STEP 1 - REMOVING YOUR STOCK PARTS.
1 - Take off your stock bumper, headlights, corner lights, hood, and fenders.
2. Put on the 99 civic hood, it bolts directly on with 4 bolts. Leave it propped open for now.
3. Remove the radiator off the core support. Disconnect the mounting bracket that is on your core support. Lift the radiator off and just let it hang there. So that no weight is on the core support, if you have AC then remove that as well.
STEP 2 - CUTTING AND DRILLING
1.You will then want to drill out all the spot welds from the stock core support, there are quite a few of them.
- They look like little circular indention’s. Drill them out with a drill bit which is a little bigger than the circle.
2. After drilling out all the spot welds there may be a few that are still connected a little. But other than that they core support should fall directly off. Don’t be afraid to bust out with the tin snips and hack away at it. It’s pretty sad when you can dismantle your car with tin snips, but hey that’s a Honda!
3. Once the stock core support is off, use a grinding wheel or sanding wheel to clean up the places where the stock core support came off.
- Take your new core support and hold it up on the car. It helps to have a friend with this process. Put the new headlights in the core support with just the 2 upper bolts. Close the hood and match the headlights to the hood line as best as possible. Once this is accomplished have that friend keep it in the same position and either screw it, zip-tie, or tack weld it on there.
- I note that the headlights may need to be adjusted by loosening the bolts and re-tightening them to the proper position so they match up with your hood.
- However you want to hold it up on the car is fine. This is just to keep it there until you weld it on the car.
- On some of the conversions, like the 99/ 00 Civic front end on the CRX. The radiator brackets on the core support may need to be moved to accommodate for your radiator. This you will have to match up and weld of if necessary. But 94-Up Integras, 96/00 Civics and 92/95 Civics all have the same style radiators, so this step will not be needed on them.
5. You will want to weld the core support on in a few different places. Make sure the surface you will be welding on is showing bare metal. Wherever you want to weld it is up to you.
STEP 3 - FENDER CUTTING, BENDING, AND WELDING.
1. Cut your stock fender a little more towards the headlight. If you look on your stock fender you will see a little tab where your mud guards are held on. Cut your line about a half inch in front of that.
- Cut the fender you are using for the conversion about a inch behind (towards the door) that tab.
2. Use one or two bolts and put your cut stock fender back on. Take your cut fender you are using for the conversion and place it on top of your stock fender. Your goal here is to match it up with the headlight. Overlap your converting fender over your stock fender. The overlap only need to be about ¾ inches.
3. The converting fender will not have the same arc as your stock fender. You will need to do some bending and tweaking. Maybe use some masking tape to make sure your cut is straight The fenders will need to be tweaked a little so that the arcs match up a better. You can cut off the tab on the converting fender, it will not be needed since your stock fender has one.
4. Use some U-Clamps to hold the bottom of the fenders together, and the tops of the fenders together. Make any adjustments at this time.
Tips: Make sure the fender line that follows the hood line is straight as possible. This may take a little hammering.
5. The bottom of the fender where the wheel arc is may be a little off. Meaning usually the converting fender will be a little bit longer. Don’t worry about this until your fender is partly or fully welded.
Welding
6. You will want to remove all paint from the surface which you are about to weld. A half inch on either side of the cut will do just fine.
7. Use a wire feed welder and start at the top. Use the U-Clamps in the areas where the fenders are touching. This may require some welding and relocating the U-Clamps. But run a full bead down the fender.
8. After the front is welded you can remove the U-Clamps. Turn the fender over and repeat steps 6 and 7 on the backside of the fender.
- By the time you get done applying the bondo to the one fender, go to the other side and do the same. By that time you should be able to go back and forth and apply the extra bondo to the really low spots.
9. Cut off the excess (if there is any) on the fender, following you stock fenders wheel arc. If this piece needs a little welding after being cut then now is the time for it.
Grinding
10. Grind down the welds on the outside of the fender. You can get the weld pretty smooth by doing this. Make sure that there are no protruding weld marks.
Tip: The grinder can be used to re-shape arcs and fade out the weld.
STEP 4 - BONDO AND BODY WORK
1. Now you will want to start your bondo. Depending on how good your fender came out determines how much bondo you will need. A little more wont hurt anything.
2. Make sure your fender is clean. Use some Acetone, or some type of degreaser to clean the
surface you are going to fill.
3. Mix up a batch of bondo, a pinkish color after mixing is usually fine. The more hardener the faster it hardens. Use your putty knife/trowel to mix and apply the bondo. Put on a even coat and fade in that overlap in the fenders.You don’t want any thick edges in the bondo, it just makes more work to sand.
- Tip: By the time you get done applying the bondo to the one fender, go to the other side and do the same. By that time you should be able to go back and forth and apply the extra bondo to the really low spots.
4. Wait till it dries enough to work with. I recommend using a 'cheese grater' to shave down the really high spots. If you don’t know what a 'cheese grater' is, tell someone at an automotive store what you are doing and they will point you in the right direction.
5. After shaving the high spots. Use some 36 or 40 grit sandpaper to do your sanding. Use a sanding block, and hand sand it! Continue the process of bondo and sanding until it takes better shape. Sand away at the bondo and repeat the sanding/bondo process untill the fenders are looking and feeling pretty smooth.
Tip: If your fender arcs or wheel-well arcs don’t match up you can create your own by applying bondo in those areas and shaping it.
GLAZING / SPOT FILLING AND SANDING
1. After you have made it this far, use some glaze/spot filler to get it perfectly smooth. Put the glaze on fairly light and even. Use some 80-grit sandpaper to do the sanding on the glaze. The glaze is a lot easier to sand than the bondo is.
Tip: Making sure not to leave thick edges in the glaze as well.
- Block sand as much as possible
2. Use a napkin on the bottom of your hand and run over the areas filled and check for low spots.
You can also lightly mist on some flat black spray paint to the areas filled.
Then run over the area with the 80 grit sandpaper and the places that still show the spray paint are the low spots. Use glaze for these areas.
3. Don’t worry about small scratches in the filler, a heavy coat of primer will take car of this.
4. You can put back together your front end. (Well you could have done that before the bondo stage, it really doesn’t matter). I stress that you undercoat the backside of the fenders so that the welds do not rust!
