Glove Box Removal

RFeldes · November 28, 2004

Hi Guys and gals :D

I believe that my freon is leaking from the evaporator area under the glove box as I put leak detector in and it showed on the garage floor. I have looked for threads and have only come across how agonizing this can be. I have a 1990 with no passenger air bag. Can someone point me to a tutorial on the easiest way to get in there. I consider myself quite adept and DYI, but would like to hear from somebody who has been there. Thanks.

obergc · November 29, 2004

If it's on your garage floor I'd make darn sure that it's coming from the evaporator before I dug into it. The only way it could get to the floor from there would be from the evaporator drain tube that is located by the firewall on the passenger side, near the passengers feet. If it's dripping there then you are probably right. I don't have any pictures or any tutorials but I removed the evaporator to replace the expansion valve last year and it took me only about an hour to have it out of the car, following the instructions in the shop manual. Removing the glove box is only the beginning of the removal process, you have to remove all the lower panels, engine ecm, and other electronics located under there. I would highly recommend that you get a shop manual before you start. You also have to remove some air ducting also. If you don't have a shop manual you will probably have considerable difficulty in doing the job, Lexus is pretty good at having hidden fasteners or at least not easily found and they will make the job much more difficult to do.

VBdenny · November 29, 2004

excellent advice Curt. I really need to get them before next summer when I have a few issues to address. When I had my 77 Cadillac, I had the shop manuals and it made things quite easy. Replaced about everything on that car, luckily there was always in abundant supply in local junkyards and parts were dirt cheap. A Lexus "recycling center" with dirt cheap parts be a beautiful sight indeed!

How's the 400 doing these days?

Denny

obergc · November 29, 2004

Hi Denny,

The LS is running beautifully at the moment. It had developed an occassional miss that turned out to be bad sparkplug wiring. I just installed a new set of NGK Platinum plugs, a new set of Borg-Warner sparkplug wires as well as a Borg-Warner Distributor caps and rotors and it's never run better. Also did a drain and a refill on the tranny fluid . Absolutely cannot tell that the engine is running at idle unless you look at the tach. It's running powerful at the moment and absolutely everything in the car works. Couldn't be happier. Ah yes, a handy supply of used LS parts would be great to have, we can only dream.

90LS400Lexus · November 29, 2004

Oh, the awful evaporator leak.... :( This was bad on my 1990 LS as well. I did not want to go through the expense or trouble of repairing it, because I heard it was a costly repair. The previous owner of my car had gotten a quote from Lexus and they quoted around $1300. :blink: Probably why the original owners sold it. <_< Seems like it is a common problem on these cars (at least the 90-94 models). The removal may not be as bad on this car as it is on some other cars/trucks. My uncle had a 1985 Ford Thunderbird LX V8 that required the removal of the ENTIRE instrument panel to replace the core and this seems to be the case on the 1986-1997 Nissan pickups.

Good luck.

VBdenny · November 29, 2004

uh oh. My A/C isn't working. It worked fine up until the compressor stopped running. The AC light never flashed (and still doesn't) so maybe... just maybe, my evaporator leaked the freon and the low pressure switch cut it off.

I'm guessing from what you guys are saying is that this is a huge task?

Wilfred · January 23, 2005

I really wish i saw this thread earlier. It should be noted as one of the problems for potential buyers. I tried to get it fixed by a shop and they still couldn't fix it but is charging me labour. I brought another evaporator from the wreckers but had i known there was known problems from the evaporator i would have got one new. The second hand one was bad too and after spending $900 still no cold air. I'll try this again next summer.