Mattrob

Hello. We are a new owner of a 96' ES 300 Coach Edition and have some questions regarding maintenance. We recently bought this car from the original owner. I have all maintenenace records showing regular oil changes and various other maintence peformed on the car since new. However, the glaring maintenance missing from the folder is the Timing Belt change I plan to do this within the next couple weeks myself. The owner admittedly said they had never had the timing belt changed. Also, the car had a transmission flush 60K miles ago. The car has several major oil leaks(yet to identify the location however).

The car is a strong 9/10 interior and exterior with 209K miles on her. Garage kept but needs a little TLC.

I do all my maintence myself but prefer not going to Stealership to buy parts.
Future Maintenance tasks:
Timing belt, Tensioner, Water pump.
Transmision flush.
Diagnose/repair oil leaks.
Diagnose/repair whining power steering pump. EDIT: just read PS flush thread. Great info and will start there for this fix.
Diagnose/repair no output from stock(pioneer) system rear speakers only.

A great help would be a parts breakdown manual if you guys could point me to a good source. Would like to find a good source other than Stealership for the Center Garnish panel retaining fasteners(small plastic for trim piece). Looks like there are 3 larger ones near top and 2 smaller ones at bottom.

How difficult is the timing belt change? Any tricks/tips for this? What maintenance manuals cover the Lexus better? Haynes, Chilton, Clymer?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

kakarot

Timing belt, Tensioner, Water pump. (Stick with OEM Rockauto, Partsgeek has OEM parts) If you have never done a TB from a scale 1 to 10 (10 being the harddest) it would be 5 for someone thaty never done it. There are alot of how to guide even video (Youtube is your friend)
Transmision flush. DIY you can do the hard way or the easy way. 1. Hard way remove the trans pan & gasket and filter replace it with new gasket, filter measure what you have and put in the excact amount of new fluid back.
2. locate the return line
Set your parking brake if you have not done so. Pour the new fluid ATF through the tranny dip stick hole. This is important because you want the tranny pump to have fresh ATF to draw into the tranny. Ask a helper to start the car while you man the tranny hose. ATF will circulate and tranny pump will start to bump out old ATF in the cooler . Pay close attention to colors of ATF, when fresh ATF starts to coming out of cooler hose. Ask your helper to turn off the car. Put the rubber hose back on the metal one and put the clamp back. Measure the total ATF came out and put the exact amount in.
The easy way drain out old fluid out, measure the old fluid amount put in the exact amount of fluid back in. (You might want to do this 3X to get all the old fluid out.)
Diagnose/repair oil leaks. (Where is you oil leaking from things to check valve covers, cam seal, crank seal, ect..)
Diagnose/repair whining power steering pump. (Check your belt flush out old power steering fluids, might need new PSP)
Diagnose/repair no output from stock(pioneer) system rear speakers only. (That you want want to bring to a audio specialty)

For future reference use the search button there are a tons of how to do quide and if you cant find anything related to your issue, than post and I'm sure someone will answer.

Mattrob

Thanks Kakarot. Good info on the Tranny flush method 1. I don't recall ever seeing this much oil residue on an engine. It took me over an hour to degrease today and pressure wash the engine compartment. I will monitor to determine the source of leaks now that it is clean. Caked on heavy beneath the oil filter area and even more so on drivers side on top of tranny case where it attaches to engine. This is the side where the oil cap is located. It seems as though someone left a oil cap or oil filter off to get this much oil.

Thanks again for the info. I will post my findings.

Mattrob

Findings: Looks as though the Rear Main Seal is leaking. The leak is coming from the area where the engine mates to the transmission and leaks directly on top of the hot exhaust pipe. Possible power steering leak as well or engine oil leaking down on top of PS pump. Did clean throttle body. Intake caked with black tar like carbon buildup.

Does this sound like the rear main seal leaking or is there something else. What is the procedure for doing this job? Looks difficult....