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Hi everyone, I recently bought a 2004 RL I believe it's the champagne color (light gold) with 308k miles on the clock. Really clean interior and exterior is what sold me on it. The timing belt broke on it and bent 6 valves. I've already pulled the engine and am prepping the replacement now with 109k. Hoping to get it running very soon.
I currently drive a 99 ES300 and while I love the car it is way too soft in the corners and I don't want to put big money towards aftermarket suspension since its the lowest trim and needs a paint job. Looking forward to enjoying the RL.
I was thinking of getting a lower mileage transmission in while I have the engine out but my budget is really tight right now until I sell one of my other cars so I figured I'll just get it running and do everything else later.
Looks like it's been cared for, engine is very clean inside, no sludge at all. I was shocked when I opened it up, I've seen motors with 50k look much worse. Bringing her home Random cats decided to help
Replacement engine on the right, preping old engine for extraction
Nice. Change all the fluids when you do the engine. This car uses gear oil in the diff. Valvoline 75w140 works fine for me, but you can experiment as you like. You can still buy new valves for these engines. Even the OEM intake valves are shown as still available. On another note, I wouldn't change the trans on these cars if you don't have to. They don't fail like other Honda trans of this era. The only common failure point for the trans is the extension shaft gets rusty from dried grease and strips the gear in the transmission. Figure out a method to get that out without the OEM tool as that is on backorder for several months at least if not discontinued.
Alright thanks for that info. Yeah I've seen valves they're not too expensive, i think I'm going to rebuild rhe original engine slowly and maybe put it back in later for the cool factor of having that many miles lol
I noticed the seal where the torque converter slides into seems to have been leaking so I'll see if I can get that swapped before I put it back together to at least have one less leak.
What about the diff, I've seen them fail apparently with higher miles, kind of hard to find specific info tho. Also did any stock application come with an LSD or something of the sort, like the legend by chance?
No. No aftermarket or any special variants. The Legend never came with a LSD. I kinda think that only the ratios and the housing material changed in the 2G Legends. Know the type IIs came with a cast iron diff. The reason why they fail is that people don't know to change the gear oil. Mine went 186K without a change! Yeah, not the best for its longevity. Still going strong though at 223K miles.
No worries, my dad ended up stopping by to see what's up right as I realized my mistake and we ended up getting it done together. Now it's installed properly lol
to be continued tomorrow perhaps
Was tightening the diff bolt to the transmission and ended up cracking the diff housing. There was a gap between the two and I should've loosened the diff mounting bolts to give it some play....
Now gott remove the diff to swap out or repair. Anyone have experience with repairs on these, is JB weld a viable option for the time being until I source a replacement?
Was tightening the diff bolt to the transmission and ended up cracking the diff housing. There was a gap between the two and I should've loosened the diff mounting bolts to give it some play....
Now gott remove the diff to swap out or repair. Anyone have experience with repairs on these, is JB weld a viable option for the time being until I source a replacement?
Only 2 options are replace diff or have the crack welded by a machinist/welder. DO NOT JB WELD. Really bad idea to do that. Could ruin the insides if the housing shatters.
Yeah the strain would probably crack it really quickly with jb weld lol
I'm gonna try to hit up pick n pull this week and get a replacement, looks like there's 2 older RLs locally. They all work from 96-04 correct?
Think so, but the 99-04 diff assemblies have a different part # compared to the 96-98 diffs. Might be just a casting/minor design change, but I'm not sure. Try to get a facelift diff so that it fits correctly.
Spent several hours at the junk yard pulling the diff but wasnt able to get it to come out. Everything unbolted subframe dropped but need to also loosen the engine from the transmission so that there's so room. Prying the diff from the engine it butts into the transmission and won't let it go any more to pop it off the extension shaft.
small dumb mistake and lot of work to fix it lol
I figure if I have to remove my engine again to r&r the diff then I'll swap the engine mounts while I'm there. Has anyone used aftermarket mounts? I found a set on Amazon for 100 for the main 2 mounts and ebay has similar products. Nothing on rockauto. Just wanna see if they're decent/comparable to oem quality?
Ehh. You're on your own on the mounts. Try to test the vacuum first before putting them in. And you don't have to remove the engine for the diff. Just the right motor mount and the intermediate shaft I think? I'll post the SM pages on it in a bit.
Thanks, yeah I removed all that like it says but the diff still didn't want to come out I think it needed just a little bit more to pop off the extension shaft. I should be able to get it free tomorrow, I was wondering if there was a step I missed but I did everything your instructions say so ill keep trying.
