Overheating Problem

[atp160]

Hello,

I have 1993 ES 300. The head gasket recently went in it ( no water in the oil, thank god). I had a mechanic who was a friend of the family (owns own shop) replace the head gaskets along with the water pump, heads done, timing chain, pulleys, etc. It took him almost a month. When I got it back it started to over heat so he replaced the Hydraulic fan motor because he said it wasn't pulling enough air through. Still starts to overheat, so he recommends to replce the radiator, so one last chance and I have him replace the raditator. Picked the car up Friday night and what hapens? It starts to OVERHEAT getting close to the "H" on the gauge. Suggestions? I'm thinking of replacing the temparture sensor and change the thermostate (it was changed with the head job). I can not think of anything else to do. Car has 132,000 and was taken very good care of. Thank you for any help.

[CUMan]

I had considerable problems with overheating in my 94 ES last year. The problem turned out to be the hydraulic fan not running at the proper speed. This was caused by a solenoid which is part of the power steering pump. I wrote a post regarding the problem and its solution. The link is shown below.

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...&pid=200503

[atp160]

Thank you for the reply, I will check all the wires to make sure that the mechanic put it back to gether correctly since he did do the heads. I will check the fan speed also.

[atp160]

Thank you.

[90LS400Lexus]

Are headgaskets a common problem on the early ES300's?

[Jrish]

I am having the same problem with my 95 ES300, even with a new steering pump. The fan not spinning at the right speed. It is supposed to get faster when u turn on the ac. Do u have the same problem with the ac off. I don't think u will. Try it and see. I am going to solve this problem by putting in a small electric fan, controlled by an alternate power source. Im doing this because even the dealers made me have to spend money, and it still did not solve the problem. With hydraulics, it could be even the pipes and hoses that affect the fan's velocity. It will take too much of my time to let them fix it, so I'll just do it the electronic way.

Hello,

I have 1993 ES 300. The head gasket recently went in it ( no water in the oil, thank god). I had a mechanic who was a friend of the family (owns own shop) replace the head gaskets along with the water pump, heads done, timing chain, pulleys, etc. It took him almost a month. When I got it back it started to over heat so he replaced the Hydraulic fan motor because he said it wasn't pulling enough air through. Still starts to overheat, so he recommends to replce the radiator, so one last chance and I have him replace the raditator. Picked the car up Friday night and what hapens? It starts to OVERHEAT getting close to the "H" on the gauge. Suggestions? I'm thinking of replacing the temparture sensor and change the thermostate (it was changed with the head job). I can not think of anything else to do. Car has 132,000 and was taken very good care of. Thank you for any help.

[mehullica]

There is a 2 wire connector on the p/s pump. It controls the speed of the cooling fan, make sure it's plugged into the pump or the fan never reach full speed.

[alfreema]

Hello,

I have 1993 ES 300. The head gasket recently went in it ( no water in the oil, thank god). I had a mechanic who was a friend of the family (owns own shop) replace the head gaskets along with the water pump, heads done, timing chain, pulleys, etc. It took him almost a month. When I got it back it started to over heat so he replaced the Hydraulic fan motor because he said it wasn't pulling enough air through. Still starts to overheat, so he recommends to replce the radiator, so one last chance and I have him replace the raditator. Picked the car up Friday night and what hapens? It starts to OVERHEAT getting close to the "H" on the gauge. Suggestions? I'm thinking of replacing the temparture sensor and change the thermostate (it was changed with the head job). I can not think of anything else to do. Car has 132,000 and was taken very good care of. Thank you for any help.

I also have a 1993 ES 300. I have a whirring sound in my engine. The Lexus dealer indicated that its the Hydraulic Fan Motor. The cost to replace is: "THE HYDRAULIC FAN MOTOR WILL COST $746.00 PARTS AND LABOR THE PART COST IS 501.56 AND IS A SPECIAL ORDER PREPAID PART."

Is that comparable to what you paid to replace your Hydraulic Fan Motor?

