Banshee365

I found that an extra plastic washer was causing my tail light alignment issue. That area is unaffected by any impact damage back there and it appears to be mostly all cosmetic under the bumper cover. The only issue currently is the rear of the two bolts that hold the bumper cover against the side is not able to line up. I may massage that back with a large hammer and a piece of 4x4 or 2x4.

Also, there is some good news and bad news on the timing belt front. The timing belt appears to have been changed. It would be doubtful that it would last 20 years but this assures it has been changed at least once. I see 1UZ's in the junkyard a lot that have severely cracked belts but are not broken. This on has no cracks but doesn't appear to be very recent.

The bad news is that I found a loose bolt when shining down into the timing belt area from the passenger side. It's backed out a good 3/8". I didn't believe it until I stuck my magnetic pickup tool down and wiggled the washer. Ugh.... You can't find good help these days... I suppose this is nearly good enough reason to get the Aisin timing belt and water pump kit on the way and get that going in the near future. The bolt appears to be one of the water pump bolts. You can also tell it's been done by the yellow soap on the timing mark. The factory didn't didn't not do that.

dicer

Good catch, very likely done by one of the wooop it out fast flat rate mechanics, could be bolt too long for the hole? Could be it was loose and backed out? So was there a timing belt was changed sticker any place? Any paper work that shows who and when it was done?

Banshee365

Yea I'm on the page as you. I'm unable to see if it is tight or if it backed out. There is no service sticker anywhere. Nor do I have any info on service history other than on the Lexus Drivers site which is up to 2014 or so. The last oil change sticker is still on the window and it says Mobil 1 so I know good oil was used its entire life. I always use M1 5W30 in the 1UZ.

dicer

So I suppose your not going to be driving it for awhile.

Banshee365

Nah, I couldn't do that having just got the car up and going! I was going to just leave it until I do the timing belt in a month or two. I wouldn't drive it a whole lot but at first I wasn't going to worry about it much. The bolt was never tightened during the last timing belt job obviously and another month or so probably wouldn't make much of a difference on where that bolt is riding at. It isn't leaking coolant with that one bolt loose and while there is a possibility of the bolt falling completely out of the hole or backing up to the timing belt and tearing it up, I felt the chance of that happening were pretty slim over the next month or so.

However, last night I got a bit paranoid as I usually do. I decided to dismantle as little as possible to get to that bolt and tighten it. I was able to pop out the LH #2 timing cover after removing the LH #3 timing cover, the 3 bolts, disconnecting the LH CMP, and removing the CMP wire grommet from the timing cover. I slipped it up an inch or so and was able to get a long 1/4" drive 12mm socket on a universal on to the bolt no problem. It felt like it was just sitting in the water pump casting without a single thread in the engine. I ran it in with my fingers on the extension then was even able to put my 1/4" drive torque wrench on it between the fan blades and torque it to the proper 13 ft/lb. Of course that is the different between a hack job and done properly. It felt like the proper bolt for that hole as it ran back in with light finger pressure until the head bottomed out. While I had the torque wrench out I checked the 16 valve cover bolts. On every LS400 I've worked on for friends and family, if the valve cover hasn't been touched in a while nearly all of the bolts are FINGER tight. The single most common and pronounced oil leak point on the LS400. I torqued them all to the proper 53 in/lb and reassembled. Several of the bolts took a full turn to reach the proper torque spec. I also felt to make sure all of the half moon plugs were in the head, and they are.

I feel better...

dicer

That is a sign of someone rushing the job and they very likely forgot to tighten the bolts or it was done on purpose to come back in a year or so for another timing belt job.

Banshee365

Last night I noticed a 1995 LS400 put into a salvage yard 1h20m from me. I saw that it had a grey interior but I still have lots of non-color-specific parts I need for both cars. Today would be the first day that the car sat in the yard. I went over there today and pushed a wheel barrow of stuff up to the cashier. I got a good haul of parts. I will post a photo tomorrow when it's light again. I'll list the parts then as well.

