[ControlBob]

Making progress on the 2021 updates. Shaking off the pandemic malaise and getting stuff done...

First off, I was running low on steel tubing so I loaded up the hack with 4 lengths of 1.75" .095" tubing 10' long - should be more than enough for the roll cage additions. The steel supply place is about an hour away on back roads, so I waited for a warm day.

My main goal is to increase the number of points that the roll cage ties into the element and also add two more side to side bars for strength. I started with the side to side bar just behind the seats. Removed the paint on the existing bars and welded it in.

Then plates on the rocker section behind the existing hoop and some verticals and horizontal pieces that tie in to the rocker and rear seat rail mounts and short tubes to triangulate back to main hoop...

I used some interlocking clamps so I can remove the rear of the bar attached to the rear seat mounts so I can get the interior trim on the bed side back in. I am certain that the apocalypse will be flush with interlocking roll bar clamps.

My welding is improving with the practice. I ran out of welding gas one day and then welding wire the next - but am keeping the momentum up. Here is the rear part done with plates over the junctions.

.
Also managed to fix up the wiring for the seat belt tensioners. I only had to use two connectors off that whole harness that I bought, but worth it to have the seat belt tensioners wired properly. It was pretty simple. The newer E seats with the integrated seat belts have a 4 pin connector with two sets of + and - wires to activate the belt reel tensioner and buckle side tensioner. The early E's have the buckle tensioner -/+ on pins 2/3 of a similar, but not the same 4 pin connector. And the belt reel tensioner connector is back behind the rear door with the -/+ on pins 1/4 of a 4 pin connector. I cut the 4 pin connectors off my E's wiring harness, pulled the wires from the rear door area back to branch going under the seat and then spiced all the wires to 4 pin connector from the later E underfloor harness with +/- buckle on pins 1/2 and +/- reel tensioner on pins 3/4. Driver's and passenger seat wiring were the same. Hopefully no ABS codes once connect them for good and do a module reset.

Moving on to the crossbar across the top of the windshield next and then some more tubes and tie in points at the front half of the cage.

@KargoMaster - any updates on your buggy project??

 

[KargoMaster]

Daily driver (Zippy) is up on the lift getting attention currently... I’m still working out fine details with the transition to the coilovers (which I LOVE... 😍). After initial (multiple new suspension bits) install I got the obligatory alignment to find out they maxed out adjustment for toe on one side.. just means I have more bushings to replace further up the proverbial chain, but mad at myself for not doing them the first time... I also “rearranged” a rear axle cv on the highway.. talk about hellacious sounds coming from bad places...

On the Elemental Buggy side of things... I have both K24a4 and K24a8 as donors now... I’m working through tuner options; mostly for eliminating subsystems that I don’t want to deal with...

Fantastic progress on the Hack... can’t wait for the next installment!
😬👍

 

[ControlBob]

I welded in more more steel to strengthen things. I welded a few plates to upper front door hinges and installed them and then ran a tube from the hinge down to the cross bar then a second tube from the crossbar to plates on the inner part of the door sill and made sure to tie in the seam that runs down the door sills where several layers of sheet metal are spot welded together. The tube tracer from Centurial Inc helped figure out how the cut the ends. The upper tubes match the angle of the cut outs in the dash support sheetmetal - I am going to leave that sheetmetal exposed and paint it to match the rest of the hack - I think it looks kind of cool.

Next up are another pair of tubes connecting all the vertical tubes - a little more side impact protection. And I also added some plate steel to box the rear two verticals back to that same spot welded seam.

Finally, I got a new tubing bender from Eastwood and an adapter to mount a harbor freight air over hydraulic cylinder from Swag offroad - took a few days to get it assembled and figure out how to use it. The bender is a bit overkill for these shallow bends but it works fairly well and will come in handy for my next major project (Post apocalyptic BWM Isetta which needs a complete tube chassis)

Does not seem like a ton of progress for a month, but I have been consistently putting in several hours a day, so I am inching towards the completion of this update. Weather is nice so I want to be back on the road soon. Next, I am working on some ways to strengthen the A pillars - its a challenge to fit more tube there without messing up the visibility out around the pillars, so I am looking to do something with steel plates along the exiting A pillar. Then, paint and stereo and interior reassembly...

