Just bought a 1996 ls400 lexus yesterday. It had been in a wreck and the door wouldn't open. I'm off to the pick/pull and would like to know what year ls400 lexus production would be a fit for this year car. Sorry to ask such a basic question, but I haven't had time for a proper read yet.
John

 

Sorry, but it is the Drivers door. I tried to look up compatibility, and it looks like only 1995 through 1997 will work. Does that sound right? I'd hate to exclude some years if I don't have to.

 

Yes that sounds right. The body changed slightly for the 98-00 model.

 

Thanks for the help. I found a door today for $70. This vehicle has been sorely neglected, so I'm sure I will need a lot of help on it. It didn't come with a owners manual, so it's painful for me to find info.

 

Sign up and make a free account on Lexus drivers website and you can order a free owners manual.

 

"It had been in a wreck" I hope you didn't pay over 500 for it. You can find them in super nice shape for under
3k.

 

https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfo...pmanager/t3/ti

You can go here and get owner's manuals for free. You can also pay $15 for a two day subscription and download the entire service manual and electric wiring diagrams.

You should start a build thread and show what you are doing to your car since it sounds as if you may be bringing one back from the dead?

 

Nope, just $300, but my neighbor has a lot of problems in life, so I paid his asking price. It got hit directly in the middle of the door with no out side damage. But, it needs new tires, a total maintenance remake, and some dent and paint repair. I can do PDR, so that is no problem, but it has a CEL of P0171 that I'm guessing is a oxygen sensor. Don't happen to know which side is bank one?

 

Wow, that sounds handy. Thanks for the link.

 

Bank one is the drivers side O2 sensor. Sensor 1 is before the cats and sensor 2 is after the cats.

 

Okay, things just got a little dicey on my restore project. I got around to looking at the coolant system, and it looks like the previous owner switched to the green coolant and I am now overheating if left on long enough. I'm going to pull the thermostat today to see if that helps. I've read on-line about mixing the fluids from red to green. If he did that, would a radiator replacement be next? Flush? Head gasket? All the fans are running.

 

you should probably need to flush and refill with toyota coolant and change the stat.. and it is tricky to get all the air out of the system (read about it) and put the stat in right side up, (read about it too) there are many helps on here, just take time to read...

 

Yeah, I don't think there's anything magical about red coolant. Unless your owner's manual specifically tells you to avoid a certain type of coolant, it doesn't matter what color it is. Here's what the factory manual says about it: "Grade:
”TOYOTA LONG LIFE Antifreeze Coolant” or
equivalent. Using coolant which includes more than 50 % ethylene−glycol (but not more than 70 %) is recommended."

Seems to me your cheap 50/50 at any auto parts store fits the bill, green or otherwise. I wouldn't place an overheating problem on the coolant. It's probably something else.

 

Turns out it had two leaks. One was the plastic housing that holds the thermostat. The other was the just behind it on the aluminum housing where it Tees into the coolant housing that goes to both banks. It looked like it had a bad cast or the circular joint was pressed in and was leaking at the joint. In any case, I pulled the whole housing at a junk yard, but ended up patching my original in situ(because it was a nightmare job to remove it) and then taking the thermostat housing and switching it. I used Pematex Steel Weld for my patch material. I was super relieved when it held pressure and temperature after I got it back together. So today I am off to the tire shop, alignment shop, and then window repair shop. I will have just around a $1000 into it at the end of the day. I figure around $150 more for a complete maintenance redo. Engine sounds great. Oh BTW, finally found out it has 217k miles on it. Any thoughts from the forum on how many miles you can get out of these cars. Obviously I have no idea on how well maintained the car was, but I'd like to hear about any success stories about longevity.

 

Check out the high mileage thread. I have almost 227,000 on mine.