I also had been dreading splicing the connector on to the wires that were cut off the dash harness for the radio. One of the parts I got today was a radio (Pioneer) so I wanted to get to a point where I can install and test it. However, I did notice that one of the two antenna wires was also cut so I'll need to get one from the salvage yard the next time I'm out there. The connector that was cut has 12 wires. It was very tedious soldering them together and there isn't much space to work, especially having to shine a light in the cavity. But I got it done with about an hour of work or so. I took my time triple checking the wire colors and tracers to make sure I didn't cross anything. I've now got a radio ready harness except for one of the antenna wires. I soldered them up, shrink wrapped the connections, and wrapped a layer of fabric harness tape around to clean it up nicely. I'm satisfied with the end result. Soldering is the only way to do this properly. I couldn't imagine trying to use some sort of crimp connector on 12 little tiny wires...

Being that the radio and CD changer were missing from this car, I had no clue if it had the Pioneer or Nakimichi sound system. A quick call to my local Lexus dealer with my VIN told me that my car was built with the Pioneer stereo. I much prefer that for parts availability and such. The black LS400 has Nakimichi though. Some of the LCD cells are out but the stereo seems to work fine.

I'll post a photo in the late morning of the parts I came home with for around $80, which I think is a steal for what I got.

Cut wires prior to repair.

Newly soldered up wiring harness.

A little fabric harness tape really cleans up the job.



Also, the black car is going to be more of a headache than I really want. I started the starter replacement and it sure is a PITA as many have said through the years. The EGR tube is broke in two as most of them are. I'll have to drop $100 on a new as I can't sell the car with it broken like that. The timing belt appears to be pretty recent on the black car which is good. The power steering pump and pressure hose is absolutely covered in layers and layers of fluid. The reservoir is topped to the brim with the improper power steering fluid. I plan to remove and clean the pump, replace the pressure hose with a RockAuto special, and flush ATF into the system. For the EGR tube I'm going to try removing the exhaust together as I do in transmission removals from the front of the cats back to the connection under the drive shaft. This seems easier to me than just trying to remove one cat. I'll see if that provides me with enough room. If not, I guess the trans will need to drop out to replace the EGR tube. I bet I can get it with the exhaust out of the way.

jaaa

I didn't have that much of a problem taking the bottom part of the EGR pipe off without removing any exhaust parts. You have to get the right length wrench, and it is hard, but it can be done.

Banshee365

Right wrench or right socket combination? Honestly I havnt looked to hard at what it will need yet.

jaaa

Its been a few months, but I think it was just a box end wrench. Don't have room for a socket. Key is keeping pressure down on the(box) end so you don't gnarl the nut. Not much room to work with. If you can get it broke loose, you're good to go.

dicer

Pretty good fix Banshee, glad your enjoying the starter fixing job. I think the worse part is the crusty wiring and connectors.
The only time we get any okay wrecking yard deals is when they have a 50% off weekend like this last one, and even then its still a total rip off on most stuff. Because if its something no one ever takes it gets crushed and a lot of the stupid priced stuff is just waste in the scrapping process.

Banshee365

Yea the injector connectors are impossible to remove without breaking them. After the first broke I tried coming from the backside with a pick and slightly lifting the tang that way but they still break, some fully some partially. On the flip car I will probably just reinstall with broken retainers as the connectors will sit on the injectors as they have for 20 years unless someone goes tugging on them. If it were on my car I would probably be ordering all replacement connectors from Toyota. I haven't looked up the injector connectors but they're probably available no problem still.

For those of you that don't know, every connector part number for a Toyota/Lexus starts with 90980-. The other 5 numbers are molded into the connector itself, usually on the back. Take those 5 numbers on the connector and put them after 90980- and you've got your connector part number without ever cracking parts catalog.

The list of parts I got from the junkyard yesterday are as follows:

• Pioneer radio
• CD changer
• CD changer surround
• Newer USA made serpentine belt
• RH tail lamp assembly
• Driveshaft rubber damper
• Upstream o2 sensor (not shown in picture as it is already installed to cure CEL)
• Drivers front exterior door handle
• Plastic intake plenum (I accidentally ran the black cars parts over in the yard with the white car...)

