Project "Save the Flea!" Winter beater: 2007 Civic 1.8L, 5-speed

[MetroMPG]

Other misc updates:

Kammback: it's now secured on the car (gorilla tape) & the center brake light is wired up.

Painter's tape effects: to put on the Kammback I also removed the deck spoiler, including the painter's tape...



I'm happy to report that after 2 months on the car, it was easy to remove and didn't leave any residue at all on the car's finish. Though this was admittedly in tape-friendly season (winter - very little baking sun). In a few places where I mis-aligned the gorilla tape past the blue, it definitely left sticky residue on the car's finish.

[MetroMPG]

Tail lights wired and ready...



Those are the parking lights. Dark segments are brakes/signals. I'll have to run an additional wire for the reverse lights.

[Daox]

Getting closer...

[MetroMPG]

After a long delay in progress...

I was back at it this weekend, making cardboard bulkheads to attach to the frame that will define the tail's shape. (Cardboard is template material for construction & testing, to be replaced with coroplast.)

I'll post a pic later today.

[MetroMPG]

Just starting to take shape...





Even though I made "tail lights" (haha get it?), I'm still making a pocket on each side to keep part of the factory tail lights visible from behind. Similar to what I did with the Insight:



That's it for today. It's way to cold to be trying to keep the garage warm this evening!

[jedi_sol]

I think you're starting to get the hang of making boat tails, lol

[awcook]

Originally Posted by jedi_sol

I think you're starting to get the hang of making boat tails, lol

I agree, making a boat-tail for a winter beater is extreme! Lol. But that's pretty cool, seeing a tail on the 8th gen Civic.

[OG VX]

Great work!

[MetroMPG]

I received a PM asking about the air dam:

I am very curious as to exactly how you attached the landscape edging to your OEM air dam on your Civic. I have some lawn edging (4") with a loop on one side and was curious if you just used screws through the loop side every 4" or so to attach it directly?

I will cut it down to 3" and hope the snow/ice chunk drops from vehicles don't tear it off!

Thanks!

Some photos... pardon the road salt mess. (MAN, that's a lot of road salt! No wonder our cars fall apart after 2 years in southern Ontario winters.)

I put the airdam on "loop side" up, and screwed through the loop into the extreme upper portion of the small factory rubber air dam. Probably more than every 4".

3.5" of clearance. It scrapes regularly on dips & driveways, but I haven't "hit" anything with it yet.



Screws... clearly not stainless...



To keep the lawn edging from being pushed back by air pressure, I braced it using short sections of lawn edging. There's enough give in them that if the air dam hit something, they would slide down as the airdam came backward.

[MetroMPG]

This weekend I got the bottom panel roughed in and one side panel nearly done.

I thought I'd have the entire thing done. Reality laughs at my feeble plans.