Restoring a $300 Honda Civic On A Budget! | EP. 1

welcome back to simple builds these are my favorite type of videos to make we got a new build coming to the channel but uh we got to go pick it up first we got about an hour drive north so let's get on the road say hello to our new 1996 Honda Civic EK coupe the lower ball joint was not cooperating so we threw the Jack under there and got it up onto the trailer this is the cheapest car I have ever bought let's get it back to the shop and I'll show you why so it is the next day uh guys we actually picked this car up for 300 $ Believe It or Not uh the story how we did that was he had it up on Facebook Marketplace for 2 Grand I saw he dropped it down to 1,000 and um I hit him up I was like hey I'll come right now for 750 you got to come right now you got to have cash you got to be ready to buy when they're ready to sell spent an hour drive out there uh checked over the whole car meticulously as we started to listen to it uh the car had a weird tick from the engine uh so he was like all right let me uh see what I can do for you I offered him uh what did we do 350 bucks um he wanted to get it so sold quick so I picked it up for 350 and then as we were loading it on we realized that the lower control arm uh bolt was completely stripped and we spent an hour and a half to two hours trying to get it onto the trailer so he dropped the price down to 300 for us we took the car helped him out you know to get his car uh sold quickly uh otherwise he would have just had to brought it to a scrapyard anyways we figured for 300 bucks probably can't even get a shell like this for 300 bucks so if it does need a new engine you know we'll sort that out show you everything that is wrong with this 1996 Honda Civic EK EX with the sunroof first off this thing does have around 190,000 Mi right now with the stock D16 Y8 we'll start with the outside obviously the bumper and the grill is missing we have the grill on the inside and the bumper is right there in pretty decent condition as you can see here it needs a new paint job all around obviously it's got some dings dents and scratches we got a rough spot here and on the other side but make will be able to take care of that no problem for us we may end up getting some new tail lights but we might Rock these bumper just needs to get cleaned up after a tuneup this thing is shooting soot all over the place so we'll get that sorted here's the other rust spot on this quarter um you know very very minimal rust I'll show you guys underneath in a second when you jump into the interior it doesn't need much we got a tuck the ECU that uh he had out we got new rotors and pads with the car all new coolant hoses that we may or may not use uh there's the grill right there interior is pretty clean all around it's got an aftermarket steering wheel uh it's a 5-speed manual if I didn't mention that already the headliner is some kind of funky van go galaxy type stuff so I'm not sure if I want to keep that it does have a leak we're going to have to figure that out in the trunk here for some reason everyone wants to do a really crappy sound system so this is really nasty we're going to rip this out uh for sure and uh take all this amp and the sub stuff out so we'll disconnect all this shy wiring and all this crap in here this is damaged and you know smacked in right here he sent us with a brand new core support that he had a little bit of a worrying engine noise but we'll get to that later does need an exhaust uh or intake manifold gasket so that is not helping it run good but we'll dig into that later on make sure this thing is running nice and clean now we got the car up in the air show you guys underneath this thing super clean very very minimal rust if any on this thing down here uh which is really nice obviously we're going to need to figure out the exhaust setup this is some seriously janky stuff I don't know why I always find cars with this kind of stuff going on but we'll see maybe the boys over at JCC Customs can help us to sort this out here this is the control arm bushing that was giving us problems I don't know if you can see here but these threads are completely shot the actual Hub itself um we needed either a new bearing uh or a new Hub we'll have to figure that out and it needs an axle we had the axle in but we ripped it out because it was pretty much hanging so we'll get a new axle thrown in here we'll obviously try to clean up these calipers as much as we can dum dum forgot to turn on the mic so I'm basically explaining that the rest of this episode is going to be focused on ripping apart the suspension and the brakes refinishing them putting the new brakes on getting the car on the ground rolling and and then cleaning up the [Music] [Music] interior [Music] so in case you guys are wondering quick intermission to tell you that yes this is going to be a Simple Car Giveaway number two I know it doesn't look like much I know it was was only $300 but I'm going to show you guys what we can do on a budget to get this thing rehab and I will show you the whole cost of it at the end and then we're also going to give this car away to one of you guys it is only $5 to enter right now we're doing 10x multiplier you guys told me before that you wanted to have the biggest multiplier at the beginning of the giveaway so that's what we're doing this is the biggest multiplier that you're going to have for entries through the whole giveaway we have about a month till we give this thing away and we got a lot of work to do so I hope you guys are ready to see another couple episodes on this build it's going to be a really fun one and again get entered it is going to be 10x multipliers for this whole week and there's also going to be another way to enter this time as you