 

[ControlBob]

Busy week. These dash plastics went from this -

to this -

I went with a darker mix of mil spec green & flat black paint. Ratio was 1:1 instead of 2:1 for the existing paint. It was a happy accident when mixed up this color to test the color match for all the bare metal that I had to paint. So there will be a subtle two tone affect between the interior and exterior.

Painted the new rear waterproof speakers. Some disassembly required.

Painted the metal sides of the dash to match the darker interior plastic color - natch. I applied Eastwood rust encapsulator before the color.

In a show of pure OCD, I ground down the rust bubbles above the windshield and hit the area with the aboveforementioned Eastwood product. My personal apocalyse does not tolerate un-artistic looking rust formations. And I relocated the side view mirror from the bend in the A pillar down to the dash side to make them less pronounced and flow better with the line at the top of the fender.

The sheemetal there has a wavy pressed shape, so I made spacers and drilled and tapped Aluminum to allow reuse of the old brackets. I really like working with Al - it is so easy to cut and drill compared to steel.

The final fabrication task was a plate to tie the upper front steel tube to the the a pillar. My improvised welding table is a piece of sheetmetal on a slightly singed piece of plywood.

And yesterday I did the grinding, sanding, cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning and then masking and primer and paint on the roll cage bars and windshield header. Got the color match pretty good.

It was real nice to have this burst of motivation and activity - feels good. Just have to put all the stuff back together and then get out there cruisin' the suburban streets - spreading confusion and joy...

 

[zze86]

This is such a fabulously cool build

 

[ControlBob]

Thanks! Got her back on the road yesterday. It took a bit longer than expected. First up was more cleaning of the car plus the stuff going back in. Cleaned out and mopped the garage bay for good measure.

Then, I finished installing the new stereo. Made some simple amp brackets to fit it where the old subwoofer lived. I ran the power cable (blue wire) from the battery, under the car, and in thru the transmission shift cable grommet.

Here is the amp installed and wired up. I had to get some 90 deg RCA plug adapters so the subwoofer cover would fit without putting a hard bend near the connectors. I went with Crutchfield for those - as well of the rest of this stereo - and really almost all the stereo equipment that I have purchased over my lifetime.

The marine speakers were the next. I ran the wires thru the tubing and put on some anderson style connectors. I did not wire up the LED's - I think that could be considered a violation of the lighting laws in PA - plus not really the right vibe.

And I cut the back seat bracket trim to fit around the tube - this turned out really well - nice and clean looking.

And the kicker sub woofer was wired with another anderson connector and elegantly strapped down with bungee cords. I could put it somewhere else later, but for now this is good enough and easy to remove when I need that space for cargo. The stereo sounds great - I like it when you can feel the bass in your stomach.

Overall the look of the honda hack is only subtly changed by this update. Most of the new tubing is hidden. The exposed dash sides are not obvious either. I dig the new side view mirror location.

And the darker interior color is sublime - makes me smile...

 

[KargoMaster]

Overall the look of the Honda Hack is only subtly changed by this update...

But it is exactly this subtlety that I appreciate most... It's not easy... specific, and well earned... WELL DONE BOB!!!

...get out there cruisin' the suburban streets - spreading confusion and joy...

Still one of my favorite mental images from this build...

