Learn me 1980 Honda Accord

Someone near me is selling a 1980 Honda Accord; it's mint at a very very good price (remarkably not rusty). I'm trying to convince mi madre to let me pick it up as a first car. She seemed to like it, we went and looked at it today for a while. The only problem is that I know next to nothing about these cars. All I know is that it has a 1.8 a 5-speed and looks like a blast. Does this share parts with anything else easier to find? Do they have any problems? Anything I should know in general? Any help would be awesome.

heres the CL link: https://bham.craigslist.org/cto/5672899127.html

70hp sounds extremely exciting in modern traffic. Parts seem cheap and mostly readily available from what ive seen on rock auto though.

That is a $1000 car AFTER the timing belt is replaced......

Bargain accordingly....(God I love bad puns)

Rog

That was my first car. I learned to drive with it. I stole it from my mom when I was 10 or so, stalled it a couple of blocks from my house and a neighbor took me back to my house. I can still see my mom's face as she was pedaling a bycicle looking for me.

She bought the car new in 1980 and I inherited as my first car in 1993. It was a cool little car, wish I still had it.

I paid $500 for a 1981 model when I needed my first car. It was cleaner and ran like a top, but also a sedan. Good little car, and I have lots of fond memories. The coolest feature was the cable actuated locks for the rear doors.

Long story short... I wouldn't pay that much for one with rust and a good bit of interior wear. It's not all that exciting to drive.

That was, by far, the most reliable car that you could buy in 1980.

In reply to Woody:

I think the Corollas of the time were also completely bulletproof.

Those four slot wheels are the ones that I used to run on my 1979 Civic autocrosser. They were half an inch wider than all the other Accord steel wheels.

My first car was an '82 Accord--one generation newer. For reference, I paid $2000 for it back in 1989. At the time, it was perfect (and just broken in). Was it fun? Yeah. Was it fast? Um, not terribly, and that was by the day's standards. I'd buy one again, though.

In reply to Woody:

Thats a bold statement considering you could get a volvo 240 or anything gm with a sbc that year as well. I have seen a million 1980 sbc but never have i seen a 1980 1.8 honda in my life, much less the accord it came in..

I think that the car is priced a little high, but if you buy it, try to find a copy of this book. It will be hard to find, but it will teach you everything you need to know about fixing one of those cars, and many others as well.

I have a copy, but you can't have it.

It's priced high if it has rust as they describe. We had a 79 accord and it was a great car.

The rust isn't as bad as the ad makes it sound. But I know him personally and he's very motivated to sell it so I have some bargaining room. Is the aftermarket just non-existent outside mad JDM wheels?

In reply to NoPermitNeeded:

your going to be wanting the 50% discount or walk... and afaik theres zero aftermarket other than the standard grm slap whatever motor you want in there provided you have the welder, time, skill, and resources.

Yeah, there's no off the shelf aftermarket. If you get this it would be a great commuter car around town. I daily drove an '83 Civic wagon for a year, and while it was the slowest thing around, I got 45 MPG on the highway and the only thing I ever did was replace the accessory belt when the old one split in half. Mileage is nice and it looks clean. I would say it's $1000 overpriced, but the Weber upgrade is supposed to be great for driveability and is something like $400 by itself

NoPermitNeeded wrote: The rust isn't as bad as the ad makes it sound. But I know him personally and he's very motivated to sell it so I have some bargaining room. Is the aftermarket just non-existent outside mad JDM wheels?

Bolt-on aftermarket exists if you have a time machine. If I remember correctly, Kamei made a sweet from air dam for the car. Pacesetter (and maybe Ansa) might have offered a header and/or exhaust.

chiodos wrote: In reply to Woody: Thats a bold statement considering you could get a volvo 240 or anything gm with a sbc that year as well. I have seen a million 1980 sbc but never have i seen a 1980 1.8 honda in my life, much less the accord it came in..

Now hold it right there, young fella: The bold statement made was your very own.

Anybody who was alive in 1980 knows that the reason you've never seen a 1980 1.8 Honda or the Accord it came in, is because they had all hit 350,000 miles and rusted in half by the time that you were born.