As I figured the emergency tool kit was totally gone as was the first aid kit. One day I will find those... I've still got lots of odds and ends to get so it will take a few trips for a few cars. I also think that getting an EGR tube at a junkyard is next to impossible. By the time these cars make it to the junk yard the EGR tube have LONG been broken.
Many miscellaneous screws, bolts, retainers, clips, etc...

Banshee365

I'm starting to chase down a little bit of an oil leak. I hadn't driven it much prior to replacing the oil pan so it's undecided whether my oil pan seal job is leaking. I don't think it is as I felt like I put the exact right size bead of sealant all the way around as it just barely squished out when torquing the pan on. There is a drip hanging from the splash shield when I check and it's wet around the pan and on the engine cross member. It's tough to tell where it's coming from because oil leaks at the front of the engine blow backwards all over the place with wind. The leak isn't terrible like you all may have seen where it's just dripping constantly with the engine running. But I hate oil leaks so I'm going to try to trace this one down.

My valve cover bolts were lose so I re-torqued them as you would have seen in one of my previous posts on this thread. I may need to go ahead and do the valve cover gaskets and FIPG points as the gaskets are pretty cheap. Although, I don't think the valve covers are the source of the leak. Being that the front of the oil pan area is wet the oil leak is probably behind the No.1 timing cover, meaning the crank front seal or oil pump housing seam. I cleaned that area very well and ran the car on the ramps while watching the area. I didn't see any oil starting to form except for from the crank position sensor. The crank position sensor is not positioned in oil. It simply picks up the toner ring between the crank timing belt sprocket and crank harmonic balancer. If oil is coming from around the crank sensor I must have a leak at the crank seal or possibly somewhere higher up that is running down to that point. I didn't see any oil coming from the weep hole in the No.1 timing cover but it's possible that there is debris covering that hole and the easiest way for oil to escape from behind the cover is past the crank position sensor.

At this point maybe I should move up my timing belt and water pump job and get the parts ordered this week so I can see behind the covers and sprockets for oil leaks. I really hate changing crank or cam seals because they wear a slight groove in the sealing surface and the new seal won't seal properly with that. I haven't ever seen much of anyone sleeving the crank for a front seal so maybe it just is what it is short of removing the crank and having a machine shop polish it.

Banshee365

After cleaning the front of the engine last night and driving around today, it's obvious that the leak is coming from being the timing belt covers. The leak is most likely from the front crank seal. I haven't seen cam seals on the 1UZ leak before but I'm sure they can. The crank has spun twice as many revolutions as the cams and there is probably more heat down there so it will leak prior to cam seals most likely. Hopefully there isn't much of a groove on the crank. I think with this much leaking I'm going to move up the timing belt job. I'm planning to order the kit in a day or so along with 2 new Sachs hood struts from RockAuto. I'll also look at ordering a couple valve cover gaskets and a front crank seal from Lexus.

I'm also getting like 18mpg combined. The exhaust odor is pretty strong with premium fuel. I've also been getting P0420 and P0430 all of a sudden a few times now. At times my idle is 450-500 after coming to a stop as well... The coolant temp doesn't remain very constant which is why I have a new Toyota thermostat and ECT sensor ready to install during the timing belt job. Other than that I may look at replacing both upstream O2 sensor with Denso units from RockAuto for $40 each. I just replaced the one I was getting a heater code on with a junk yard part but two brand new sensors would work better than these 2 old ones I'm sure... The other thing for me to consider is replacing the ECM capacitors, there could be an issue there even while I didn't see any leaking when inspecting the ECM before putting the car on the road. One, some, or all of these may be contributing to the slightly low MPG, intermittent low idle, fuel smell, and cat efficiency codes.




Also, I feel like I have been talking to myself a bit lately with the progress on my project. Is there still any interest in what I've been doing with these cars or should I slow down on the documenting of my work?

dicer

Keep going its a lot more interesting than some of the stuff here. What you need to do is show some how too's, like how to get the ecu out of that year LS.