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Recently I noticed inner camber wear on my front two tyres, to combat this I purchased some Hard race adjustable upper control arms to get the camber back in spec.



So glad to have access to a hoist for this kind of work, makes it 100% easier



All installed



camber is now back to factory spec average -0.27 degrees and my tyres should last longer

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I also recently re-sealed the lower sump, which I did not get pictures of but I used an engine brace to lift the engine. Whilst doing that I noticed that one of the engine mounts had separated and also that my coolant reservoir was 'sweating' coolant from the joints.

Yesterday new engine mounts, transmission mount and coolant reservoir arrived so when I can find some time those will be replaced.



Anyway, a bit of action on the Lexus recently, but it is nice to keep up on the little things.

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completed the engine mounts over the weekend

Lifter the engine as high as possible with an engine brace



Even though others seem to have been able to remove the mounts by lifting the engine only I could not see how it could be done so I resorted to dropping the sub frame on its bolts to achieve the clearance required.

I disconnected the lower strut bolts



removed the bolt from the steering shaft to allow it to slip down



this allowed enough of a drop to create the clearance required



LHS done



RHS done



as other have noticed, there was a fair difference in height between the old and new mounts (the one pictured was split)

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I also replaced the transmission mount at the same time, the one that was in there looked ok.

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The coolant reservoir was replaced in the same session, it really looks like the plastic has deteriorated and it has just been weeping from all over.



Swapped all the fan hardware over to the new shroud/reservoir and with some new lines it was looking good again.

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While it was on the hoist I had a go at tightening the nut on the drive shaft near the centre bearing to deal with a occasional tinny rattle noise coming from the driveline



after finding an appropriate shifter for the 42mm nut, i was able to tighten it up a little and so far the noise is gone, another small issue resolved.

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I recently installed a Grom BT3 unit to the stock pioneer premium sound system

What came in the box



Stock stereo removed



Unit tucked in down the bottom



Mic installed just on the gauge shroud, it was easy to run the cable here so I will see if i have any issues with phone call quality otherwise I will move it



Pressing DISK twice brings it up as CD1 and it works perfectly!

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A bit of routine maintenance but i had not changed the diff oil since purchasing the car.

Cracked the fill plug before doing the drain plug to prevent the inability to re-fill in case the fill plug was stuck somehow.


The oil that was in there seemed in good condition which is a positive



Nothing major on the magnetic drain plug




Refilled with 1.3L of 75W-90 full synthetic oil via a syringe



Done, will schedule the next drain and refill in another 80,000km

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Now that I had my new oil syringe from doing the differential oil, I decided to tackle the power steering fluid by extracting and refilling the reservoir multiple times over a week.

In the end I did it 5 times getting 200ml out each time so used 1L of new fluid

I kept each extraction separate so I could monitor how it was going, in the bottles it looks like nothing has improved! always very dark



but dripping a sample onto some tissue paper shows the improvement (top is the first extraction bottom is pure new fluid)



I will leave it at that for now as I don't think it will improve much more, maybe schedule a regular drain and refill with every few oil changes

This was the fluid used

nvwls

Took me about 10 changes to get new-looking fluid, my reservoir is still dirty though

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True! I have another litre of the fluid sitting here so maybe I should persist for another week. Did your fluid actually become clean red?

nvwls

Yes sir, I did the first 5 or so fluid changes immediately after purchase as my power steering was initially a little whacky (it became harder to turn the wheel after highway drives where I was taking turns at 60+). The fluid was still close to what yours looked like now after those initial changes, but my steering symptoms were gone. I did more fluid changes sporadically whenever I was in the engine bay for other things (spark plugs, MAF, air filter, etc.) over the next few months. By the end, it was clean red. However, in the past year or so since, I've noticed it's gotten darker so it's probably time for another fluid change. My reservoir has gotten cleaner over time, so I'm guessing that the clean fluid is slowly cleaning up the residue. I considered replacing the reservoir or removing it for cleaning, but seems like overkill. I may replace it if I ever have to replace the steering rack.

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I never have had any issues with my steering but it sounds like a periodical replacement will be of benefit to prevent it becoming an issue like your had.

my reservoir looks ok, I suppose it may even improve a little over time

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some more general maintenance today

Changed the engine air filter, this was only 50,000km old as i changed it myself when i purchased the car so I think it shows how dirty my daily drive to work is!



Cabin filter had never been changed so that was also worth it



also changed the accessories belt, it actually looked fine but had not been changed since I purchased the car so this was just for insurance

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If you cant tell already I have been on a bit of a maintenance campaign

Today I tackled the fuel filter and fuel sock

I was greeted by a message from the previous owner who did the same thing 5 years ago and 100,000km ago


Parts purchased, fuel filter, fuel sock and a few orings



old filter out and then exploded on the bench




re-assembled with new parts



and installed back into the tank connected to the main line



And added my date and Km for a future owner ​​​​​​​