welland99

Not a report from TODAY, but from about a week ago: After a few weeks of not being used, I took my coupe out for 3 separate journeys in one day 😁, and something broke 😣. Luckily, it's only a blown stoplight bulb; I think I have a spare somewhere in my garage!

Are the rear discs the same on CG2 and CG4? Details will be in a thread somewhere on here.

Definitely look bright. Do the new LED ones respond to the dimmer control?

My rear wheel arches have a wavy shape along their inner edges, like yours. I've always wondered what caused them, but suspected that a very minor impact in a car park might have been related (caused by another car). Or, is it a feature (ahem) of our coupes?

On the subject of rust treatments, I noticed last week that Wilko is selling jenolite rust remover and rust converter for £10 for 500g. This looks like a good price. I've never used rust remover, but have been thinking of getting some for a while. Does anybody have an opinion about jenolite?

Thanks Stu. Apology was not necessary at all, and certainly no rush..... 🙂

This worked perfectly for me. 😉

Hi Stu, do you still happen to have the photos of removal of the shock absorbers by any chance?

Hi All, so this saga comes to a happy ending. The moral of the tale is to buy blueprint suspension parts, not Q-drive. The attached pic is the as-fitted blueprint arm. As Dave suggested, before fitting either of the new arms, I just tried them in the kuckle socket before removing the Q-Drive arm with the stripped threads. It was plain to see that the Blueprint one allowed more of the spigot through the hole than the Q-Drive one, so the decision was made to fit Blueprint This brings me to schoolboy error (1): Having considered the possibility of fitting the wrong arm (because I had two new ones), I thought I had fitted the correct one. However, after screwing in the bush bolts, I discovered that I had in fact fitted Q-Drive (2) instead of Blueprint (1). So I lost time with removing that one. Schoolboy error 2. When I came to refit the wheel, only three wheel nuts could be found. I searched high and low for 15 minutes, but it didn't turn up. Luckily, I had some spare nuts, so i proceeded to fit one. I later discoverd the missing wheel nut stuck to the outside of my magnetic tray. I think that I must have put the dish down next to the wheel nuts and one became attached to the magnet under the in the dish. Doh!

It's all done now 😀 ...... but not without a couple of minor hitches along the way. I'll share details later, got a couple of urgent things to do now.

Blueprint on the right. QDrive on the left. Fingers crossed.... off to get my overalls on.

That's difficult to determine because the wide end is hidden inside the boot. However: the length of the threaded part looks the same on all of them The overall length of the ball joint from tip of the threads to the outside face of the cup does seem longer on the blueprint one - but I realise this may not be conclusive. Fingers are crossed.

On my kitchen floor, I now have three suspension arms and an extra ball joint, plus the complete arm with stripped threads on the car. I've carefully examined all the items in the kitchen for differences....... It looks like the diameter of the thin end of the taper on the blueprint ball joint is a little smaller than the Q drive unit. That may be the key. I note that the Blueprint unit has coome with a nyloc nut instead of a castle nut. The friction of the nyloc is greater than the friction in the ball joint: so when tightening the nut by hand in my kitchen, the taper is turning. The end of the thread does not have a hexagon to hold the taper still. What is the technique for holding the taper from rotating until the friction in the joint holds it still?

Thanks Dave. On my first attempt, I did grease the taper for corrosion protection, and even then, the friction did hold. On later attempts, I had cleaned all the grease off, and will keep it dry today. I did look inside the hole and it was all clean and shiny, without any trapped debris. The blueprint arm has just arrived, so will have a go at fitting it after lunch.

So, the blueprint arm is due for delivery this morning, and I'll try to have a go at fitting it this afternoon. I hope it fits better than the Qdrive one. Stu, did you get chance to have a look at the ADH28651 to see if you think it is the correct part? Couple of questions about fitting the ball joint: 1) When tightening the nut, is the aim to cause any deformation of the tapered spiggot? I mean is it meant to be a perfect fit as manufactured, or is it meant to deform into the hole to make a perfect fit? 2) Does anybody know the correct torque setting for the nut? If I still have the same problem as before (insufficient thread through the hole), I may just leave it at that as long as I can get the correct torque without stripping the thread, and if I can find a way to get the pin through the hole too (possible enlargement of the pin hole). I found reference to some torque values for a different Accord here - wondering if they are OK on my coupe: 3) Should the taper be greased before assembly, or left dry?