might have seen we just launched simple motor club which is going to be a really exciting members only club that I can give back to you guys with your support in there plan to do a ton of awesome things like events go-karts track days and you're also going to be automatically entered into winning uh these car giveaways every single one that we do as well as the simple build kits for your car which would be new Wheels coilovers and uh a wrap material for your car so if you want to get entered over there if you jump in it's going to be 20x what your membership cost is so you're going to have a ton of entries and it's going to give you a good chance at getting entered so you can either jump over there and get entered every single month automatically uh in the motor club or you can go on to the site and buy as many digital downloads as you want they are only $5 so it is only $5 to get entered you can jump onto the motor club and get entered automatically every single month you could just be sitting around one day and get a call from me that you won one of our cars so super exciting announcement over there simple motor club the last video we just posted goes a little bit more in depth about that if you want to go check that out but again this is our next giveaway car super excited about this [Music] one thankfully we're able to save a couple bucks because the previous owner also had a new set of front brakes and uh pads I'm pretty sure there's front and rear pads in here which is nice and then we also have the intake manifold gasket that we need uh because I think I mentioned that that's leaking so we got to swap this out and uh we got all the new parts here so let's crack some of this stuff open Dave is coming to the rescue his EG hatch look at this thing what up what's up man so we got my boy Dave here you might be seeing him a little bit more on the channel Dave is uh working on cars for years so we're going to see what we can do work together a little bit let's show you guys his uh his [Music] Civic as you can see Dave knows what he's doing that is a little sample of some of the work that he's done he's got a couple of these as you can see we obviously have a lot in common already and uh hoping that we can get this thing looking pretty clean pretty fast with the two of us cranking away on this thing so let's get back to that intake manifold crappy old gasket coming [Music] off gasket going [Music] in [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] oh [Music] [Music] while we wait for those brakes to dry with the Fresh coat on the caliper brackets and also the calipers before we put the brakes back together uh I took the front seat out here because as you saw we said that there was a leak in here this is pretty pretty uh pretty wet in here so definitely going to have to vacuum this up and pull up these plastic pieces and see what it looks like underneath it here all right we got good news and bad news down here the bad news is that there's still a ton of water down here look at that oh my God it's probably about a half inch thick of water down here underneath this carpet that is insane uh so we're going to vacuum that out we're going to let the carpet drip down a little bit uh overnight and hopefully you can you know vacuum it up again tomorrow let this all dry out and then take the other seed out completely shampooed everything and let it dry out again and the good news is that there's no rust there is zero rust down here it's really dirty and nasty um but everything from what I can see here looks really clean really straight there's no holes Down Under that is awesome so I'm going to do that off camera vacuum that up and the brakes are coming out awesome and then I'm going to jump right back into reassembling this whole side [Music] here [Music] [Music] he [Music] the [Music] [Music] a these Force [Music] some [Music] all right we got everything back together and sorted this looks insane super stoked on how these brakes turned out brand new rotors resprayed calipers and caliper brackets brand new pads uh brand new Hub on this one with a new axle all the way back with a new ball joint on the lower control line down there we just need to get a CER pin for the upper control arm and the tie rod end here uh and then that'll be completely buttoned up but for now it should be good to get it down onto the ground and rolling hopefully give it a quick test [Music] [Music] drive so right now I'm going to start the car and see how it sounds uh as far as the new intake manifold gasket um and we did it oil change so that was giving us some ticking before when we bought it I think that should be sorted I'm not quite sure yet um I I don't think it will fix that but we're going to have to wait and see what this thing does I'm going to bring it out put the car down on the ground put some old uh steelies that I have on the front and then uh drive it outside here and let it idle just for a couple minutes and see if that ticking comes back it probably will I'm expecting it to back but hopefully it doesn't so we will see but for now let's get uh these wheels back on and lower it down and sit it under the ground for the first time and hopefully nothing goes wrong let's find [Music] out the car is officially going down on all fours let's drop it down onto the ground and uh see how it does all right now that the car is on the ground everything looks good feels good we're going to jump into the inside had to take this seat out as you guys saw because the B bottom frame was stuck so I had to free that up uh now I'm going to vacuum this uh seat up really quick and then throw this back in here so that I can pull this car out but before we do that I'm going to clean everything out of the Interior cuz I wanted to get everything buttoned