'Sup. My 04' after 20 years of service in the NE needless to say requires a lot of work. As a result, efforts are underway to restore her. I'll update this thread as the project continues. Most updates will probably be rust related repairs, but she also needs a decent amount of non-rust related repairs. Regular updates probably won't be a thing. Anyways, hopefully ya'll enjoy this thread.

 

Attention KA9 owners. Check for rust above the front splash shields in the front wheel wells. For some reason, it seems they weren't galvanized from the factory and the splash shield has a hole designed into it that allows salt and all kinds of yuck to be sprayed all into it. As a result, these seem to be a rust-prone part that goes unchecked due to its weird location and poor access. Attached are low-quality pics. High quality pics will come later tonight.

Left side. Identical on other side.

Ditto.

 

Here are the pics. The ILX's machined center caps fit perfectly and look nice. The emblems are also much easier to remove should the bare center cap need to be machined or waxed.

Left Side

Right Side

Used a drill with a wire brush attachment to clean some of the rust

ILX center caps. They look nice but don't sit flush like the originals.

 

Your rims look as good as mine. That wonderful Honda clearcoat.
Looking forward to your posts.

 

Hehe. In their defense, they have 230K and were washed by a car wash machine with brushes that pushed into them for a majority of those miles. For some reason, the clearcoat doesn't peel like other aluminum alloys. Whenever I redo the rims, I'm gonna see if I can get them clear powder-coated to maintain the original finish as much as possible.

 

Honda is still bad. I have an Accord with the same issues. Both low mileage vehicles. Salt has a lot to do with it too.
I have a quote for refinishing at $185 each so very costly. Couple of years ago there were sets of refinished oem on ebay for $700. Not anymore.

 

Huh. What year Accord? Salt murders everything. Doesn't help that they use a gravel, sand, salt, and brine mix where I live. At least the body paint and the undercoating is top notch with these cars.

 

Subscribed, just got into a 2001 RL, black on black, 245k km / 152k miles.
I'm scared to look at that rust prone area...

 

Same where I live. Luckily for my RL I'm saving it from being driven in the snow for at least the next 5 years.
I have a rusty 1996 Nissan Maxima to absorb all of the winter nastiness for the next few years.

 

Nice. Do you have a thread with photos of your RL?

I don't know where those rust prone areas are. The Honda's like others usually rust through the quarters, around the wheel well especially where the quarter meets the bumper cover. I think overall they're pretty defiant compared to other brands.

 

I do now

https://acurazine.com/forums/1g-rl-1.../#post16982329

 

It is the crash structure under the front fender. For some reason, Honda didn't galvanize them and the splash shields conveniently have a hole right about where the 2 parts of that structure meet. If you take off the splash shields in the wheel wells, they are at 12:00.

Circled in orange

 

Been a minute. Did a few things. Mainly, I'm working on remaning the alternator, and continuing to strip the rear end.

NHBP is great.

Crash bar removed. Plz ignore the mess. Gonna spend the afternoon cleaning it.

She has seen better days.

Inside of right frame where the crash bar inserts. Not bad. Some salt residue and surface rust is there.

Inside of left frame. YUCK! For now I've fluid filmed it to stop the corrosion, but I'm gonna see if I can find a comically long wire brush to fit on my drill to remove this and then paint it.

Removed XM unit and fuel pump resistor. 5 10mm bolts in total. Piece of cake.

2 years and 15K miles. Lovely...

 

Life happened. Anyways, I replaced the alternator with a Ebay reman because almost every single part of the original was broken. Also, I found some new rust in unexpected places… Lovely. I started to cut into the front right crash structure. Some of it is mild and some of it is high strength steel.



Check behind the plug. Rust hides behind there.

Crash structure on right side.

 

Life got busy. I’m using flux core to hold the piece to the body so that I can shape the part. Then once that is done, I’m gonna mig it off the car and then mig it on the car. I’m also gonna start to recap the amp and headunit.

 

Right in front of the back wheels is where my Legend really rusted.

 

Been a while, but I pulled the intake manifold off last night. Good thing I did. Turns out the EGR port and pipe was almost clogged with carbon and the whole manifold had standing oil in it. The standing oil might be from when I put oil into the cylinders and 230,000 miles of PCV. The manifold also has hard carbon on the ports. I probably will do a DIY on a catch can install when this car is finished about a year or so from now. Only thing is that now I have to replace ALL of the vacuum lines and most of the hoses as they all disintegrated when I pulled them off. I'm also going to probably replace any gaskets on the water pipe between the cylinders in the block.

 

Replaced the camshaft cap seal and spark plug tube O-rings on bank 1 last night. I removed and disassembled the rocker arm assembly. I washed all the parts using LA's totally awesome degreaser straight with a tooth-brush. It now looks like new! I took special care to clean bleed holes on the rocker arms as well as where the rocker meets the rocker arm. When I finished washing the parts, I separated the parts by cylinder and put each cylinders-worth of parts in my oven at 300 degrees for an hour. Afterwards, I bled the rockers using ATF. I'll take pics of Bank 2 when I finish it. Side note: I had to order special bolts from McMaster-Carr because the OE are too expensive or discontinued. I used zinc-plated M6 flat washers for the M6 bolts.

 

Update: I finished the engine! Sort of... She starts and runs, but the idle is unstable. I think I damaged the engine mount vacuum control solenoid as the engine has a horrific whistle above 850 rpm. Oh well, a used one has been ordered. Even with the vacuum leak and bad gas, she runs pretty good. I ordered a new OEM amplifier. Turns out that it was cheaper to buy a new one than to buy new capacitors and a soldering station. However, I think I bought the last new OEM amplifier available. Gonna keep the original to rebuild with better capacitors and reuse sometime later.

Oh and do not do the Bank 2 rocker arm assembly if you are not doing a timing belt. You have to take off the camshaft sprocket and remove a bolt from the metal cover. That was a proper pain in the ass to do.

 

Its been a while (noticing a pattern yet?). Life got super busy. Installed the amp and OEM 5.25"ers in early March. It sounds great. Less noise than the old one. I modified the On-Star wiring which allowed me to install a fan from a AMD Stealth cooler on the amplifier. I'll post a guide if anyone is interested. I polished all of the wood and replaced all of the instrument bulbs. Bought polyurethane bushings from durable.parts for the steering rack. Will install them once I fix the crash structure in the front which fingers crossed will happen this month. Other than that. Just contacting ebay sellers for parts. I want the OBD-II connector bracket as some idiot tech relocated it without my or my father's permission back in 2011. I need all four rotor shields as well. Once I have that, all I need is a front windshield, radio with working cd changer, OEM 6x9s, and a custom solution for the rear window molding. Feels good to have almost all of the parts for the car. After that, all I have to do is buy the tools and then about a month and a half of work.

I may be starting to see a tiny whisper of light at the end of the tunnel.

 

@1186KA9 Had to admire your perseverance and dedication to the restoration of your '04 RL. Happy to know that completion of project is near and you'll soon be cruising down the hiway w/a big smile on your face. Please post a picture of the final product.
The RL is such a great cruiser and I'm still using my '00 @ 175k miles. Its been relegated to sacrificial winter duties from 2019 to present as its garage queen status for said period had been taken over by a '16 Lexus NX.
Picture taken in 2021.