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Went in under the intake to do some maintenance in the air pump and main valve there. I saw other posts that when these items fail (including those valves at the back near firewall) it's costing like $4,000 at dealer to fix. The OEM parts are not cheap either. I am just gonna pull apart the blower and valve and clean/lube it as needed, and will replace the two air hoses. I will also add a UNI breather filter (as seen in the vid) to the inlet of the air pump and will remove any internal filter if there's any filter left at all.
, watched it 3-4 times, then went through the procedure. He mentions use of that magnetic wand, it's a must have, or use magnetic sockets.
My intake is sucking in more oil from PCV than normal, my guess is, at 225kmi there more blow-by gases and it's forcing more oil into PCV and getting sucked in. Intake ports were rather gummy, but the valves looked fairly good, and I notices some strip down inside of port was rather clean, this seems to indicate to me the injectors are toast and need refurb done. Luck for me I have a refurb set done by RC Injectors. I found donor set from a wrecked Tundra with only 107kmi on it. Those injectors had poor spray patterns prior to being fixed by RC. I did slowly & carefully wipe out the ports, and then did a 2nd pass mopping them with lacquer thinner soaked paper tower (do not use bounty or the like, use the stiff workshop paper towel stuff). My intake ports were not even close to being as clean as what you see in the vid. Maybe the 'new' injectors with some fuel cleaner will help clean up the ports. Not sure why they are so gummy. I use 87-89 gas, and always good synth oil. Could also be that this GX is not driven hard at all, rarely get into the gas pedal, so the injectors rarely get opened full, etc.
I also see a small coolant leak at the back crossover, but I am not digging into that now, if it becomes an issue I will go back in, etc.
Duly noted, if you leave the fuel rails on there's the one gas line that stays attached to the fuel rail, so be careful not to kink that line, remove the intake slowly and feed the line under/around stuff. Also noted, the vid does not do it, but the very last 10mm bolt in back passenger side, it holds the plastic wiring harness in place, but if you take that bolt go you get additional room to work, and I did this prior to getting the last fuel injector connector off.
If the intake may need a little pry to pop it off the gaskets, but pry ez, etc. I am also removing those damn metal hooks, they just get in the way. I'll fab small brackets so that if the engine needs to be hoisted it still can.
So this go at it:
1) maintenance the blower & valve
2) replace the hoses on blower & valve
3) 'new' injectors
4) new pcv valve
5) new NGK plugs
6) replacing the fuel pump relay, just because, the oem one is old.
Went in under the intake to do some maintenance in the air pump and main valve there. I saw other posts that when these items fail (including those valves at the back near firewall) it's costing like $4,000 at dealer to fix. The OEM parts are not cheap either. I am just gonna pull apart the blower and valve and clean/lube it as needed, and will replace the two air hoses. I will also add a UNI breather filter (as seen in the vid) to the inlet of the air pump and will remove any internal filter if there's any filter left at all.
As a reference, I used THIS VID , watched it 3-4 times, then went through the procedure. He mentions use of that magnetic wand, it's a must have, or use magnetic sockets.
My intake is sucking in more oil from PCV than normal, my guess is, at 225kmi there more blow-by gases and it's forcing more oil into PCV and getting sucked in. Intake ports were rather gummy, but the valves looked fairly good, and I notices some strip down inside of port was rather clean, this seems to indicate to me the injectors are toast and need refurb done. Luck for me I have a refurb set done by RC Injectors. I found donor set from a wrecked Tundra with only 107kmi on it. Those injectors had poor spray patterns prior to being fixed by RC. I did slowly & carefully wipe out the ports, and then did a 2nd pass mopping them with lacquer thinner soaked paper tower (do not use bounty or the like, use the stiff workshop paper towel stuff). My intake ports were not even close to being as clean as what you see in the vid. Maybe the 'new' injectors with some fuel cleaner will help clean up the ports. Not sure why they are so gummy. I use 87-89 gas, and always good synth oil. Could also be that this GX is not driven hard at all, rarely get into the gas pedal, so the injectors rarely get opened full, etc.