If they want to play games with prices, I will too!😁

Dave, you are right - that photo does make it look like they are not the same length. I've just had a good look at them again (they're in my kitchen right now!) and it's a really difficult thing to measure. But, so far as I can tell, they are the same. It's just the perspective in the photo that makes them look different lengths. I've put a length of bar through both bushes and tried to measure the perpendicular through the centre of the ball joint. If they are of different lengths, the difference is tiny (a couple of mm), and I cannot detect this. At the present time, I have three of these arms. 😆. The old one and a new Q-drive one which I got from ECP at £8 today are in my kitchen. The other Q drive one with the stripped threads is on the car. The wheel camber does not look off, and the car handling seems unchanged. After I got the new Q drive one, I found a blueprint ADH28651 on the tinterweb for £36 and ordered that too - should be here on wednesday. Wierdly, none of my local parts factors could get the blueprint item. The plan is to try the blueprint one on Wednesday. If that's OK, I'll return the Qdrive ones to ECP. If they're not happy to refund the one with stripped threads because I broke it, I'll return today's new one against the original invoice from last month, for which I paid about £35.

Here are some pics to compare my old arm of unknown manufacturer, possibly original, with the new Q-Drive unit from ECP. They both have the code S84L stamped into them, whatever that means...?

Stu, a question about Blueprint. Are they connected with Febi Bilstein? With your good experience with blueprint, from the febi bilstein online catalogue, they show: OEM 51460-S84-A01 = Febi 42171 = Blueprint ADH28651. Would you agree that these two look a suitable replacement? Now to find a stockist where I can get one of these ASAP at decent price. They're on ebay around £36 with delivery later in the week, but I could do with one quicker from a local stockist. Do you know of a febi / blueprint stockist finder? I'm not confident with the Moog catalogue findings, as the following cross references don't work properly. OEM 51460-S84-A01 = MOOG HO-WP-0823. But the other way around, MOOG HO-WP-0823 = OEM 51460-S1A-E01= BLUE PRINT ADH28630 = FEBI BILSTEIN 23755

Thanks Stu. I forget the generation numbers and lifted the number 7 from the moog catalogue. They must have it wrong, as they have 6th gen as the early to late 1990s.

Stu, which blueprint catalogue do you use? I'm trying to see if the ball joint for the CG4 is different to the other UK models. You said earlier that the UK models have a different control arm - do you mean that the control arm itself is different, or different ball joint?

Erm.... no.

Just been looking at these moog suspension control arms, and further confusion arises. From the link at rockauto, I can see that the Rock part no RK620284 is for the left front upper wishbone. Clicking through this part cross references 51460S84A01 which is indeed referenced on Lings Honda. What is does not say is the Moog part number. Looking at the online catalogue on moogparts.co.uk, I have looked up a CG2, a CG4, and all the Mk7 hatchbacks from 99 to 02 (CH & CL). They all show the same moog part number for left hand upper: https://www.moogparts.co.uk/catalogue.html#fitment_id=10027 part number HO-WP-0823. Deep sigh!

The new Qdrive arm looks identical to the old one I removed. The only way in which it looks different is in the distance that the spigot pulls through the hole. I even measured the taper with a vernier and compared it to my old one. The small end of the taper was the same size too (I didn't measure it at the wide end). It's baffling isn't it? Stu, which brand of upper suspension arms have you been fitting?

I had no trouble with the spigot from the knuckle spinning. It did pull tight in the hole and the friction stopped it spinning. As I was tightening the nut, I kept hoping it would pull through further, but it didn't. When the thread stripped on the spigot, I initially thought that the friction on the taper had lost its bite, but it hadn't. When I took the nut off, the spigot was definitely tight in the hole and released only with the tap of a hammer on the side of the joint.