Alright. Speaking of the extension shaft, have you ever removed one before? More specifically, what did you use to remove it? Asking around to try and figure out a method to remove it without the tool since its on backorder for an untold amount of time.
Yeah I had just R&R'd it from my motor to the new one I'd bought because it didn't come with it. It was pretty easy to do with the engine out of the car.
I unbolted the extension shaft and pulled it out and that helped, idk why I didn't think of doing that right away but it's stuck now on the transmission output shaft, its wanting to come out with the diff and won't break loose. Anyone have any ideas ? I'll keep messing with it
Finally got it! The extension shaft slid back into it and was holding it back. I just needed a 5 min break to step back and take a breather to re-assess the situation and see whats up lol. Phew glad that's over and that I had practice on a junk car.
Yay! If you have easy access, can you tell me the thread pitch on the extension shaft on the transmission end? Might be attempting to make my own puller or using a slide hammer adapted to the threads.
Last edited by 1186KA9; 02-15-2024 at 04:41 PM.
Reason: Punctuation
Yay! If you have easy access, can you tell me the thread pitch on the extension shaft on the transmission end? Might be attempting to make my own puller or using a slide hammer adapted to the threads.
Do you mean the one that's inside the transmission or the one under the oil pan?
The one that attaches to the diff. AKA the one in the transmission. There should be a square drive bolt above the drain plug for the trans. Behind that is the extension shaft/ its threads.
Not yet, soon as i got the replacement diff, work picked up and I've been working late and weekends so haven't had time to work on the RL yet. Might have some time next week to get to it.
ordered new wheel bearings for it and got a press to get those replaced as well.
Really? That easy? Can you find the bolt please? I'd like to know the thread pitch so that I can potentially adapt to a slide hammer. Your ext. shaft rusted out or was it fine when you pulled it out?
No, not yet 😔
I got a new job a couple months ago and have been working long hours and weekends and havent had time to work on her.
Removed suspension to make room and inspect and it's obvious I need new stuff, idk if shocks are original but they're worn lol
Ordered new engine and transmission mounts on ebay to replace while im finishing up with the diff install in there.
Found someone selling a 1G TSX set of stock coilovers for $50 that I'll pick up next week and I might run those if I don't get anything else by the time it's done.
Also found someone selling a set of BC coilovers for this model for 950 and that's what I was looking to get originally but after reading lot of different reviews and opinions lm reconsidering.... anyone here run Koni/GC setup on these? I had that setup on my 98 Civic a while back when I had one and that's a very popular quality setup at the bottom range of the price point.
The TSX stockies won't work well. Springs too soft due to the weight of the TSX vs RL. You'd need a spacer as well for the bushing on the rear assys. Don't think Koni has made a setup for us in a very long time. Neither has GC. Honestly this car is pretty low in stock form. I scrape a decent amount of things even though the suspension is still pretty close to OG height. Also decently stiff too though you can't tell due to how well the suspension articulates and the isolation the driver's seat provides. If you replace just the struts, go with the KYB units. They are the closest to the 02-04 struts. Fronts are exact while the rears are a little softer.
That was a concern of mine since there's nearly 500 pound weight diff between the two models....
I had to use spacers to raise up the rear of my Lexus ES300 and not really into doing that again so i guess I'll pass on that purchase.
My main reason for considering aftermarket coilovers was because of rear spring sag, and it's probably impossible to find replacement stock(ish) springs for these cars nowadays...
You don't say... Might be worth a little while in the future to find a flawless set of OEM coils and have measurements taken to see if people are willing to fab springs. Either that or figure out the OG spring rate spec and just measure the set I have here.
Got my engine mounts delivered, ordered 2 kyb shocks on sale on rockauto so far. Will probably order a rebuild kit for my steering rack and do that before putting it back in. Any recommendations for seal kits? Rockauto has FVP and sunsong I believe. I assume either one will be better than the stock leaky seals in there right now, just as long as they last...
Finally had some time to remove the passenger side mount and work on removing the broken diff. I was going to pop in the new mounts I got but when I opened them I saw they were just solid rubber mounts, which I guess makes sense since it's less than $200 for all three. Has anyone used these with good or bad results? Might just leave my stock ones in for now they don't look bad.
Got the broken diff out today. Dropped the subframe and that helped a lot. I'll do that if I need to do the mounts in the future. Seems a much easier route for engine swaps as well.
02-08-2024, 12:58 PM