I also see a small coolant leak at the back crossover, but I am not digging into that now, if it becomes an issue I will go back in, etc.
Duly noted, if you leave the fuel rails on there's the one gas line that stays attached to the fuel rail, so be careful not to kink that line, remove the intake slowly and feed the line under/around stuff. Also noted, the vid does not do it, but the very last 10mm bolt in back passenger side, it holds the plastic wiring harness in place, but if you take that bolt go you get additional room to work, and I did this prior to getting the last fuel injector connector off.
If the intake may need a little pry to pop it off the gaskets, but pry ez, etc. I am also removing those damn metal hooks, they just get in the way. I'll fab small brackets so that if the engine needs to be hoisted it still can.
So this go at it:
1) maintenance the blower & valve
2) replace the hoses on blower & valve
3) 'new' injectors
4) new pcv valve
5) new NGK plugs
6) replacing the fuel pump relay, just because, the oem one is old.
As the author of the above video, I'm glad you found it helpful! That was my goal to share my experiences. Thank you for your pointers!
Did you find an intact foam filter in your SAIS housing? Mine was gone as you can see, so it's either in small pieces within the system or the PO has removed it. I'm at 121k miles now and it's working fine. I figure the breather filter will help prevent crap from getting sucked in to the system.
Nice work! Some even suggest getting the starter replaced while you're there. I didn't do that as some starters are known to last over 300,000 miles and more.
As the author of the above video, I'm glad you found it helpful! That was my goal to share my experiences. Thank you for your pointers!
Did you find an intact foam filter in your SAIS housing? Mine was gone as you can see, so it's either in small pieces within the system or the PO has removed it. I'm at 121k miles now and it's working fine. I figure the breather filter will help prevent crap from getting sucked in to the system.
Nice work! Some even suggest getting the starter replaced while you're there. I didn't do that as some starters are known to last over 300,000 miles and more.
So, all of the plastic/rubber stuff under the intake (for me) is basically all dry-rot. Connector locks are breaking, the rubber air hoses are brittle like 'glass', etc etc.
I am now thinking about doing the starter while I am in here.
The air pump motor is ****-poor design, not sure why Toyota would use this part on a Lexus!
The small air filter was still inside, but darn close to be sucked in! In this pic the yellow line shows the tops of the fan blades were rubbing on the filter! The red line shows the top of the fan blade (the center section) was rubbing up against the bottom side of the upper clamshell section, plastic on plastic, etc. From the looks of it they made mistake using a foam style gasket and I think compression from the screws simply made the clearance to tight, or over time the foam gave out and the cover got closer to the fan. Next poor design is the little foam filter, they should of at least injection molded the inlet plastic section with a "screen", like a x-hatch or something to prevent the small filter from getting pulled into the fan blade!
The DC motor itself looks ok, but I can only lubricate the bottom bearing. Brushes look ok too. Will just blow it out clean, etc.
I will sand the plastic areas smooth, and I will use some silicone from needle applicator to re-seal the top section onto motor/fan frame, but will only hand fit it until silicone dries to provide support, then will put back the screws but not super tight, etc. This should allow a little clearance so the two parts don't touch.
All I can say here is, wow, ****-poor design in this area.
Inspecting the air pump motor wires I find this W T F. Wire chaffing between + and - wires !!! That 'bear' spot on the neg wire is where the pos wire lays!
Figuring not much longer until a fuse would just keep blowing! Very bad design all-around with this air pump crud.
I might re-route the + wire so it does not wrap tight against the neg wire like that.
Update: I am NOT doing the starter, too much work.
Update: I taped-wrapped pos wire to prevent shorting. I also wrapped the bottom (side) of the motor so that the pos wire cannot touch metal, I can say for sure, this part was made using the wrong type of wire insulation. The neg wire insulation is cracking off, so I tried not to disturb pos wire too much. Should be good for as long as the starter stays working.
Last edited by Lexus4321; 09-28-20 at 12:57 PM.
