before it absolutely had to be gone, and a blizzard was supposed to be coming the next day. It was already late when I went to look at the car, so logistically getting a tow rig lined up was not in the cards.

That night we worked out the details, I negotiated the car down to $550, and exchanged cash for title. I spent the next couple hours getting a battery, and tinkering to try to get the car up and running again in the hopes that at the very least, I could back it down the driveway onto a trailer. I managed to get the car to cough and come to life by dumping a little gas down the carb, but it would not stay running no matter what. The carb had definitely gotten clogged up with something and the last thing I was going to do was tear apart a 3bbl Keihin in the dark in somebody's driveway. I barely want to mess with those carbs in ideal conditions.

Accepting some level of defeat, I drove back home and tried to figure out how I was going to get the car home. I had already paid her, so there was no way I was giving up and leaving the car there to potentially get scrapped. Thankfully I had somewhat recently become friends with somebody who had a tow rig, and it being a front wheel drive car, a tow dolly would work great. Early the next morning I went straight to the nearby U-Haul to rent one. The staff at this particular location were terrible, sitting around doing absolutely nothing, not remotely helpful. I asked if I could rent a tow dolly since they had a few on the lot, and the guy behind the counter assured me that they weren't allowed to rent any trailers due to a "tow ban". This seemed like nonsense, so I called my friend Jake who was going to help me tow it home, and he had reached out to a farther away location who was more than happy to rent us a tow dolly, and said "what tow ban?" when it was mentioned.

Next thing we knew, we were hooking up the dolly and heading out to Council Bluffs to grab the Civic. I had very little experience messing with pulling cars out of sticky locations at this point, but thankfully Jake had tons of experience, and came well-prepared. After some minor struggle, the car was out of the driveway, on the street, and then on the tow dolly. The snow had not deterred us at all, thankfully.






The next morning, with the car safe and sound in my driveway, I got to work cleaning it out and seeing what I had gotten myself into. I was pleasantly surprised with how decent the interior was, the only real damage was the driver's seat was kinda blowing apart and there was some staining in the cargo area. A lot of the interior plastic had been poorly painted black at some point in the past, which I eventually repainted a color as close to the original red as possible. Not perfect, but much better than a bunch of random black plastic.









As you can see, the car was an automatic, non-AC car. Pretty basic spec with the 1.5L EM-1 engine that all the 2nd gen wagons had under the hood. Nothing had ever been messed with, with the original carburetor intact with all the emissions stuff still on the car. I had heard it fire off when dumping gas down the carb earlier, so I knew it would run, I just needed to get it to do so on its own, off its own fuel supply. That night I shoved a fuel line down the filler neck hooked to a fuel pump on a car battery and sucked all the old fuel out of the tank. It didn't smell bad really, but I wasn't going to take my chances if that was what clogged up the carburetor in the first place. Thankfully the fuel I pumped out looked extremely clean. Once the tank had been purged, I got to work tearing apart the carburetor to ensure it was clean.




The 3bbl Keihin carb these cars came with is excessively complicated, due to the additional barrel needed for feeding the CVCC chamber. I wasn't scared to tear it apart, but I wasn't excited either. I got it fully disassembled, and back together with everything hooked back up as it was. I think I did this twice before getting the car to idle correctly and run like it did from the factory. Excited to hear it purring like a kitten again, I took it for a test drive. I believe after one or two drives, the carburetor seemed like it wasn't getting fuel again. After this, I decided to no longer be a purist, and that being able to just drive the car was my priority over anything else. I promptly took all the original fuel and emissions equipment off, put it in a box in my rafters, and did my usual swap for a Weber DGEV carburetor I had on a shelf.



After stripping it all out, I set up the Weber, wired in the choke, etc, swapped out the stock main idle jet from a 60 down to a 45, and it ran absolutely beautifully. No hesitation at all in throttle response, just beautiful. A bit rich realistically, but with the CVCC system, that's probably not a horrible thing. The only downside of this at all was the fuel economy, which had dropped to low 20s down from what I'd assume would have been low-to-mid 30s stock. No problem though, that's still decent for a "classic" car, and I could always tune it further with fuel economy in mind. After a few weeks, I got plates in my name, and started driving the car whenever it was dry out to shake it down a bit and see if anything else was going to become an issue, while picking away at little things here and there. The car was previously a daily driver, so most stuff was OK, but a few things such as a leaky exhaust, non-working switch gear, and loose front end components had to be addressed.





Once the car had proven itself to be pretty well sorted, I started doing various cosmetic things. Adressing some of the minor body rust, painting the factory rims, adding trim rings, etc.





Prior to repainting the rims the factory silver color, I had been inspired by a photo of a first-gen Civic hatch with black rims, and decided to give that look a try. While it looked amazing on the yellow hatch, I didn't really love it on my wagon, and painted the rims silver again the next day.



