When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Picked the car up in October 2013 for $3000. Seemed to be in good shape and drove well so we went ahead and bought it. It was an all stock 1995 sc400 with ~152k miles, besides the wheels which I can't recall what they are but there are at least a couple of members who have them. The car was originally green, but somewhere down the line, it was painted white inside and out (except under the back seats, carpet, and behind the trunk liner) and then sprayed with a white pearl. Not the biggest fan of the paint job or wheels, but after we refinished the wheels, they were doable and not a concern. Most mods have actually just been maintenance (starter, timing belt/water pump, gaskets, etc.) Anyways, I haven't made one of these threads yet so I figured I'd throw one together with the pictures I have still and what I remember. Then I'll just post here with any future changes. This is my daily driver so I need the reliability over power. Probably won't see any swaps here unless I have the car in a few years and the 1uz decides to die.
---
Here's a little typed list of the maintenance dates, don't have any picture of the progress:
Replaced the starter- Early 2014
Replaced the timing belt, water pump, rotors, belt, distributor caps- August 2014
NGK spark plugs and wires- August 2014
Tires- Septermber 2014
Valve Cover Gaskets- Septermber 2014
We've also changed other little things like the thermostat, outside temp sensor, other sensors, and connectors along the way when ever the issue showed itself.
--- (I'll try and compress all the images a bit so it doesn't take forever to load like some threads. They're all cell phone pics.)
---
Oldest pics I have, added the Lexus plates to cover up part of the silver patch:
---
One of the first purchases for the sc (JVC nsx600):
--- We redid the rear speaker deck also because the ugly stained faded grey looked terrible, need to take pictures when I remember to.
---
Took off the patch tape and there was a very large scratch... So we just filled it with bondo and also filled the plate holes. After a bunch of sanding and touch ups, it turned out pretty well. We matched the pearl almost on point with a pearl white spray from hope depot... lol
---
I think the interior lights came next. Ran the wires under the center console and into the center console through the old box for the phone. Turned the box around to hide them better. Then I replaced the fabric in the center console since mine was stained and cut horribly with a cut piece of foam board from Michaels. Looks a lot better. Then I ran the control box under there and taped it to the back of the inner console wall. The 4 light wires runs in between the 2 hinges and back in through the ashtray. We tried drilling a hole in the ash tray but it ended up breaking in half lol. But when we put the ashtray back in, you couldn't even notice it was broke and the hole was smaller than intended but still worked so it was fine haha. Cleanest/easiest way I could think to set it up.
---
Next thing that I have picture for was the sunroof wind deflector. Mine had terrible over spray from whoever improperly painted the car... So I removed it and painted it black.
---
Bought some side window visors off of eBay for cheap. Fitment was pretty good, I was pleased with it for the price:
Then I have these random pictures. I don't remember where they go on this timeline so to speak. So I'll just put them here since I know the stuff after is all recent... Ooh and somewhere in there we painted the spare tire compartment black and sprayed the mufflers with a chrome spray paint. They turned out looking much better than the old dirty metal look lol:
---
Next I have my OEM lip. Picked it up off a guy on Craigslist for $50. It has a couple small unnoticeable cracks that we put some stuff over for a little more support. Then we just bolted the sides on, and took a wide double sided tape all the way across the top of the lip. Stuck on there perfect and is much easier than drilling holes or other alternatives. :
---
Should be in the first since it was early but oh well. Bought TRD valve stem covers and center cap stickers. Stickers looked okay but Discount Tire lost one or something because when I got home from them mounting the tire it wasn't there haha. And I wasn't about to drive back up there looking for my ghetto center cap sticker. I have some new stickers that are black with the Lexus 'L' on them on the way lol. For $7 I can't complain.
---
Had the door panel apart and since the po had the speaker grille ghetto glued in for some reason... I took it off, scraped off the extra glue, and re-wrapped it with a speaker mesh. The rear speaker deck grilles are also wrapped in this same material and the deck itself is wrapped in a suede type material I picked up from craft store. I need to do the passenger side to match and was thinking about the tweeters maybe. Wonder how the contrast between this material and the dark brown around the tweeter would look... :
---
Purchased a HIC rear window spoiler from their site. Shipping was strange since it made it from Cali all the way to Florida with no shipping updates after the initial one... Had me worried for a while.
