UK 1994 Legend Coupe Daily Build

[adam73bgt]

Hi everyone

Thought I'd stick up a little build thread of my recently purchased KA8, which is going to be a daily driver for me

I've got a couple cars on the go now, I've got an MGB GT which is a long term project and was my first car and I've got a BMW E34 Touring which I'm currently building a stroker M50 engine for so I needed a daily driver

I had been driving a little Toyota Aygo city car, but its not really my sort of thing despite being very cheap to run! Enter the Legend

Always been a fan of them, and saw one come up cheap so figured "why not?"

Pics as collected





Its done about 59k miles, only had 3 owners previous to me. It's not in bad condition but has a few little wiring issues.

First of which was a non opening boot, easily fixed by flicking the valet switch in the glovebox

[adam73bgt]

The first job was to get the tracking sorted as it pulled to the left



It is better now, however having the car up on the ramp higlighted how crusty some of the suspension and bushes looked..

The car had been sat under trees and not used much, so was in dire need of a good clean













It needs claying and polishing really but its a start.

Oh yeah, some of those electrical issues:

• ABS light comes on (now know this is Code 1, ABS pump over run)
  
• Heater fan only works on max speed (thinking this is fan speed resistor)
  
• Air con not working/effective
  
• Aerial clicks after going up or down and doesn't fully retract (needs new mast)
  
• Electric window switches, drivers front window doesn't open on its switch, only opens on drivers rear window switch, drivers rear window doesn't open at all..
  
• Heated rear screen doesn't work
  
• Drivers door speaker is farting will need replacement

On a more positive note though, the interior is in great condition

[adam73bgt]

I dropped it off at my local garage the other day to have the timing belt and water pump done.



The old belt only had about 8000 miles on it but was about 10 years old! Not worth the risk driving on that, even if replacement wasn't particularly cheap...

Alongside this, I'd been getting parts together for giving the engine a service and refreshing the brakes (they did judder a bit)

Service parts aren't too bad to get, but these cars were rare in the UK when new and especially so now! So some bits are harder to come by. Front brake discs are one such item, my local dealer told me that they were discontinued now by Honda but gave me the part number, with which I was lucky enough to find a seller in Germany on ebay, who was selling a NOS pair of genuine discs!



Today I swapped over the front discs and pads, was pretty straightforward. Got a rounded slide pin bolt on one of the rear calipers though so I'll have to do the rear brakes another day

Did trial fit some wheels I had kicking about though







The tyres on the standard wheels were old and a bit bald on the front so I'll run mismatched Rays Volk wheels for a bit as a temporary measure

[Branden]

Beautiful legend! I love the color. And that interior is in amazing shape, wow.

My AC was also only blowing on high. New resistor (transistor) fixed the problem.
And I think your car looks best on the stock wheels in my opinion.

[adam73bgt]

Thanks! Yeah the first owner was a typical older gent who used it as a bit of a weekend car so time has been very kind on the interior

Yeah I need to source one of those resistor/transistor things, tricky to find in the UK for sure

I'm probably going to get the original wheels refurbished as they're suffering from corrosion and old tyres (the spare has its original tyre from 1994 I'm pretty sure haha) and they'll probably go back on at some point

Latest bit of drama/fun, is that my indicators have stopped working, the flasher relay is burnt out and typically they look a pain to find here as well (bit of a pattern emerging!)

[lgnd4u2nv]

Nice pick-up!

[94LegendaryAcuraGS]

Fantastic looking interior! I just picked up one of those resistors (used) and shipped it off yesterday to another Legend owner in the northern part of the US. They don't seem to stop working with any kind of consistent regularity. They are commonly GONE at cars in the salvage parts yards which I guess means they go out enough. I haven't had any issues with either of mine but requests in the southern part of the US are becoming frequent as of late.

[adam73bgt]

Thanks guys To be honest the interior was a big part of what swayed me to buying it

Think I might have solutions for the heater and indicator issues, just waiting for parts to arrive

Got a mate whos handy with electrics so we're going to get the drivers window switch out and see whats what, hopefully we can fix it!

Got a replacement slide pin bolt for the rear caliper so can finish off changing the rear brakes. (Got the pins as well so will change those, the other rear caliper has been recently replaced so should be fine)

Also got to drop the oil and change the spark plugs, then buy some more ATF to flush through/change the autobox fluid.

Oh and flush the brake fluid as it looks old

I might even get a chance to drive it

[Hockeyman]

love it! Keep us updated.

That interior looks amazing

[adam73bgt]

Right, lets keep this updated!

Got a new flasher relay from Rock Auto which gave me indicators again, which is nice!



Also bought a new radiator to swap over at some point (on closer inspection of the front of the car, I'm going to need an AC condensor as well..)



I rolled around for much of this month on the mismatched wheels





Was interesting how much the fronts being wider made the steering feel heavier. Also one of the rears catch the arch on moderately heavy cornering, although I feel the tired suspension isn't helping there..

Anyway, my aim was to get the alloys refurbished, they had a bit of corrosion



Got them back looking nice in Sparkle Silver







I also took the opportunity to fit the rear brakes, but the nearside rear caliper isn't right even with the new slide pins. The piston was very hard to retract so I think I'll just replace that caliper. The offside one had been done already!

Oh and just to show you what I mean by tired suspension...







I think I'm going to have to price everything up on Rock Auto, I'm a bit sceptical of some of the cheaper arms though as I've not heard of some of the companies...

While I was doing all that, an aerial (sorry, antenna ) arrived from the US on the recommendation of 94LegendaryAcuraGS (Thank you by the way!)

Before



After



To my surprise, the old one all came out in one piece! There was a very slight bend in the aerial which didn't let it retract all the way. New one was relatively easy to fit, even if a little awkward trying to feed the aerial in while turning the radio off haha

I've given the car an oil and filter change as it was well due, haven't tackled the ATF just yet though..

Most recently a new transistor arrived for the heater fan speed resistor thing

Got the old unit out



Removed the transistor bit



And soldered/screwed in the new one



Result being that I now have all fan speeds available very happy with that

I did get a new relay for the heated rear screen but still not working so I need to chase the wiring for that with a multimeter

Thats it all up to date! It's being a very nice, comfortable daily driver