Serpantine Belt

[montanawinter]

I have been a faithful follower of this board for many months now. It walked me through buying a 2000 LX470 in April and now I am back for some repair advice. I took it in to Lexus for the 60k service and was a bit overwhelmed. Problems are:

Exhaust Manifold Gasket leaking - Repair cost ~ $2500

Serpantine belt needs replacing - Repair cost ~ $275

Recomended fuel system clean - Cost ~ $250

Recomended full transmission flush - cost ~$400

In my discussion with the service tech about the exhaust manifold gasket he said that it needs replacing but I could get by without until it fails. I asked the mechanic what worst case scenario was and he said it may give a check engine light because of improper fuel/air mixture. I'll put this repair on the back burner since I have better uses for $2500 right now.

The Serpantine belt is where I really need advice - I almost choked when I heard $275 to replace the belt. I told them no and picked up an OEM belt on my way home from work the other night. Saturday morning I pulled the 470 from the garage in preparation of what I thought would be an easy replacement....stunned I just stared - couldn't figure out what to loosen to relieve tension on that thing. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

As far as the fuel system clean, I ran some Chevron Techron through the tank and figure between using that semi-regularly and the 93 octane gas I shouldn't expect a problem until the 250k mile range.

Transmission flush will come but not until 100k or so. The fluid has been changed regularly and I know that the transmission is fairly heavy duty - all we use it for is light driving. Not worried.

Any help on the serpantine belt would be appreciated as well as any advice on Indys in the Houston area who are well respected / fair priced.

[jrwright]

One of the pulleys is the belt tensioner, IIRC it's the one to the right of the one on the far left. And, I think it's threaded backwards but I'm not sure. What did they charge you for just the belt?

[montanawinter]

One of the pulleys is the belt tensioner, IIRC it's the one to the right of the one on the far left. And, I think it's threaded backwards but I'm not sure. What did they charge you for just the belt?

The charge for the belt was $53 - I did check at Autozone and they had a range of belts from $23-55....decided to stick with a Toyota part.

From your recollection how does the belt tensioner work - loosen the bolt in the center of the pully and it swings - or is there a bolt to the side that is the pivot point for a swing arm? Also, when installing the new belt does the tensioner auto tension or will I need a torque wrench?

Thanks for the help!

[jrwright]

Your better off with the OEM part.

I've never done the swap, but I have the FSM and read the instructions just prior to reading your post (and I don't have the FSM's here at my office). The FSM only lists about 5 steps, so it seems that it would be a simple job. It is not an auto tension system and I think you need some sort of tool that will gauge the tension on the belt (something about tension between A and B, or ???). Wish I could be more helpful.

I hate to say this but this Forum is not the best place for mechanical advice. You might want to try www.ih8mud.com. There's a forum dedicated to the UZJ100 (or 100 series) Land Cruisers, which is what our LX470's are. I've got some great advice and learned a hell of a lot about my 100's ('98LX470 and '99 TLC). Also, one of the forum members (CDan) is a Toyota parts manager for American Toyota and sells OEM parts to forum members at a discount (I bought my FSM's and other stuff from him). So, basically you can get great advice and parts in the same place.

I really wish this site would pick up, but I've been lingering here for quite some time and there's really not a lot of posts (or posts with substance).