---
Driving down the highway home from class when my right rear tire blew out. Rubber was flying and it looked like the back of my car was on fire it was smoking so much so I pulled off right away. Most likely caused by a weak side wall from continuously filling the tire up with air. And since I didn't have a spare of course, we had to take of the wheel, buy a tire, have it mounted, and then go back and put it back on. Took a few hours in total since it was stranded on the highway. This led to new tires all around a little but earlier than anticipated. Kept one of the used tires so now I just need a wheel that will fit in it to use as a spare. We finished just in time to beat the Florida daily shower.
---
Painted the perimeter of the front rotors and the hubs/hats black while the fronts were off getting tires. Came out nice, a lot better than rusty look. Also painted all of the calipers red some a while back. No pics of that anymore. And I painted the fender walls black while the wheels were off. :
---
Then some engine problems popped up recently (September). Car had a misfiring type issue which led to a bunch of trial and error to fix it. We think what fixed it was replacing the bottom ignition plug connector with a junkyard one. Also replaced the ignition coil with a junk yard one that appeared to be in good condition because the one that was on there had bad pins in the bottom connector (they were pushed in a bit). Then we adjusted the tps. Since we had to make a trip to the junk yard, we picked up a tps connector to use for adjustment purposes, rather than the computer cord method. That's the first picture. After we did that, we could feel some sort of surge in the wires and when we took off the wire covers, we found that the ignition wire had been almost completely sliced in half from the cam gear notch. So had to go to a junkyard and pick up an ignition coil wire to replace it. The cause of this to happen was the length of the NGK wires. They're longer than the OEM wires which leave excess wire in places that normally sit flush with the old wires. When we put the covers on, it pushed the wires down and caused this. Still have the covers off and idk if they're gonna go back on. What do you guys think about that? For the fix to my problem, we really don't know since we had all the other variables we changed.
---
And now the most recent update. We got it all fixed up and then had a bad oil leak... So we took it back apart and replaced the valve cover gaskets. Since they weren't coming off again any time soon, i figured why not paint them? So I did, painted them with a silver engine enamel spray paint. Then Took off the intake manifold. This intake had a broken bolt in one of the throttle bolts so the throttle was being held on with one. We could get it drilled out with what we had, so we decided to fix the other manifold we had laying around. It had a broken bolt in the back that we were able to drill out and rethread it. So I painted that one. Added the black lines with a brush and then the black emblem was a bit of a pain actually. Taped the L and Lexus off, but taped too much and the paint missed all around the logo and text... And that wasn't fun to tape. So I finally just pulled off the L and sanded it all the way down to the yellow plastic. Then just resprayed it black right over the Lexus badge. When it was done, I just scraped it off the Lexus and it looked great. :
---
That's all I got for now lol. Really no big mods yet but the maintenance prices are definitely up there. I have prices for everything I've done to the car, or just about, and where I got them from. If you want to know any of that, I guess pm me. If you want any other pics of the car, just ask and you shall receive. I still need to post interior I know.
Any updates from here on out will be placed in this thread. Thanks guys.
Next things on my list are window tint since I have Barney colored right now, bfi maybe, and of course a drop. But that won't be for a while. Then would be paint and body work because the sides looked like they were in a hail storm or something . Or shot with bouncy *****.
hell yea man, we've been talking about our cars for how long now and finally you made a thread! can't say these are my favorite types of threads cz mines the same lol... but... this are my fave types of threads lol. good work on the car, BFI will give it a little more oomph and you should do the tranny mod where you cut one of the wires and it makes it shift harder, wire a rocker switch to it and you got 2 tranny modes, no more gear slipping.
Alright so no updates or anything since I haven't really had any time with school work, but I finally took some interior pics to show the goods and bads of it I guess. Hopefully compressing the photos to the size I'm using doesn't make the page take forever to load like some threads.
So I'm not sure exactly, but I have a feeling both the front seats, the rear bench, steering wheel, center console, and e brake boot have been rewrapped. I acn't really tell since I've never seen the tan interior in person on anyone elses sc but my leather seems darker and rougher. You tell me what you think....
Rear seat, perfect condition basically.
---
Rear deck, we rewrapped it with fabric from Joannes.... Lol basically a fail because it's not the lighting that gives it that purple tint... When fixing the sub the other day, I took off the speaker cover and it was tan underneath, and the rest looked super purple then. Going to assume its from the purple faded tinting and cheap fabric.... Probably redo it eventually.
---
Drivers seat bottom
Passenger seat bottom
This is what I was talking about with painting the bottom plastic part. I hate how it looks like this, it's scuffed like this in a few other places too. Do these come off without the whole seat coming out?
