An interesting for those of you with 2 volume service manuals is volume 2, page SA-8 regarding rear alignment.

Now, I must be the RX300 owner with the most number of alignments in history, but up until last weekend, I had no clue on rear alignment with our beloved vehicles.

And this applies to both the FWD and AWD models.

 

First take a look at this photo and notice the big metal bolt and a washer on the right side of the photo. There is something similar on the passenger side (which I will use later as an example).

 

A closer look at the bolt. Notice very closely how the washer is embedded slightly in the background, thus making it very difficult to move.

 

Now, the main picture using the bolt on the other side.

Notice that it has lines on it and one center line in particular. Also notice the slight notch or line above the washer.

Basically, the easiest way to look at this is to make sure that center line on the washer matches the one above it. Mine was touching but was ever so slightly to the right and on the driver's side vice-versa. My uncle and I decided not to touch it and my most recent alignment only showed a slight toe-in issue easily corrected (and the usual problem with driving down here) and the caster was slightly off (but it move around anyway) and my camber was slightly negative as usual, equal on boths sides.

However, if you find a different variation, obviously this does not require much to check to see if something is wrong.

 

This is the best shot I could get of the computer screen (you know how hard it is to take a camera shot of a tv screen). The top is the camber, center is the caster and the bottom is the toe-in. This what Mexico City streets will do to your vehicle. Luckily, we can fix this pretty easily.

 

Here, north of the border for you, 4wheel alignment is very much advertised. My view is that this became popular with unibody design.

Salim

 

I came upon 120,000 miles recently, so I decided to among other things take a look at the suspension. There is broken shock on the front passenger side that I have known about (we'll get to that in a moment), but first I wanted to show an area that I showed previously in the above photos.

On my passenger side rear, this beam was shaking just slightly...enough that I can hear a slight creak when going over bumps.

 

So I got out a 17mm wrench and tightened it. Compared to the driver's side, this bolt was a lot more fluid than when I checked last year.

An easy way to check without getting underneath the vehicle is to bang with your fist the top part of the tire and see if you hear a clang/cling sound, although you can always get underneath and shake each these arms shown in the previous pictures to see if there is any movement.

Now let's talk about that shock.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hUYf2qBKHU

In the above video my cousin Rodrigo shows the damaged front passenger side shock. This shock had been broken since late last year when I first noticed it was leaking (looked like oil on the plastic covers in the wheel well and I could hear a hard pounding on some bumps). I don't have an after video as I had to go with my uncle to help him buy some things while my cousin's Rodrigo and Carlos reinstalled it.

So why didn't I buy those nice KYB GR-2s?

$120 USD for the KYB GR-2 shock from the U.S. (not including shipping)
$40 USD for shipment
between $40 to $120 USD for Mexican Customs (they can charge what they like regardless of your invoice in the box).

As for KYB helping me here, forget it, they told me $225 USD to get that shock, almost twice the U.S. price.

Get the picture?

We thought about filling it up with some tire foam filler (fix-a-flat stuff), but the problem we uncovered after removing the shock was that the cartridge inside was clanging so the foam idea wouldn't have worked (as source of irritation for yours truly every time I have driven my RX, even through several bracket racing championships over the past months )

So what we did is take it to a friend of my uncle's who fixes shocks. He couldn't fix this one normally, so what we had to do was buy from him a $50 USD shock for a Pathfinder (Don't ask me where he got the shock for that price, but it was a KYB). For $30 USD more, he then took out the cartridge inside and put it in mine, adapting some pieces (he wouldn't let me take photos). He refilled it with liquid and the top of the new shock you can see below. No more creaks or silly sounds.

 

Here is what the top bolt on the other side looks like for comparison.

 

A view of the wheel well area with the shock out.

 

Top mount area with the shock and 3 bolts removed.

 

Underneath this area.

 

You may have seen in the video those lower rubber supports were stretched from use (these aren't cheap at $60 USD for 2 front supports (i.e., $30 USD for each rubber support from Lexus).

Here is how they looked when we had to reuse the same ones after the shock was reinstalled.

 

Finally, remember those c-clamps I told you about when removing springs...well here they are on the springs. Rodrigo and I were the only ones there when we were removing the springs with the clamps and an air pistol and it is better to do this with 2 people (reason for no other photos) and another reason why I don't advocate shock removal and installation as a DIY. It can be dangerous and one my uncle's friends who is a mechanic wounded in the hospital after a clamp came off and he got his finger broken in the spring as it bounced back.