jaaa

That's crazy money for the brakes. I doubt you need a caliper. Brakes shouldn't take over a couple hours to do. Even if you had to buy front rotors, a brake job shouldn't cost(if you do it yourself) over $160 with good parts. I just priced out front rotors(Bosch) for $100 and $60 for Wagner Thermo-quiet pads front and back. $10 for brake fluid and you're good to go. The starter is a harder thing. It will price out at around $1000(if you have someone else do it). I just did mine at home(cost around $110 for a new starter) and it took a couple days because I had never done it before. You have to take both intakes out and the rear coolant bridge to get to the starter. But I have some advice if you do do it. Replace your EGR pipe while you are doing the starter. The EGR pipe is only $100, but you have to do the same amount of teardown as the starter replacement. I've done them both, but had to do them two separate times(one month apart) and it's a lot of work. I'd take a different tack on the timing belt. I'd just leave it alone. Your car is only worth in the $2000 dollar range at best. I'd just take the risk(you could get another 10 years) and drive it till the valves did their dance with the pistons. The rack you can let leak, old cars do that. And it very well could be the power steering pump/return/power lines that are leaking. My starter got progressively worse over a two week period until it took 70 tries till it would start. So go slow, do your brakes first-anyone can do them and it's not expensive. Save up for the starter, when that goes out-you aren't going anywhere.

dicer

Personally I'd rather fix the old car money better spent than big monthly payments, higher insurance, and lower quality vehicle, different headaches and huge depreciation of a new car. Plus they just plain want too much for a decent looking car now. The nice looking ones are 200k plus even used.

Diwill05

The brake job I can tackle myself given enough time. I have no issue with that. I have a 3.5 ton floor jack with a couple of stands & plenty of hand tools. I'm a bit **** when it comes to brakes so rotors, pads, & hardware are automatic replacements whenever slight wear is noted.

As far as the timing belt.... damn how I wish they made it chain driven! The last time I did a timing belt job was on a early 90's Galant that included the infamous balance shaft belt hidden behind the timing belt. This was early 2000's(?). Took me a 2-3 days doing the job after work until it was time to go to bed to be back up to work at 5 a.m. But this is a horse of a different color from what I'm seeing... or least it's that intimidating looking. Idk One thing is for sure... with a interference engine, I take no chances on timing belt intervals. May not be immediate, but I definitely wouldn't grossly prolong it as suggested. Good way to lose every cent of your investment even if the car is only worth a couple of grand!

I'll take the tip on the EGR tube as I've constantly read the stories on that and any extra repairs that can be made in the vicinity of another repair only makes sense. That's the one thing I can give credit to the shop for stating with the distributors, water pump, coolant flush and other parts while doing the timing belt. Perhaps $1200 including all parts isn't so bad with that. That I can accept plus the time saved from me struggling between working hours & nightfall (not good to work on vehicles late night when the mind grows tired).

So swallowing the cost of the timing belt job... I can deal with that. Brakes are at my disposal. Rack & pinion can be staved off until it worsens. This leaves the starter job which really isn't up for question. It has to be done or else face being stranded one day. It's not bad at this point.... very random and frequency tolerably low, but it won't get any better with use. So here lies the question on that. On a scale of 1 to 10 in comparison to the timing belt, how hard is the job? How long would I need to set aside if I attempt the job? If I need to take a couple of days off during premium weather then I will make it so being that it will save me close to a $1000 as you estimate, if that amount is correct.

jaaa

I only mentioned the $1000 because while I was at a Toyota shop getting parts, I asked the service manager how much a starter install would cost for my car. I'm 65 years old and it took me two days the first time I tore the intakes out to get to the starter and then have it put back together. I have since taken the intakes out two more times and I think I could have it done in 6 hours or so now. One of the harder parts of this job is removing the bolts of the upper EGR pipe. Even worse is dealing with the plastic wiring housing that runs along the back end of the engine compartment. You have to get the wiring out of your way to get to the bolts of the coolant bridge. That bridge has to come out to get to the bolts of the starter(and BTW- that coolant bridge on the back side has the bolts for the lower EGR pipe I was talking about for you to replace). I haven't done the timing belt yet, so couldn't compare on how hard it was to do.

