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Actually, not quite as bad as I thought, getting to it. I'm going to try to service the contacts in place. If I can't, then I'll go ahead and pull the whole starter.
The solenoid clicks fine, and when it catches the starter turns great. It's just the contacts on the solenoid that are going out. Just kind of sad that it takes this much work to replace a $7 set.
On, and the next thing I did after the pic was to put tape over the intake ports on the heads.
Very nice and clean vvti!!! Great job on the starter!!!
Actually, not quite as bad as I thought, getting to it. I'm going to try to service the contacts in place. If I can't, then I'll go ahead and pull the whole starter.
The solenoid clicks fine, and when it catches the starter turns great. It's just the contacts on the solenoid that are going out. Just kind of sad that it takes this much work to replace a $7 set.
On, and the next thing I did after the pic was to put tape over the intake ports on the heads.
I've always heard the 1UZ starter was hard to change, but that doesn't look like it's too bad.
I've always heard the 1UZ starter was hard to change, but that doesn't look like it's too bad.
Oh, getting to it isn't all that bad. Getting it out is another story. I'm not planning on pulling mine, though. I'm just going to replace the solenoid contacts in place. The motor spins great and solenoid kicks fine, it just doesn't connect and turn most of the time. Click-of-death.
I figure I'll know while I'm in there if I fully botched the contact replacement by jumping the starter relay and seeing if it turns the engine (now that I think of it, I'll probably also just test for voltage without the starter motor hooked up; it won't tell me if it handles a load, but it'll tell me if I completely botched it before I put the starter motor back on.) If it seems to work fine, then I'll put it back together and hope for the best. If it doesn't work, then I'll pull the starter then and there. If it works for a while and then dies earlier than one would expect (week, month, years) then I'll take off the intake again and pull the whole starter and replace it.
I mean, at this point it's deciding if the extra couple hours and cost of a new starter is worth more than the possibility of having to pull the intake again. I think it's worth the risk. Plus pulling the starter involves tools I don't have and wouldn't ever likely need again unless I was pulling an SC400 starter, again.
At this point I'm about 3 hours in to it if you don't count runs for tools and research (internet and actual Lexus shop manual.) I figure about an hour to get it back together after doing the starter work, assuming I didn't break anything. Now that I know how to do the removal, I'm assuming about 2 hours to pull the intake next time. I think it's worth the possibility of having to spend 3 hours on it again to save at least $200 and an hour or 2 of PITA work. At this point I don't think I even need to replace any gaskets being I haven't pulled the rear water bridge.
Just realized today that I hadn't actually ordered the contact replacement kit for my starter, yet. That'd make it kinda hard to get finished this weekend. So I did that. "Guaranteed" delivery by tomorrow, according to Amazon. We'll see how that goes.
Didn't do much, changed out the climate control interface and was being a dork, painted the center console semi gloss black, don't mind the shift **** missing, I didn't put it on at that moment.
You didn't want to reinforce them before you installing the new ones? I recall someone (maybe it was OLT?) who used some liquid nails on the area to help strengthen it (during the repairs).
You didn't want to reinforce them before you installing the new ones? I recall someone (maybe it was OLT?) who used some liquid nails on the area to help strengthen it (during the repairs).
I agree, I would definitely reinforce new ones to keep them looking that way indefinitely. I used expanding spray foam on the back of mine to fill in the space between the tiny braces where they always crack, carved to fit the shape of the metal door frame. I can't think of a worse designed trim piece on any car I've worked on.
I'll have to take my driver's trim back off to investigate a molding problem that occurred yesterday. Rolling the window down, the inner molding kept sticking to it and getting sucked down / folded over on itself, pulling the window trim in with it. I replaced the outer moldings recently. The inner's felt is probably worn down too far... The worst part about working on the door/window panels and trims is you just know something else will break each time you take them off.
10-05-15, 11:56 AM
