A lot of work resulted in a nice car
How We Acquired this 2007 Honda CRV
Broken-down, we towed this 2007 Honda CRV for the previous owner on a Friday afternoon, in the rain, close to rush-hour traffic, in Nashville, TN. The vehicle had overheated, because of a failed water pump. The result was the engine needed to be replaced. Not seeing the potential for what the car could be restored to; the previous owner decided to sell us the CRV instead and go out and buy a new car.
2007 Honda CRV Reconditioning - Mechanically
First, a replacement engine
Our service department installed a JDM engine in this CRV. For those unfamiliar with this engine option - JDM engines are removed from Honda vehicles that are located in Japan. In Japan, the vehicles are only driven for a certain number of years and then the cars are taken off the road. These vehicles typically have low mileage and there are businesses that go to Japan and remove these low-mileage Honda engines and ship them to America, prior to the vehicle being crushed. The engine we installed in this 2007 Honda CRV is the same size / type Honda engine as the original one that was replaced in this CRV and the 'new' engine performs as it should. Prior to driving, we also installed a new radiator to ensure top-performance of the engine cooling system.
Suspension Replaced
After the replacement engine was installed; we drove the vehicle, and it obviously needed some new suspension items to restore the good ride it had when it was new. The original struts (both front and rear) were replaced with new (KYB - made in Japan) strut assemblies. In addition, the right rear hub bearing was making too much noise, so we replaced it too.
After the mechanical needs
When our service department had completed their assignments on this 2007 Honda CRV; then we needed to clean it up, both inside and out. So we painted the entire vehicle, using top-shelf PPG paints and while the doors were removed; we were able to thoroughly clean the interior. 'If a picture is worth a1000 words', then just take a look below:
The interior Cleaning of the 2007 Honda CRV
With the doors removed
In this stage of the restoration, the roof and quarter panels have been refinished, wet sanded and buffed
Interior Cleaning Accessed
The doors have been dis-assembled (exterior handle / trim and weatherstrips) and the doors are in the paint booth, on panel stands to be repainted. This allows quick and easy removal of the front seats, which greatly helped in a thorough cleaning of this 2007 Honda CRV.
The power of steam
The majority of our cleaning techniques rely on steam cleaning first. This helps minimize cleaning chemicals with (many times) over-powering fragrance odor and color fading of interior. Steam cleaning breaks the soils loose and a good wipe down afterward makes a powerful difference in 'before and after' condition.
The Door Panels - painting and wet sand - 2007 Honda CRV
A Common Misconception
Concerning automotive painting -quality of finish is heavily influenced by the texture of the finish - orange peel is a common result of automotive paint that dries too quickly and detracts from the 'wet-look' of the original factory finish. Many people assume that after painting, the work is complete. However, many times for a real quality finish, after painting an automotive panel; it needs to be wet sanded and then buffed and polished.
After wet sanding
The finish of the door panels were buffed with a 3M cutting compound and then polished with the same automotive power buffer but using a different buffing pad and 3M chemical.
Then re-assemble the door and re-install
As you can see in the photo, the exterior door handle and the lower molding is still removed from the door. NOTE: New mower moldings were installed on all 4 doors during re-assembly.