Diwill05

Is there a risk of breaking the bolts or just cumbersome to get at? That's the worst fear.... stripping or snapping a bolt especially in a place that repair is extremely hard to reach. Guess I need to get a repair manual while I'm at it. I usually get at least a Haynes for each vehicle owned. That and a scanner/diagnostic. Overdue for one of those.

9000revs

A car to match the caliber and fit and finish of the LS will cost you 400-500 per month (easy), unless you buy used then less but you would have to do maintenance. If you spent $2500 on the LS now and drove it for 2 more years, think about the savings

dicer

Jack stands. Most jack stands will mess up the rocker panel and under side. I prefer wood cribbing on an LS as I don't want to ruin stuff under there. If you break a bolt in a bad spot no problem the engine may have to come out. Timing belt is probably more straight forward and somewhat easier to access. The starter bolts are just plain nasty to get to, and the clearance to work in is very bad, and that wire harness like mentioned above. To do either project the coolant is drained and you have to deal with some coolant hoses. So why do all that twice?
You do not need to remove the injectors to remove the intake, if you do it just adds more seals and extra mess to have to deal with.

jaaa

I forgot about the starter bolts themselves, I was thinking more about just getting to them. A lot of the bolts are right against the bulkhead and you can only make a small rotation at a time with a wrench. I borrowed a neighbors wrench set that had inset ratcheting for some of the tight places. One tool I can recommend is a small inspection mirror for when you put it back together. I had to bend the upper egr pipe(not sure of the correct name) a bit to get the intake out, and you have to bend it back to get the bolts to line up. A mirror will help you get it lined up correctly. For sure leave the fuel injectors alone. I left as many hoses alone as I could while removing it.

Diwill05

Hmmm.... well, that's a twist on things for sure. So you're suggesting the timing belt job is easier than the starter if I'm getting this correct. But that both jobs should be done at the same time due to coolant loss? Sounds as if I should just pay for both starter & timing belt job, then do everything else myself since there would only be brakes left in the equation of immediate jobs. Coolant can't be that expensive... I'm sure it isn't, but don't know if they will lower the cost for combining both jobs except for coolant.

Just trying to get up a plan of attack. Doing the brake job myself will save at least 800-900 of $1200 I figure (using premium parts). That knocks down the initial cost in the area of $3,000 (discrediting leaks repair & rack & pinion) to roughly 2 since the brake job had an est as high as the timing belt. I can spring for 2 grand right now especially if that's taking care of major jobs and leaving me with minor stuff.

I'll have to get a good estimate on the starter. They didn't give me one because they stated they could not replicate the problem although the relay tested good. They said they wanted to make sure there wasn't any voltage drops or anything else before assuming starter replacement was needed.

jaaa

You're not going to get much if any price brake on both jobs. Maybe on the volume of work though. I think dicer was more going on not having to drain the coolant twice. For me, both jobs are hard enough by themselves and I wouldn't complicate them for a DIYer by combining them, but that's just me. If I lived closer, I'd come over and help, but we are a ways apart. Perhaps someone here on board is from Florida and has done this before. Once you've done it once it's not quite so daunting. First time through, I took a boatload of pictures of every hose and connector I took off. After my third time, I didn't even look at my notes.

dicer

Do not get to the starter and just replace a part on it. If its going that far into it replace the starter or rebuild that one. I have one that the bearings make noise when cold other wise its okay. Before I work on it I will have all parts on hand. I do not want to wait a week for parts. I will at some point fix the existing starter but not when I'm working on the car, slows things down too much. When I do the starter and timing belt, I also plan on dealing with power steering stuff because the pump will be more accessible, I also toyed with the idea of engine removal, but I'd like to have another resealed one to put in. There is just so much that could be addressed with total engine removal, once out everything else is easy to get to starter bolts would be easy then.