 

[ControlBob]

Thanks Brad. I am having fun. And it is very nice connect to likeminded folks like you thru the interweb. I have been finishing off the details of this 2021 update. First issue was that freakin' airbag light was still on. I tried resetting the connector with the sequence of paperclipping the reset connector and cycling the key - no dice. I started to do the blinky code procedure with the OBD-II connectors, but that connector is incredibly difficult to access because of the steel bar running across the door opening. I have done the contortionist move to get a view of the pins on the connector before, but I am getting older and I treated myself to a $175 Foxwell NT-510 scanner from Amazon that can read and reset airbag codes. It worked well but took a while to figure out the unintuitive menu navigation. So my 04-1 code was likely an issue with the wiring to passenger side belt tensioner (those following along will recall, I had to rewire those connectors when I upgraded to the 2006 and later seats)

I double checked my wiring, which all looked good, and unplugged and replugged in the connectors and then reset the airbag light again. This time it did not come back!

Next up was a fun easter egg. With the dash plastics painted a darker color, the bright shiny silver H emblem in the steering wheel stuck out like a sore thumb. I though about swapping to a JDM red or blue badge, but they are not the right vibe. I decided to buy some clear paint and tint it with the 1:1 shade of blackish green and apply it over the silver H to make greenish H. I painted some scrap aluminum with gloss back to simulate the look of the badge so I could experiment with different shades and numbers of coats....

So when I had a good formula, I painted the H on the wheel. I could not find my thin bendy tape, so I went with the less elegant overlapping straight tape which was working fine until I lifted an edge of the paint in the upper right corner when pulling the tape off.

I tried to touch it up but just made things worse, so I waited overnight and sanded and touched up the edge with tint and then sprayed the badge once more. I am proud of myself for not getting angry at the mistake a - the benefit of getting older and more mellow - younger me would have cursed and thrown things! The final result is very nice.

As I was doing the H tint project, I was thinking the bikini top hardware was also too bright - they are polished stainless steel. I also put a darker mix of the tint on those. Looks much better...

I am going to try to slip in one more task on the Hack before I more on to other projects for the rest of the year...

 

[KargoMaster]

...I treated myself to a $175 Foxwell NT-510 scanner...

There's nothing better than the right tool for the job... (and nothing worse than being forced to make due with a marginal tool.)

Glad to hear you're enjoying the work... the joy certainly makes all the effort (even those efforts unnoticed by others) completely worth it.
Now I gotta get my butt in gear for my offroad toy... Thanks for the inspiration!

Brad

 

[ControlBob]

Hi All, I am winding up the 2021 updates. First up was an issue where the side view mirrors were vibrating too much. The sheet metal on the sides of the dash is really thin, so I needed to add more support.

I added this little tab and drilled and tapped the body seam to hold it in place.

Here it is after welding and painting. Weld looks a bit crappy, but good enough to hold it together and the vibration is gone. I am calling that a win.

Next is an update to the rear bumper and bike rack.

First, I cut the tube bumper off the car.

This shows how rusty the stock rear bumper support was behind the tube bumper. The plan is to remove this bumper support and remount the tube bumper in closer to the body and a little higher than it was before.

I had to cut the bumper support off the car in sections - the nuts were so rusty that I could not get a socket to fit tight enough to turn them. I think I got one nut off cleanly, the second sheared the stud off and the third and fourth needed lovin' from the saws all.

I welded the bumper to the body and hitch in a few places and painted her up. I trimmed about a half inch off the hitch receiver to tuck that flush with the bumper. Then I mocked up the bike rack to measure how much closer and could get it to the bumper.

Aftere some cutting and grinding, here are the smaller parts to rebuild the bike rack. The rack will now stick out a few inches rather than a foot and a half. I also lowered the height of the upper pivot by about 6" which will make loading the bikes and kayak easier.

And here is the base of the bike rack all welded up. I might not be getting much better at welding, but I am getting better at grinding down ugly welds. Practice makes perfect.

Here it is painted and reinstalled with the upper pivoting rack. So much more compact now.

And opened up holding my wife's super cool Bridgestone MB-2 vintage mountain bike.

Planning to tweak the Yonaka exhaust a bit. Exhaust is a bit loud and buzzy - the Yonaka exahust that I bought just has a muffler, no resonator, so I will start with adding a large resonator and see how that goes. And redo the end because it sticks out a bit too far past the bumper now....

