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Nicely done kuWuPt! Wow, that's quite the job. Probably more than I'd be willing to take on. Glad that you got it fixed though.
Thanks Harold, as I mentioned replacing the components wasn't that bad the time consuming part is making sure everything is clean.
Originally Posted by Merchdawg
Don't recall if you ever mentioned or if you have been asked this yet but what's your plans for the old navigation screen/system?
the screen up top is still working so it can still be used for navigation, but later on I do want to upgrade that screen since my head unit supports dual zone..
A lot of projects have been on the back burner due to life but I think this one takes the cake for me. I was going through my garage and I came across my 06 and up headlights that I had bought back in 2015!
They were used so needed some TLC so I started on refurbishing the headlights. There seemed to be a little oxidization on the outside of the lens and a little on the inside too right in front of the projector. Probably why I put it on the back burner, it was more work than I wanted to take on at the time. I tried to find a replacement lens but failed to find one. In order to fix this my thought process was I actually needed to take the lens apart and sand the oxidization off and clear the inside and outside of the lens. Since the lense had to come off anyway I figured it would be a good time to customize the inside and change the fresnel lens to a clear lens too. I didn't want anything crazy, just a clean looking headlight. So in the oven it went and got the lenses seperated.
Above picture shows the oxidization of the lens on the inside. This was only on the passenger side headlight but I went ahead and did both lenses.
Sanding and clearing the inside of the headlights with 2k clear brought these back to life. I didn't want to do the outside yet because I wanted to finish the rest of the headlight and put it all back together and then do the outside.
Got my TSX clear lenses in so installed that as well.
With that situated I debated on what else to do to the internals. I already knew I wanted to get rid of the chrome in the bezel because it was too bright for the car IMO. I found a shade of grey with good flop in it, not too dark and not too light that I thought would look good and had it painted.
I wanted to add a little more detail into the headlights and I noticed the ridges on the bezel in front of the high beams and wanted to accentuate those. Also wanted to try a DRL strip that I could possibly use.
Measurement of the ridge on the bezel.
Tried a LED strip on the bezel just to get a visual.
Scrapped the LED strip idea because I thought it would stand out too much in the headlight.
I had some reflective vinyl from another project and thought I could use that in those ridges. Used the measurements of the ridges to draw up strip to get cut on the vinyl cutter.
Tried a couple of different ideas and this is what I ended up liking. Notice the black in the ridges and around the low beam portion with the logo on it.
This is the same headlight with light shining on it.
Was pretty happy with the subtlety of it so went ahead and resealed the headlight. When resealing headlights I didn't want to take the chance of just using the old butyl. I got a roll of the Morimoto butyl and used it to reseal the headlights. Off to the body shop again, sanded and cleared the outside of the lenses with 2k clear.
The final product.
Now I just need to figure out what I want to do with my front bumper and then put these on!
On my 2nd Gen GS after lowering the car and putting wheels I spent a lot of time chasing down the source of an annoying vibration I had between 65 and 70mph. I changed each suspension component at a time to see what would help it and with each component I changed it got better and better till it was no more. Huge thanks to the members of ClubLexus back in the day that reported similar issues and helped narrow my issues down. The SC430 shares a lot of the GS suspension components and so everything I did on the GS I wanted to do on the SC, but not in increments. Wanted it all said and done at the same time, and since a lot of them are interlinked it made more sense to do it at the same time.
These are the components I've changed:
Moog inner tie rods EV800543 x 2
Moog Outer tie rod Left ES80585
Moog Outer tie rod Right ES80584
Moog Ball joint Left K500102
Moog Ball joint Right K500101
Figs steering rack bushing
Figs #2 caster arm bushing.
Along with the above components the engine mounts and the transmission mounts need to be changed as well which I will do the next time I get a chance. I want to upgrade the sway bars in the near future so will do the sway bar end links then too.
I don't think these components have been changed since the day it left the factory 13 years ago!! Wow was it a bi**h. The tie rod ends were definitely shot, the boot was torn and grease all over the place, the ball joints were shot, boots torn, grease all over the place, the inner tie rod would flop with gravity, the steering rack bushings didn't look bad they were starting to separate at the edge a little from the metal collar and the caster arm bushings didn't look that bad either, slight tears in the bushings but not torn through like on my old GS. Although the bushings looked fine my tires showed inner camber wear just on the inner 1 inch which is usually caused by the caster bushing. I'm really glad I did end up doing everything that I planned on, it definitely needed it.
I don't get to work on my car on a daily basis so to move things along quicker I got a used set of arms to press out the old bushings and press in the new bushings. Fold in the lip on one side press out the old bushing and press in the Fig's bushing. The pic shows only the press in bushing installed, the metal sleeve has to be greased and put in along with the end caps. I waited till the day of install to grease it and assemble it all together. The metal sleeve can be hand pressed in so no big deal but the grease is really sticky so didn't want it being exposed to other elements.
When I got the chance to install the rest of my components it was all remove and replace. Still took like 4 hours to do all of it, everything seemed like it was seized on there. the locking nut between the inner and outer tie rod did not want to budge, I took both out attached, took it to a bench vise and was able to remove the outer tie rod end but not the nut in between. I ended up cutting the nut on either sides just to get it off to get the rubber boots off for the new tie rods. The ball joints took an exuberant amount of force to pop. The only thing that went smoothly was the steering rack bushing and the already pre-assembled caster arm.
Comparison of the old and new tie rods:
The ball joints were in the same condition, forgot to take a pick of it before I cussed at it a few times and threw it!
Out with the old:
\
In with the new:
I took measurements of the length of the tie rods and matched it up to the new ones hoping to get by till I got an alignment on Monday but that definitely didn't work out. Driving the car, it was all over the place so I'm not driving it till I get it aligned and can update then.
Also in hindsight I should have washed the underside and engine bay to get rid of the old oil buildup mainly from the valve cover gasket that I can see, hopefully it's just that. I think I might also have a slight leak from my power steering line where it meets the power steering. I'll probably clean the engine bay and underside before I continue with any other changes, it should better help me pinpoint leaks.
I'm hoping to do the steering rack bushing myself, do you know if there's a write up on that to follow?
12-29-18 | 09:14 AM
