1994 Honda Legend Coupe - Gone! 20/4

Some may have seen from my MG thread that there have been some developments, I've got a new daily now for the time being in the shape of what used to be my brothers Jag S Type Sport







So that's taken a bit of pressure off getting the Legend back on the road, unfortunately I'm also on the job hunt due to Covid related cutbacks at work, so thats going to delay any bodywork on the Legend.

However I did make a bit of progress with it today, it's not going to look like much but it was quite a pain trying to get both the upper and lower control arms in at both ends while also fully home on the radius arms.





But thats the drivers rear side all back together, just need to put the split pins in the ball joint castle nuts. Next I'll either drop this side with a wheel to see how the ride height looks, or I'll crack on with the other side

Thank you, I hope so too!

Yeah I've looked at them occasionally but never really felt the need to actively hunt one down, but the interior spec and the 3 pedals certainly made this one a lot more attractive to me! (even if the gearchange itself is a bit loose..)

Few more days, bit more work. I got the nearside rear suspension all torqued up and started looking at setting the suspension height. In the last update, I was way off! So I did a bit of experimentation using a wheel fitted and jacked up to check the ride height after making height adjustments.

This is where I got to







The fitment in the arch is fine, just need to take a bit more height out. I'm leaving it there for the moment though as I needed to get the car back mobile to move it about on the drive, and I'll wait until I've worked out my wheel/tyre combo. More on that in a moment though.

I turned my attention to the front coilovers ahead of getting the car back on its wheels, was going well as the front struts are quite easy to remove, undo the pinch bolt and lower strut bol, separate the strut fork from the strut then remove the strut after undoing the top mount nuts.

A page or so back, I mentioned that I was going to use Accord CL7/ Acura TSX lower strut forks. These are the same as the Legend where it mounts to the lower control arm, but take the smaller diameter damper strut body of the coilover.



There is an issue however



Hard to photograph, but basically the Accord strut fork doesn't sweep back as much as the Legend one so one side of it is very close to and indeed touching the CV boot. It's only light but its enough that I'm sure would end up with a torn boot and grease everywhere. I've looked at mk3 Legend bits but I don't think they'll help, grinding a little bit of the fork to clear is another option but it doesn't feel right to be grinding suspension components! The last option is to put the Legend forks back on, but machine up a sleeve to allow the fitment of the coilover strut. I think I'll end up doing the latter, just need to have a chat with a mate who has a lathe

Anyway, I still needed to move the car, so I chucked some wheels on and eventually got it back on the ground











It's getting there, the front right is still on just the lowering springs until I sort out the fork issues.

The tyres and wheels I put on are a bit of a mish-mash. On the front are the 8j splits that I've had on the rear previously but plan to use on the fronts this time. On the rear are two different wheels which I have for sale currently but gave me an opportunity to play around with some specs; the rear left is a 9j with a 235/45 r17 tyre and the rear right is a different offset 8j with a 225/50 r17 tyre.

The rear right tyre is a bit chunky and is basically on the arch lip haha. Ultimately I think I'm going to have the 9.5j splits on the rear with 235/45 r17 tyres (handily I can nick these tyres from the front wheels), then for the fronts it will be the 8j splits with 215/45 r17 tyres which I have in my small stash of 17" tyres

So a half finished job on the suspension, once I've got tyres on the right wheels, the front cv boot clearance sorted and found a way to mount the brake pipes to the front struts, it should be about golden on that front! Moving the car around did highlight that the Air Con doesn't appear to be working again, my guess is all the gas has gone, so putting in my new condensor is definitely on the list of jobs to do!

Looks much better with the rust holes nearer the ground.

Hope you get the forks issue sorted out easily enough, would shaving off a few mm off with a die grinder be enough without weakening the fork?

Oo that would be great if you could please? I'll have a measure of the legend forks later on



It certainly helps take the rust further out of the eyeline 😂 I suspect I probably could get away with grinding back the fork a bit, it's not totally clear how much would have to come off, but they're not usable as they are anyway so probably worth a go..



That thought did cross my mind as well, might be possible as long as the Legend doesn't use some odd bellows size. The main thing that puts me off doing that though is that the boots are in quite good condition and it would be a messy job to change them 😂

A quick update. Spoke to my mate with the lathe, next week we should be having a look at making some sort of sleeve to resolve the front coilover issue so that should be that sorted.

I got my tyres and wheels sorted out so that I've got the wheel and tyre combo's that I'm planning to run now. To recap this means 17"x8" front wheels with 215/45 r17 tyres and 17"x9.5" rear wheels with 235/45 r17 tyres. The fronts I'm not too worried about but I knew on the rears that the 9.5" wheels might be pushing things a bit; the tyres are stretched slightly but it's very subtle which is what I wanted.









I do need to roll the arch lip (or in the case of the rusted areas, rebuild then roll the lip ) and the ride height may be able to come down a smidge, but otherwise that is about perfect, so I'm very happy with that.

No photos but another job I sorted was to make the centre caps for the RAYS fit. Ever since I had them and the wheel centres powdercoated, they've never fit together quite right, so I did a bit of sanding to make the caps fit and sprayed a bit of clear lacquer on the bare alloy bits to stave off any corrosion.

I've also bought some shorter "tuner" wheel nuts so that the caps will actually fit over them! Just in the process of sorting out a tool to tighten down the big centre cap nuts now.

As it was raining today, I decided to have a look at a job inside the car which I've been meaning to do for ages. Working out why the rear demist doesn't work.

A while back I tried a different relay to see if that was the issue but it didn't fix it. There was a break in one of the demister lines which I painted back in but no luck either. With the rear seat and parcel shelf out, it was a good opportunity to check out the wiring for the demister to see if I was getting power there; the connections are hidden behind the C pillar trims which are clipped in place and carefully pull off.

This side was fine



But what about the passenger side?





Well that certainly isn't going to work... The rear screen has been replaced at some point in the past I think which I assume is when this broke. Rather than trying to solder the broken bit back in place, I figured it would be easier to add a little wire, still plugs into the stock wiring loom.



So that should be that fixed. Another thing to tick off the list as per below:



The brakes are semi bled, need doing again though as the travel is looong. While I've got the car in the air I should be able to do the transmission fluid change, sort the heatshield and probably start tackling the radiator and condensor. Front coilovers should be sorted next week hopefully.

The more jobs I tick off, means I'm getting closer to having to sort out the rust.. I've already started scoping out cheap mig welders in preparation

Please don't cut the panel, replace it as a whole or cut just above the B & C post it will be a much nicer job and you will then be sure its not going to be full of filler where the body shop has just noshed the wheel arch section on!

Hmm interesting, I was thinking it would be best to avoid fitting the whole thing as that means getting into removing the rear screen etc. etc. but I hear what you both say in terms of it being a cleaner repair. It makes sense that after actually being able to find a panel like this that I get the best use out of it!

I suppose this is also the side that was hit by the Tesco van towards the end of last year and was subsequently repaired by an accident repair place, so there is likely filler in there already that could be eradicated by the fitting of the whole (or most of) the new panel...

I've got plenty of time to think about it anyway as I'm in no particular rush to get it sorted thanks to my ongoing Covid enforced job situation. I did want to try and get the Legend out to the Weekender at the very least this year and while it does have MOT until November thanks to the extension, whether its really worth driving a holey car all that way or not remains to be seen.

I do have an alternative Retro Ride for the Weekender should I have to leave the Legend at home in the form of my brother's new Saab 9000



@grumpynorthener I may shoot a PM your way to get a bit more of an idea of the work involved, thanks

This is such a smart looking thing. Good to see a bit of progress.