---
Glove box is in good condition, same with dark brown upper dash. But the wood trim is faded and cracked, center vents are cracked, and the far right passenger vent is missing most of the horizontal cross bars... Car came with one broken one still attached but I just broke that off because it looked worse with it there. Need to find a replacement, hopefullt when the next sc pops up at pull and pay. I have more wood trim in the garage to refinish and put on, but haven't got around to it.
---
Drivers seat, ware showing in the left side support part from getting in and out I'm assuming, which a normal for most cars. It's starting to show on the bottom section as well, but not as bad. Interior hasn't been vacuumed in a while so it's a bit dirty. I wonder if a fabrication shop could match the rest of the seat and replace just the side worn part... Probably not worth the price.
---
Driver side handle and and window trim. I'm missing the inner handle cover so if anyone has one to get rid of, I'd pay for shipping if you're feeling generous haha, otherwise just waiting for one to pop up. The trim is broken, I guess the po tried fixing it but it didn't work. Doesn't surprise me, they don't seem like they were very handy people, judging by what I know about the car... Maybe if one of those pop up I'll replace that too lol. The trim is off a junkyard car that was in basically perfect condition, along with the memory seat buttons. Perfect white paint on them.
---
Center console, I think it was rewrapped. Super worn down where the driver side arm would go. Want to try and restuff it, but don't know how big of a job that is. Don't think it would be very hard. Need to fix the hinge part anyways because it's super loose and pushes in when you lean on it. Is that normal?
---
The cupholder... See this car's history just doesn't fail to confuse me. Is my center trim repainted as well and they couldn't even tape off the black part. Like seriously? Need to repaint the should be black part...
---
Sideways picture of the inned pillar on the driver side. The fabric is wrapped and I don't know how to fix that... Tried glue a long time ago but it didn't stick lol. Need to try and scrape off that silver stuff with a razor blade.
---
Driver side door guard? whatever it's called. I want to repaint both sides black since they're faded/stained/ugly. Do these come off? Or should I just paint them on the car..
---
Inside my center console, don't know if I've posted this. Nice and clean how I like it, you should try and straighten yours up oldman
---
That's about it, tried taking some other pictures, but it was just too awkward with the layout and the phone camera. Couldn't get far enough shots. Want to repaint the automatic shifter plate since mine is all scratched up but then I'd probably have to repaint the ashtray cover as well, and then my blacks really wouldn't match the metra harness and climate control. Oh and the driver side seat belt clicker. It's all scratched up from the po wearing razor blades on their hips or something so maybe sand that down or something...? I don't know. Still trying to et the car mechanically sound right now... Think the oil leak is fixed... or at least it's not as bad anymore. Think it may just be the small radiator crack leaking now... Need to get that fixed. And of course problems come in waves, so now the ac light is flashing so need to look into that. I read it could just be a sensor, but I have to find what ever sensor it is people are talking about. If anyone wants to help me out there, it would be great.
@OldManTan/Anyone else who wants to jump in
I think I know what my whining noise is. You only hear it when the car is rolling or with your foot on the gas, but it's not there when you're braking. So it may have something to do with my brakes. Could it be my brake pads just rubbing against my warped rotors, and then goes away when pressure is applied? (Until of course it squeels when I'm about to come to a stop). I Don't really know how to take a video of it without having a gopro attached to the side fender. It's annoying though and I want it taken care of.
Actually, no it's not. My new center caps stickers came in the other day to replace my old ones. These ones look a lot nicer, I painted the whole center cap rings black to the stickers would look better. Went with Silver lexus logos on black backgrounds this time.
Looks great man, keep up the good work! How do you like the JVC head unit?
Thanks, I like it, has a lot of features and I like the bluetooth for the music and phone. It comes with a microphone, mines mounted infront of the cluster. But I don't have an iPhone, which the unit has an app feature designed for apple products I think, so I've yet to use that. I think it has like navigation or something in that group of features. I got it because I wanted a **** for volume to make it easier. It has an equalizer too that has a lot of settings it seems, but with the stock system, it doesn't really change much once you get it set to the proper setting. For my use, it works out great, but I think there's a new model out now that replaced mine. Because a few weeks after I bought mine, Crutchfield discontinued my unit. I have the nsx600.
