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Found a little satin silver 01 civic LX for sale on kijiji. Seller asking only $1000 with 225,000km on it. All the power toys, cruise, AC, etc etc...seller emails me and says he has a buyer at $650 but if I can get there within a couple of hours for $700 I can have it. I jumped all over that offer and the seller admitted upfront there was a crack in the exhaust manifold ( not as if you couldn't just hear that) and the CEL light was on for a evap code and the SRS light was on due to faulty switch in the seatbelt latch. The seller had the car faithfully serviced at the Honda dealer and had a glovebox full of Honda dealer receipts to verify his story. Here in Ontario you have to provide a used vehicle information package too so I knew for a fact he'd owned the vehicle since 2003 and was the second owner. Long story short, I happily purchase the vehicle and returned a little later with some plates to drive it to the shop.

Luckily for me and for the Civic, my GF family owns an auto parts store and a garage as well. That same night we put the civic on the rack and repaired the exhaust manifold with an arc welder and a new flange kit. Left car there for a safety inspection the next day. Next day arrives and the mechanic has bad news. Even though the body looks quite good for a 2001 it's the undercarriage you can't see that's been destroyed by the ravages of salt. Given what I paid his opinion was to scrap the car for its mechanicals and dispose of it in the scrap metal yard. I'd stand to make a few bucks and could go find something else.

Decided no, I love the fact that mechanically the car was very well maintained and there's really almost nothing that can't be fixed given some time and effort. Now I'll admit, if I was paying for the time required to restore this civic it wouldn't have been cost effective. That being said, here's the laundry list of what was done. Car spent 9 days in the hospital btw...

1) cut out the rotted inner rockers and pinch welded in new ones
2) replaced all the brake lines
3) cut off old bumper rebar and replaced with new one
4) replaced wheel cylinders
5) replaced brake proportioning valve
6) replaced clutch cable
7) replaced lower control arms
8) under coated the entire undercarriage to discourage further rust
9) replaced purge valve for evap canister

After we reset the CEL, slapped a trip permit plate on her and drove it for a few days before the emissions testing. It passed on the first try ( no small feat as 70% of cars are now failing the new Ontario emissions testing) and I used the paper clip trick to reset SRS light which is still currently off. Polished the headlights to like new condition, detailed the interior, added a nice momo shifter ****, and I'm thrilled with the results. Only other additions will be a strut brace and a cold air intake as those are just freebies laying around the store collecting dust.

Mike