up first on the outside as far as suspension goes so we're going to clean all this stuff up get this stuff out and uh you know clean all this stuff out of here and see what we're dealing with put this all down on the ground and then clean all this change out of here get this interior completely free of all the Clutter and crap so that we can start fresh and we'll put this carpet back down I'll show you guys how that turned out um we'll get all this stuff out of here that's completely dry now everything is dry here the carpet is pretty dry I'm still going to uh shampoo this uh here so that I can extract all the water out hopefully and then let it dry again probably uh you know put a fan in here and let it sit for a day or so and then we will take the car we will put it outside and let it idle and see if that engine tick stops or not hopefully hopefully it doesn't come back with that o change but we'll see let's get cranking on this now that is how you run a professional wire setup with an amp to the trunk that is just so [Music] [Music] sick [Music] [Music] right looks pretty good so far so we got the front vacuumed up we got the back vacumed up just want to tackle a bunch of these small little easy projects now uh this ECU there's two of them for some reason this one is bolted in here looks like it's just one 10 mil so let's take that 10 mil out and then Swap this ECU this looks like the one that's plugged in here obviously so we'll take that one out and then we'll put this new one in its [Music] place in my pile of junk this is everything that came out of the vehicle oh look at this I think this might be that cover [Music] oh look at that that is nice and clean heck yeah so we got this side cleaned up here and uh we're going to see if we can clean up this center console really [Music] quick [Music] oh [Music] that looks really nice um I'm going to try to clean up some of this wiring here um and remove this giant sub in the back of the trunk here what we're going to do we're going to cut that it's just going through a big hole in the firewall here which I think might be the cause of our leak I'm not quite sure um but we're going to check that out and try to find a grommet to fill that up and it runs right here to nothing and this won't fit through the firewall so let's chop this off there it is we're definitely going to plug that up and make sure that that is out of the equation for the possible leak all the way through hopefully it is not too heavy but let's see let's empty out this trunk and try to pull the sub [Music] out all right that is all the crap that came out of this trunk who wants this sub I don't know what it's worth um pick it up for 50 bucks if it's worth that take it for free I'll probably just throw it out in the dumpster at my shop I'm not I'm not sure let me know if that's worth anything we got some wires left in here let's take the power wire all right that is one set of nasty wires out pull this all through that way throw this up through there front we already opened up that seat there okay there is okay now we just got orange and blue to figure out I'm just going to cut it here and leave it there for now now um and then if I need to extend or add on to this I can and let's take all of this out of there and drop this with the trash so that leaves us with a pretty clean trunk in here here is pretty clean but of course there's another pile of crap so that is it for the trunk for now we'll come back to this later when we go to detail and we'll clean up all the jams and stuff here all that nonsense but for now that's pretty good nice and cleaned up so that is officially everything that came out of this Honda I don't know how all this crap fit in this little car I think we're going to try to get this car off the lift for the first [Music] time okay it is working Everything feels smooth it feels good uh this bulb we need a new bulb on this side uh for a main headlight bulb but other than that it looked pretty cool feels good so far obviously has a big exhaust leak and a couple exhaust leaks but JY custom uh the boys over there are going to help us out so hopefully we can get over to them sooner than later for now let's take it around the uh shop here and see how it [Music] does [Music] all right man it feels good to see that Dash again reminds me of the old EK first car we had on the channel pretty good so far so that is a wrap on episode one of the $300 Honda Civic EK Coupe super stoked to continue to work on this thing and I hope that you guys are are as excited about this thing as I am don't forget like I said said uh you can get entered now at the site simple clothing.co you can buy as many entries as you possibly want is only $5 to enter or you can jump into simple motor club the link is going to be in the description to join and you guys are going to be entered into every single car giveaway that we do like this so I know it doesn't look like much just yet uh just wait on it be patient watch the build follow the process you guys know how to do things um you know it's going to be a simple build it's going to be easy it's going to be really cool and one of you guys are going to win this car so I cannot wait we got about a month for this giveaway so be sure to get entered once again every $1 you spend on the site gets you one entry uh but we are doing 10x bonus entries right now this is going to be the highest multiplier that you guys can get entered into for this whole giveaway let me know what you guys think about this project I'm super excited about this one and I can't wait to continue working on this and I hope you guys can see the vision that I have thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode and uh go get entered to win this car appreciate it I'll see you guys in episode two