GM built a lot of reliable SBCs both before and after, but few would argue that 1980 was a high point for domestic reliability.

Volvos of that era were certainly a lot tougher, but Honda was really on the money when it came to seamless mechanical reliability back then. Volvo was already using oxygen sensors at that point, but Honda didn't even need to have catalytic converters to meet emission standards outside of California. It was Lambda Sond vs. CVCC.

And it's a safe bet that the original owner of that Accord paid full MSRP or more and then waited a few months for the car to arrive in the country. But he was so happy when it did.

The world was a very different place back then. Get off my lawn.

David S. Wallens wrote:

NoPermitNeeded wrote: The rust isn't as bad as the ad makes it sound. But I know him personally and he's very motivated to sell it so I have some bargaining room. Is the aftermarket just non-existent outside mad JDM wheels?

Bolt-on aftermarket exists if you have a time machine. If I remember correctly, Kamei made a sweet from air dam for the car. Pacesetter (and maybe Ansa) might have offered a header and/or exhaust.

I really miss Kamei air dams. Every cool import had one back in the day.

Jackson Racing and A-T Engineering were the places to go for early Honda performance parts.

I was lucky enough to visit all three of those businesses back in the 80's.

In reply to Woody:

I bought a 78 Honda Accord (first year), we waited a couple of months, dealer informed us our car was being delivered if we wanted the Sable paint. We picked it up and never had a problem with the car. I had been working as a mechanic in domestic dealerships for 10 years at the time. I experienced the poor build quality, reliability/drivability issues of the domestics. We bought Hondas for the next 15 years.

If doing a first-gen Accord, it really needs to be Arcadia Green Pearl:

My neighbor's was green.

My Accord, like so many of them, was Sky Blue:

(And that's not my Accord. Nice 'stache, though.)

I'd wonder why it needed a head gasket..... Poor ownership, leaky cooling system??

oh I think I've met the owner of this accord at a VW show before he bought it

outasite wrote: In reply to Woody: I bought a 78 Honda Accord (first year), we waited a couple of months, dealer informed us our car was being delivered if we wanted the Sable paint. We picked it up and never had a problem with the car. I had been working as a mechanic in domestic dealerships for 10 years at the time. I experienced the poor build quality, reliability/drivability issues of the domestics. We bought Hondas for the next 15 years.

Aside from a Spitfire and early Toyota Corona, my parents had driven GM cars for decades. Then they got an '84 Accord. No disrespect to the domestics, but that Honda was amazing. It was followed by a string of Maximas.

It's funny how small they are by today's standards. At the time, that was the big Honda.

When I was in school, everyone--like, everyone--drove an early-'80s Accord. Here, found a pic of mine:

And, yes, that's an old SCCA sticker on the windshield.

Woody wrote:

chiodos wrote: In reply to Woody: Thats a bold statement considering you could get a volvo 240 or anything gm with a sbc that year as well. I have seen a million 1980 sbc but never have i seen a 1980 1.8 honda in my life, much less the accord it came in..

Now hold it right there, young fella: The bold statement made was your very own. Anybody who was alive in 1980 knows that the reason you've never seen a 1980 1.8 Honda or the Accord it came in, is because they had all hit 350,000 miles and rusted in half by the time that you were born. GM built a lot of reliable SBCs both before and after, but few would argue that 1980 was a high point for domestic reliability. Volvos of that era were certainly a lot tougher, but Honda was really on the money when it came to seamless mechanical reliability back then. Volvo was already using oxygen sensors at that point, but Honda didn't even need to have catalytic converters to meet emission standards outside of California. It was Lambda Sond vs. CVCC. And it's a safe bet that the original owner of that Accord paid full MSRP or more and then waited a few months for the car to arrive in the country. But he was so happy when it did. The world was a very different place back then. Get off my lawn.

Maybe i should have mentioned i have 750,000 miles worth of 1980s volvo iron in my driveway. Not to mention cars dont rust in half where im from, they dont rust at all actually.