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2001...A Spacious Odyssey...

23K views 67 replies 32 participants last post by  Shiny 
#1 · (Edited)
Two things in swore I would never own:

1. An automatic
2. A 7 seater

Well i've gone and done both.

To cut a long story short, my lad has an Italian girlfriend, he's been to stay with her parents a couple of times in Rome/Sardinia and we've met them all a handful of times, including spending a week in Rome as a family last year.

Well they threatened to come and visit us and stay in Swindon for a week. Swindon. Yes, Swindon. So after we've done a few hours going round the railway museum, well... but the surrounding areas have a lot to offer.

Thoughts turned to hiring a 7 seater for the week and at near on £500 for a week thoughts turned again.

With my lad due to go off to uni and with my mother now needing a wheelchair to get around, i turned to eBay...

For those that know me, I like Hondas. So a few months back i put a bid in and won this (picture from the Ebay ad)...



It was only down the road in Chippenham, so i took the train, met this very lovely chap, he had owned the car for years (imported by his father) but it had been a bit of a country house workhorse. The dent in the rear i knew about, it drove really well other than a horrendous knocking from the rear, suspension related, so i took a chance and we did a deal.

Got it home and I was generally pleased with myself.









Even got the original JDM numberplate bolt :D



Country lanes have taken their toll, but i'm convinced i can get most of these out and make it look better. I need to remind myself that i bought this bus for a purpose and to not go silly and spend a fortune on it like I have a habbit of doing :lol:







CLEANING - PART 1...

Now i thought originally about a nice Showroom post, but it is more of a project than a detail, so opted for here instead. Either way, i'm pretty sure this is a DW first, there are a couple of Odyssey posts on DW, but none is section.

With the third seat row down, it's, um, yuk. That's not a show, they are stains.



So seats and mats out.



A collection of wheel well bits and pieces.



And out with the vac, the steamer, APC and lots of scrubbing, followed by more scrubbing and a bit more scrubbing...







The middle row carpet was also horrendous, although the pictures don't quite justify how bad it was.





It's funny how people perceive clean, as the previous owner had cleaned the car ready for sale! Anyway, more steaming and strubbing:





A 50/50 on the seats, again it doesn't show up to well on the photos, but the needed lots of work.





My search for mats unveiled my first problem of a JDM import with no UK equivalent. Nobody makes a set and there are no used ones for sale either! I bought a cheap universal set from Argos to tide me over. I think i'm going to need to template them and get someone like Ambassador car mats to make me up a set.







Not yet finished cleaning the front foot well at this stage, hence the dirty pedals and the carpet still a bit dirty.



The engine bay was dirty and its not something I like to do, so I called on one of my customers who does valeting for the trade market and he sorted me a nice clean bay for a few notes. He also sorted out my headlining, sadly no before & after pics but it was really minging! Rocker cover will need a refurb at some point, common Honda thing as it flakes off easy after a while.











That'll do for the moment, i'll upload some more when i get time :thumb:
 
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#5 ·
PART 2...BROKEN BITS

There were a couple of broken bits which needed sorting, the wiper stalk was broken so the rear wiper didn't work, not that this was an issue for the previous owner because there was no rear wiper!





Another reality of an import, you can't get bits! Fortunately there was an Ody breaking on eBay in Ireland, so i struck a deal on a stalk and rear wiper.



Sprayed up the old rubber bung thing with hammerite



Dismantaling the steering surround revealed more horrors!



But i cleaned this up and managed to get the new wiper stalk on.



Even the simple task of chaning the wiper blades meant opening a load of boxes in Halfords until i found one that will fit!



All on.



New plates is always a must, also proper JDM import sized ones..





This had to be done :D:lol:





And the "elderly driver" badge...

 
#16 ·
Ah mate, the dirt inside them was untrue! I couldn't get the edge of the carpet as clean as i would have liked, but the seat mechanisms look a bit fancy so i didn't fancy removing the whole interior to get the carpet out. It'll do though, miles better than it was.
 
#15 · (Edited)
PART 3...BUMPITY BUMP

Well being about as mechanically minded as a brussel sprout, i took somewhat of a chance with the knocking when i bought the car. Now my knowledge stretched as far as working out that knocking at the rear can't be the engine in a FWD car, so it has to be something else. Maybe an exhaust mount, possibly dampers, but most likely bushes, it's always bushes with Hondas.

Took the car to a local spanner chap who confirmed rear ARB bushes and drop links were the cause of the problem, but none of his suppliers can get hold of the parts. I couldn't have the car back as one of the wheel nuts was cross threaded and had snapped when he took the wheel off, so he asked me to sort out the parts.

Using the jap-parts website and the trusty Lings part finder to find out the part numbers, i strolled in to Fish Bros (Swindon Honda main dealers) with a smile which rapidly turned into a frown as they checked and confirmed the prices and then confirmed a 30 day expected delivery from Japan. Well Lings had a 3 day lead time so i said i'd try them and Fish Bros said they will be the same.

Checked the Lings website, definitely on 3 days, so in the absence of any pattern parts i placed a order for super-duper expensive genuine Honda parts. Sure enough, 3 days later i received an email confirming the lead time is 30 days :(

The bits arrived within 3 weeks and off i peddled on my push bike to the garage to hand over the parts.