 

[ControlBob]

Correction on the exhaust. I have a Injen exhaust rather than a Yonaka - it's even printed on the exhaust tip - doh. Anyway I had to get a 2.25" downturn - just a cheapie off Amazon - instead of the 2.5" that I ordered first. I think it actually sounds better with the Injen tip removed - a little less buzzy. The downturn did not fit great - too small an ID, I did my best to pry it open and jam in on and tighten it up, hopefully it stays put.

And I did some trimming on the plastic inner fender liners to stop the tire from rubbing when I turn the front wheels. Lubed the sway bar links and tie rod ends while I was at it. I really need to do a lift with these larger tires - that will be a project for next year...

 

[ControlBob]

The Honda Hack is getting a few changes for 2022. First, I removed one of the front coil spring and reassembled the strut without it to cycle the suspension and see how much lift was needed to stop the top of the tire hitting the fender when I drove over a big bump. It looked like another .5" was all I needed to get the bump stop to compress before the tire hit the fender, so I went with 1" spacers Aerogenics for both the front and rear. I measured the height of the fender opening above the ground before and after the lift and the front came up about an inch and the rear is up around 1.5" due the different ratio between the wheel motion and the strut motion. That was expected from what I read about the various lift blocks that go on top of the struts. It gives the Honda Hack a bit more rake which is cool.

Adding the spacers to the front struts was super easy. It was a bit harder to reinstall the now longer front struts but was not to bad to fit them back in. I also did the tie rod ends while I was at it.

The rear struts were another story. First issue was the lower mounting bolt on the passenger side was completely rusted solid to the strut bushing. After a bunch of tries, I gave up and cut the bolt.

I tried to drill the bolt out which did not work well and then changed tactics and pushed the entire bushing out. I found another bushing online with the correct OD and ID and pressed it in. It is not the same type of bushing because it can swivel around the axis of the bolt , but with the way the suspension is designed, I don't think it will be a problem. And the bushing was much cheaper than two new rear struts. Fitting the longer rear struts with the spacers back in was a huge PITA and I had to get help from my neighbor and a long prybar to lever the suspension down.

Here is the resulting lift. I reset the front toe and measured the camber front and rear and that all looked good. The wheels and tires look and fit better in the wheel openings - no rubbing anymore. Ride is the same and does not feel taller or tippy with such a slight lift.

 

[ControlBob]

Next up is a change to the grill guard.

You can see the issue in this pic. The grill guard is from a Ford F-150 pickup and it fits great around the hood but the bottom of the vertical panels comes down way too low. Does not look right visually and is bad for the approach angle. It was bugging me so I decided to do something about it.

I did some mock ups in cardboard and also did a cut and paste of the printed picture to get some ideas for how to take a wedge shaped section out to raise the bottom edge up and tilt it back towards the left.

Once I cut the bottom part off, I realized I could flip the removed part around and trim it down so the original edge that I cut is to the left and the original left edge is welded back to the rest of the grill guard. Serendipity.

Then a quick masking and respray of the grill guard.

Another cosmetic thing that bothered me was the rust spots on the bottom part of the front passenger 'door'. The donor door that I used was super rusty there and it had bubbled up the paint and body filler that I tried to cover it up with. Since I was repainting things anyway, I decided to cover the rusty area with an aluminum patch. I got some thin gauge aluminum flashing from Home Depot and bent a 90 degree edge. It was too long for my cheapie harbor freight sheet metal brake so I clamped it to some tile edging and slowly bent it over with a body hammer.

I lined the top edge of the aluminum up with the body line in the door...

Then trimmed the front and back edges, hammered the bottom edge of the aluminum to wrap around the bottom of the door and drilled a bunch of evenly spaced holes for button head bolts and nuts - same size bolts as used to mount the door to the roll cage so it looks a bit planned out.

