Back with the CR-V

I got back late Wednesday night - actually around 1 AM Thursday morning. I had planned to be back by 8 PM, but I started driving and noticed squeaking from the rear wheel. It turned out the CR-V needed brakes. Fortunately, the dealer sent me to a friend of his shop who did the brakes for a reasonable price immediately, and only took about an hour. Anyway, I didn't get back on the road until after 3.

So about the car, aside from the needing brakes thing, it's amazing! There are only a few very minor imperfections on the car which can be fixed pretty easily. There is almost NO visible wear on the upholstery or dash elements. There are bulbs behind the temperature and cruise controls but I'll have the dash apart for the conversion anyway. Maybe I'll switch all bulbs to LED, we'll see. Aside from that, there are two spots on the doors where the upholstery is a little loose (can be fixed easily with some fabric glue). The only rust on the car is on the hood where gravel or something must have scratched the paint. No biggie, I'll have the hood painted. There is practically NO rust on the undercarriage either.  We'll definitely be rustproofing this car as a first order of business!

Here we have overexposed [stationary] action shots of the car after I got home.  Of course it was dark, so I had to set a long shutter speed to get a remotely decent shot.  And I was tired, so I was not about to dig out a tripod to eliminate the camera shake.

AND this thing runs like a dream. I almost feel bad about gutting the engine bay, it runs that nice. It's already so quiet, you can't even hear the engine to tell you when to shift gears.