If you notice the Chevette I had bought at this point in the background on some 4-lug Keystone Klassics, don't worry, those rims were about to become part of the car's story.

I had gotten the Chevette with only two of those rims, but I had remembered somewhere in the back of my mind that I had seen two more of those rims on a rear end in a junk pile outside of town. I returned to where I thought I saw them, and went across the street to talk to the people who ran the shop that always had Monzas outside of it. The guy inside ended up being very friendly, and said I could buy the rims, and that in fact he had two more inside his barn. $100 later, I had four more 4-lug unilug Keystone Klassics, and the wheels were turning, no pun intended.

Prior to getting all six rims in one spot, in early 2022 I had bought a Buick Le Sabre for $800, which I had for a whole week before a car I had seen before popped up on Facebook Marketplace. I instantly recognized it as a car I had left a note on years earlier, but failed to make a deal on. A beige 1983 Civic hatch. The car was a 5-speed, and I had always intended to manual swap my wagon, so I needed to make it mine no matter what. I instantly offered up my Buick in trade, and we made a deal quickly. I was soon driving the Civic home which would become a parts car. Suddenly my driveway had two 2nd gen Civics in it.




The hatchback was a blast, and completely reinforced my desire to make my wagon a manual. I would have just left both cars alone and had both of them, but the reason the hatch became a pure parts car was the condition. From the outside it wasn't horrible, some rust here and there, but underneath was another story. Some of the suspension components were hanging on for dear life, and the floor was basically gone. I don't like tearing a car apart, but when it's basically unsavable, it's better to use its parts to keep something else on the road.

Here were a few shots of the rust. The car was toast, and 2nd gen hatches aren't exactly impossible to find, so there was no point spending thousands of man hours fixing the ruined body. I took pretty much every good part off of the car, and then sadly had it taken off to the junkyard, one of only two cars I've ever done this to.





As part of the Civic hatch deal, a second EM-1 with an additional Hondamatic transmission were included on a pallet. I went and picked it up in my Toyota a few days later before work. I never say no to spare engines.



That same day, I dropped off the Keystones at the local tire shop to get new rubber. Came home that night with an engine and four wheels ready to mock up on the Civic.






The rims did look cool, and gave the car a very tough look, but I am a sucker for stock wheels, so they only lasted on the car for a month or two before I needed the tires for the Tercel Wagon I'd end up buying that summer. The last photo also shows the rear bumper tuck I did the same day. Seeing the rear bumper in earlier photos it looks comically long to me. I'm used to the mandated 5mph bumpers on most of my cars, but the rear one was just TOO long. The front doesn't bother me at all, so it's still unmodified.

In the fall of 2022, I had stumbled across a first-gen Civic wagon that had been horribly vandalized at some point in the '90s sitting in a field outside of town and eventually made a deal where the owner gave it to me for free. The car was pretty much worthless, but I knew it had parts I'd want, specifically the early aluminum valve cover which is much cooler than the later stamped steel ones the 2nd gen cars have. This was the main reason I even wanted the car, as much of it wasn't even salvageable anymore. I took off anything worth saving and ended up selling what was left to some guy for $100. Not sure what he did with it, but he had plans that didn't involve scrapping it, so good enough for me.




After having the stockpile of parts off of the two cars sitting in my garage long enough, in February 2023 I finally pulled the trigger on the transmission swap. Everything I had saved from the hatch was a direct swap into the wagon, no parts incompatibility whatsoever, which was a huge relief. The swap went pretty flawlessly, and I managed to do everything in less than 24 hours, which was kinda shocking. Seeing a stick shift inside the wagon for the first time ever was incredibly satisfying.



Unfortunately, there was a large hole in the factory carpet from the original automatic shifter, so I quickly remedied that by cutting up an old red floor mat I had saved out of an early Cavalier I found at the junkyard. Not a perfect match, but still better than a gaping hole in the carpet.



The finishing touch for the 5-speed swap was, of course, the 5-speed badge I had kept from the hatchback. I had saved this step for last. Putting it on was even more satisfying than the manual swap itself, somehow.



Full disclosure, fifth gear is out on the transmission, so it's basically a four speed right now, however the gearing is so tall on these transmissions that I absolutely don't miss having fifth. The car is not overstressed at all in fourth even at interstate speeds, and usually loses speed going up big hills anyway, so fifth would probably be overkill. I would like to fix it eventually, but the biggest hurdle was doing the swap in the first place. If I eventually find a good fifth gear, I will fix this issue.

The manual swap was the last thing of any big significance that has happened to the Civic. I've done a few minor things here and there, but for now, it's a car I can just hop in and enjoy any time. It always starts and never misses a beat. Absolute joy to drive, I honestly probably don't drive it enough. But I never for a second regret saving it and bringing it home. It has some rust I need to fix and odds and ends here and there, but I know it's much happier here than it would have been being crushed into a cube. What a great little car.

Here are some recent pics of it out on the town.

Last updated: 1/13/2024