I figured I would save some time and just repaint the doors with a Preval spray bottle rather than using my larger spray gun and compressor. That was false economy because I wound up repainting the doors more times than I can count. I had issues with orange peel, runs, bad color match, dropping a freshly painted door paint side down in the grass, etc. Oh well...

Here is the final result. The paint kinda matches - the rear door is a bit darker than the front - looks best from this angle - it is close enough.

Overall, I am super happy with the grill guard change and lift. She is ready for more summer fun.

 

[KargoMaster]

I'm continually impressed with your foresight to take pics as you go... It is certainly one of my own shortcomings...

Great stuff my friend, keep it coming!!!

Cheers!
Brad

 

[zze86]

I'm curious, what is the MPG like now that it's even more aerodynamically challenged?

 

[WhereverIMayRoam]

Next up is a change to the grill guard.

View attachment 216421
You can see the issue in this pic. The grill guard is from a Ford F-150 pickup and it fits great around the hood but the bottom of the vertical panels comes down way too low. Does not look right visually and is bad for the approach angle. It was bugging me so I decided to do something about it.

View attachment 216422
I did some mock ups in cardboard and also did a cut and paste of the printed picture to get some ideas for how to take a wedge shaped section out to raise the bottom edge up and tilt it back towards the left.

View attachment 216423
Once I cut the bottom part off, I realized I could flip the removed part around and trim it down so the original edge that I cut is to the left and the original left edge is welded back to the rest of the grill guard. Serendipity.

View attachment 216426
Then a quick masking and respray of the grill guard.

View attachment 216427
Another cosmetic thing that bothered me was the rust spots on the bottom part of the front passenger 'door'. The donor door that I used was super rusty there and it had bubbled up the paint and body filler that I tried to cover it up with. Since I was repainting things anyway, I decided to cover the rusty area with an aluminum patch. I got some thin gauge aluminum flashing from Home Depot and bent a 90 degree edge. It was too long for my cheapie harbor freight sheet metal brake so I clamped it to some tile edging and slowly bent it over with a body hammer.

View attachment 216428
I lined the top edge of the aluminum up with the body line in the door...

View attachment 216429
Then trimmed the front and back edges, hammered the bottom edge of the aluminum to wrap around the bottom of the door and drilled a bunch of evenly spaced holes for button head bolts and nuts - same size bolts as used to mount the door to the roll cage so it looks a bit planned out.

View attachment 216430
I figured I would save some time and just repaint the doors with a Preval spray bottle rather than using my larger spray gun and compressor. That was false economy because I wound up repainting the doors more times than I can count. I had issues with orange peel, runs, bad color match, dropping a freshly painted door paint side down in the grass, etc. Oh well...

View attachment 216434
Here is the final result. The paint kinda matches - the rear door is a bit darker than the front - looks best from this angle - it is close enough.

View attachment 216436
Overall, I am super happy with the grill guard change and lift. She is ready for more summer fun.

Hey, I think we may be neighbors, in the video it looks like you were off-roading near me by the turnpike overpass. I think our mechanic (Tommy at Classic) might have mentioned your E to me a while back too. Would love to connect with you and geek out!
ps I'm especially loving your hood ornament ⚡🌹🐢🐻

 

[ControlBob]

Thanks for the comments! Not sure what the mpg is. I will fill up and reset the trip odo next time and check it. Small world WereverIMayRoam - I sent you a private message about meeting up.

 

[Jbatzmaru]

I read about your E on autotrader.

Autotrader - page unavailable

 

[ControlBob]

I read about your E on autotrader.

Thanks for sending the link - the Honda Hack is famous!

 

[Paul.]

Bumping the honda hack because you seem to be the only person on the internet that has successfully done the 07+ seat swap into the older models. Im doing the conversion now and I'm having a little trouble identifying the positive and negative wires for the door belt tensioner because theyre all the same colors. Any chance you could explain further or post the wiring diagrams you used?