where is the whining coming from? i have tons of groans, creaks, squeeks, and whines on my car that i've learned to ignore them if they're quiet enough lol. if it were the brakes, it would be an oscillating sort of noise if the rotors are warped. otherwise it could be the transmission, needs a flush most likely, that's what mine needs for sure, but i'm just gonna drive it into the ground and go manual after that.
lol the center console is definitely repainted, you can see where it was peeling and the paint is covering the peels and you can see lines where the old meets the new. i can't believe they didn't just take the cup holder out lol, i have no idea how they even managed that. instead of going OEM colors i would just do a two tone color interior. im gonna be doing black and tan, all the pieces that aren't in great shape will be turning black and i'll be trying to wrap my top dash in black suede, probably not gonna happen though lol.
besides the stupid painting and such your interior looks great. you should see the rips in my seat and the condition they're in. i have a 6" hole in my driver seat which i'll be sewing a pineapple print over it tomorrow lol. should be funny, i don't really care since next summer i'll get some other seats, but for now need to keep the heated seats since my heat won't blow still lol.
where is the whining coming from? i have tons of groans, creaks, squeeks, and whines on my car that i've learned to ignore them if they're quiet enough lol. if it were the brakes, it would be an oscillating sort of noise if the rotors are warped. otherwise it could be the transmission, needs a flush most likely, that's what mine needs for sure, but i'm just gonna drive it into the ground and go manual after that.
lol the center console is definitely repainted, you can see where it was peeling and the paint is covering the peels and you can see lines where the old meets the new. i can't believe they didn't just take the cup holder out lol, i have no idea how they even managed that. instead of going OEM colors i would just do a two tone color interior. im gonna be doing black and tan, all the pieces that aren't in great shape will be turning black and i'll be trying to wrap my top dash in black suede, probably not gonna happen though lol.
besides the stupid painting and such your interior looks great. you should see the rips in my seat and the condition they're in. i have a 6" hole in my driver seat which i'll be sewing a pineapple print over it tomorrow lol. should be funny, i don't really care since next summer i'll get some other seats, but for now need to keep the heated seats since my heat won't blow still lol.
I know what you're saying about the oscillating rotor noise because I can slightly pick that apart but I feel like the noise isn't just from the brakes because of how loud it is. You should hear it in the parking garage at school lol. It's really loud in there. I'll attempt to take some sort of video of it if I can. Could be the transmission. I have a feeling my tranny has seen much better days just by the performance of the car and some other things. 5 speed swaps are pretty expensive right? A few thousand or something because of the conversion stuff? But if the auto goes out, I feel like that's the bet route.
@lilSCsteve thanks, yeah just taking it slow. Fixed a number of things already that the po's did poorly.
Been saying it for a couple weeks now lol but I really need to list up all of the extra/random parts I have laying around. Probably won't be selling them on here since most are junkyard parts and I can't guarantee the reliability, but if a member wants to take a risk I guess it's up to them. Still have to see what I actually have but I'll make a list maybe and post it.
I know what you're saying about the oscillating rotor noise because I can slightly pick that apart but I feel like the noise isn't just from the brakes because of how loud it is. You should hear it in the parking garage at school lol. It's really loud in there. I'll attempt to take some sort of video of it if I can. Could be the transmission. I have a feeling my tranny has seen much better days just by the performance of the car and some other things. 5 speed swaps are pretty expensive right? A few thousand or something because of the conversion stuff? But if the auto goes out, I feel like that's the bet route.
@lilSCsteve thanks, yeah just taking it slow. Fixed a number of things already that the po's did poorly.
Been saying it for a couple weeks now lol but I really need to list up all of the extra/random parts I have laying around. Probably won't be selling them on here since most are junkyard parts and I can't guarantee the reliability, but if a member wants to take a risk I guess it's up to them. Still have to see what I actually have but I'll make a list maybe and post it.
Swap it!...I have a 95 400 with a ka trans in it. Its about a thousand for all the swap parts, then you just have to get a custom exhaust and driveshaft and you're good to go. Makes the car so much more fun to drive. Should be just a bit less than 2k for everything if you're able to find a used tranny for super cheap.
Swap it!...I have a 95 400 with a ka trans in it. Its about a thousand for all the swap parts, then you just have to get a custom exhaust and driveshaft and you're good to go. Makes the car so much more fun to drive. Should be just a bit less than 2k for everything if you're able to find a used tranny for super cheap.
Alright thanks for the info. May look into that if mine gets too bad
09-23-14, 04:58 PM
My sc4 Progress
continued