They were fitted and the following weekend i took our family, my parents and an elderly friend of my wife to the Hawk Conservancy in Andover. I'd been promising them for years and now, with a 7 seater, it was game on. It's a lovely day out for those who have never been and well worth a visit.

Anyway, with 7 up, the knocking was still there. Was chatting to a mate of mine (another Honda nut) and he's handy with a spanner and offered to take a look. A quick diagnosis of knackered bushes at the bottom of the dampers, one so bad that the damper could slide from side to side with a push of the hand. The front ARBs would benefit replacing too.

Armed with time, I was able to find a Latvian supplier on eBay at a fraction of the Honda price and the damper bushes arrived in 3 days. The ARB bushes still had to come from Honda though.





So off to see my mate and a relatively simple job involved drilling out the bolt that ran through the damper, both sides, and took hours! lol. We (or rather he, i just stood around making sarcastic comments) got there in the end though.



The bushes were knackered, but best of all, someone at some point had decided that a self tapping screw through the damper and into the bush would be a good idea to stop it moving around! :doublesho



The front ARB bushes were well past their sell by date too...



And finally, what i thought may be a wheel bearing going on the back turned out to be the disc backing plate rubbing when going round corners so my mate fixed this too.

Job done, totally transformed the car and, most importantly, was now as quiet as a mouse with no knocking at all.
 
#19 ·
Yeah, my mate was in shock. Bizarre really because the previous owner sold it with the knocking noise so it's not like it was an attempt to cover it up. Possible I guess that the original mechanic I took it to did it, but he's not really a bodger.

Either way, I think it was part of the reason that my mate couldn't get the bolt out as the screw had snapped and meant he couldn't do something or another.
 
#26 · (Edited)
fake taxi erm, might wanna look that one up
+1 for googling fake taxi tho, but im sure your safe with your elderly friends not finding out!
:lol: Come on chaps, that's exactly why I bought it. The missus is sat in there in blissful ignorance while every so often I nearly get people crash into the back of me as they are fumbling around balancing their phone on their steering wheel to take a picture! :lol:

Great work. I take it you have tried the Wheelchair in the Luggage space when the 2nd row of Seats are down, having had a few 7 Seaters for my Disabled Wife I know the angle of the Backrest on the 2nd row can sometimes narrow down the space for a folded standing Wheelchair, just wondered how the Honda was for this.

Doug.
The wheelchair I bought for my mum is a folding one. She has a few health problems, including her hips, one replaced and waiting on the other. She didn't want a chair but after being fed up of seeing her struggle to walk a few steps in agony on sticks, I got her one anyway and it has given her a new lease of life. Not sure may dad agrees having to push her around though :lol:. We managed me & the missus in the front, the three oldies in the middle row and my two kids (when I say kids, they are 18 & 16) in the third row. There isn't masses of room in the boot with the 3rd row up, but we got in the wheelchair, a cool box, drinks, snacks etc for a picnic, jumpers etc all in the boot too. You're right, it does thinner in space the higher up the back rests, but thankfully there is enough room. Whilst the 3rd row can fold down, it is fixed so can't go back & forth, so was a bit of a result really.
 
#25 ·
Great work. I take it you have tried the Wheelchair in the Luggage space when the 2nd row of Seats are down, having had a few 7 Seaters for my Disabled Wife I know the angle of the Backrest on the 2nd row can sometimes narrow down the space for a folded standing Wheelchair, just wondered how the Honda was for this.

Doug.
 
#27 · (Edited)
SHINY SAID "LET THERE BE LIGHT", AND THERE WAS LIGHT...

Now historically, every car i've ever owned has resulted in me sitting in it with the interior light on, brosing the manual and pressing buttons, playing with the stereo and then waking up the next day to a flat battery because i forgot to turn off the interior light.

They say history repeats itself and sure enough i did the same again. LEDs reduce problem somewhat and also look pretty awesome, so my next purchase was a load of LEDs. Needed quite a few as the interior is like Blackpool illunimations, which is quite nice for an older car.











And not forgetting my cloudy lights...





NOW THIS BIT IS WHEELY GOOD...

Despite promising the missus I wouldn't be doing anything to this car :D, I've got my ATR wheels in the garage but with no tyres. The bus takes 16"s and the ATR wheels are 17"s, so i thought i'd hold off swapping things around until the tyres need changing, otherwise it would be an expensive (and difficult to justify) swap.

When i was down my mates getting the bushes done, he convinced me to buy his old Prelude Type S wheels as they are 16"s and would go straight on. So £50 later, i ended up with these.



Needed a bit of a refurn so i decided to go with a home made shadow chrome. Cleaned and sanded the wheels (didn't bother with filler round the edges as they weren't too bad) and started with a few coats of black.







The misted on Halford silver wheel paint.





Followed by some glitter spray and a load of coats of lacquer. Was chuffed with the results from rattle cans.





While they were curing, I ummed and ahhed about the colour and decided they were too dark, so sanded them down, sprayed them black again and went for Honda satin silver (same as the Odybus) instead.



Glittered and lacquered..





Tyres swapped over at a local tyre place, some lugs and a locking wheel nut from a scrappy and some silver valve covers and they were on the bus..











I'm well chuffed how they turned out, really suit the car and transformed the look in my opinion. Not bad for £50 and few rattle cans. :thumb:
 
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