Reason: spelling only
Inspecting the air pump motor wires I find this W T F. Wire chaffing between + and - wires !!! That 'bear' spot on the neg wire is where the pos wire lays!
Figuring not much longer until a fuse would just keep blowing! Very bad design all-around with this air pumo crud.
I might re-route the + wire so it does not wrap tight against the neg wire like that.
Update: I am NOT doing the starter, too much work.
Update: I taped-wrapped pos wire to prevent shorting. I also wrapped the bottom (side) of the motor so that the pos wire cannot touch metal, I can say for sure, this part was made using the wrong type of wire insulation. The neg wire insulation is cracking off, so I tried not to disturb pos wire too much. Should be good for as long as the starter stays working.
So what did I do today to (one of my) GX’s? Threw in the towel and slapped a for sale sign on her for parts-only. The frame is completely toast. It is a sad day.
kids, this is what 15 New England winters will do to a frame (even one that was washed regularly):
Post #1207, sorry to hear that nice looking GX has such bad rust issues. I am wondering if all trucks/suv's there need to have that oil undercoat on a regular basis.
My 2006 (225kmi) is showing signs of dry-rot on connectors. Replacing connectors is a real pita, Toyota sells them as "repair" connectors, but what a pita to do.
Here's under my intake from a few posts back, got it cleaned up, installed the new air hoses, maintenanced the air pump, new plugs, getting ready to install the 'new' injectors.
Red arrows are the connectors. One on left had the hold clip break in half, so I holding it in place with a big zip tie and some tape. The ones on the right had the retainer arm break or break off. Doing a trick with gorilla glue I was able to have them hold tight in place (just a bit where the retainer would go), then taped them, hopefully they stay put, I will need to repair(replace) them at some point.
The yellow arrows are the new air hoses. Old ones were brittle like glass, this new one soft silicone & super ez to get on.
The blue arrows, left is the Uni filter as seen in that vid. The other is PCV valve. The stem on the PCV was leaking oil (cheap PCV). The valve itself was ok though. Replaced it with another cheap one from Autozone, but noticed they just put a little crimp in the metal to hold the plastic stem in position, so a little jb weld to seal up that area from leaking in the future (just a smidge to make the seal, etc).
I'd say somewhere around yr 10 of a GX470 is when all the maintenance really begins. Not sure how much longer mine will stay going, I don't really want a car payment, etc.
Finally got to swap my plugs while working under the intake.
Not bad for (I think) 50kmi.
NGK Iridium BKR6EIX-11 plugs. They look great and the reddish color is what's expected from using fuel cleaner additives. The only one that looks odd is #5, a tad more soot on the base, and not much red (if any red at all) like the others. I wonder if #5 injector is acting funny. It's getting some 'new' injectors too.
I also bore scoped #4 and #6 cylinders. Sorry, it's a crappy bore scope so it take crappy pics, but they are below. Pistons look super good for 225kmi. My 2006 appears to be ok in the combustion and lower end areas. I need to try and bore scope inside the valve covers to see if there's any sludge issue there. This GX has always been using Valvoline full synth oil.
@ebradford - see if a local fab shop can fab you a new frame. If you can get it done and swapped over for ~$5k, well worth it if the rest of it is good. I guess vehicles are made as throw-away these days, but I find myself trying to keep my GX running good. I am even wanting to install the Phoenix Android tablet to replace the OEM radio/cassette, etc. And yeah, I know, sometimes it's not worth the headache, but if it's a spare vehicle then no rush, right? New frame, some better offroad suspension parts, then off to places you would have never taken it before
I need to try and bore scope inside the valve covers to see if there's any sludge issue there. This GX has always been using Valvoline full synth oil.
They're probably fine, as long as you follow a good oil + filter change interval.
When I did the gaskets the heads & valvetrain were really clean, except for some varnish on the driver's side (probably from PCV valve). I've been doing 5k mile changes with bulk dealer oil for the last 75k miles.
09-26-20, 07:21 AM