[tweeaks]

I also have a 1993 ES 300. I have a whirring sound in my engine. The Lexus dealer indicated that its the Hydraulic Fan Motor. The cost to replace is: "THE HYDRAULIC FAN MOTOR WILL COST $746.00 PARTS AND LABOR THE PART COST IS 501.56 AND IS A SPECIAL ORDER PREPAID PART."

Is that comparable to what you paid to replace your Hydraulic Fan Motor?

Parts and labor are always high at the dealer......Order the part and do it yourself. Do it on a day off and basically make the $500 they want in labor by doing it yourself. Look around, you might be able to get the fan cheaper if you order it through another dealer. I used to order all of my OEM Honda from across the country because it was still cheaper to buy them from another dealer than ship them to me instead of buying from the local dealer.

[alfreema]

I also have a 1993 ES 300. I have a whirring sound in my engine. The Lexus dealer indicated that its the Hydraulic Fan Motor. The cost to replace is: "THE HYDRAULIC FAN MOTOR WILL COST $746.00 PARTS AND LABOR THE PART COST IS 501.56 AND IS A SPECIAL ORDER PREPAID PART."

Is that comparable to what you paid to replace your Hydraulic Fan Motor?

Parts and labor are always high at the dealer......Order the part and do it yourself. Do it on a day off and basically make the $500 they want in labor by doing it yourself. Look around, you might be able to get the fan cheaper if you order it through another dealer. I used to order all of my OEM Honda from across the country because it was still cheaper to buy them from another dealer than ship them to me instead of buying from the local dealer.

Is replacing a Hydraulic Fan Motor very difficult? Give me a difficulty rating on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 = my 6 year old can do it and 10 = NASA engineers wouldn't want to touch it.

-a

[LumpyLou]

Is replacing a Hydraulic Fan Motor very difficult? Give me a difficulty rating on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 = my 6 year old can do it and 10 = NASA engineers wouldn't want to touch it.

-a

-a

Search for a post by Toysrme in Dec 2005 titled "Merry Christmas! Factory Service Manuals!" In that post he provides a link to download some manuals including the Full Service Manual for 93 ES300. The download is over 40MB, but I found it priceless. The forty meg file will extract to several pdf files of the various service manuals. Once decompressed click on the Engine.pdf file and go to page EG268. There you can read all you want to know about removing and re-installing the hydraulic fan. Of itself it doesn't seem all that complicated.

But you might be better backing up a bunch pages and reading how the overall system works. For instance just with a quick browse of the section I read that there's a computer dedicated to running that fan and it decides what speed the fan should run at at any given time by controlling a valve that varies the flow of oil to the fan motor. What I'm suggesting is that if your fan seems not to be running fast enough it just might not be the hydraulic motors fault, it may be that it's the computer that's limiting it's speed or maybe the valve that's not responding correctly.

Just a suggestion, hope it's useful.

Lumpy

One way or the other, I have found those manuals superb

[alfreema]

Search for a post by Toysrme in Dec 2005 titled "Merry Christmas! Factory Service Manuals!" In that post he provides a link to download some manuals including the Full Service Manual for 93 ES300. The download is over 40MB, but I found it priceless. The forty meg file will extract to several pdf files of the various service manuals. Once decompressed click on the Engine.pdf file and go to page EG268. There you can read all you want to know about removing and re-installing the hydraulic fan. Of itself it doesn't seem all that complicated.

Whooooaaa! That is excellent! I just downloaded the FSM and the Training Manual. Thanks sooo much! Yes, if I can verify Lexus' analysis that it is indeed the fan motor causing the issue I now feel a lot better about swapping it out myself. Without the FSM I wouldn't have had a clue. Well .. I am good at taking things apart ... it's just that simple task of getting it back together that I fall apart on. :)

Thanks very much!

-a

[sank]

Hello, there I have a 1992 Es300 had the same exact problem replaced the most suspicious culprits that would be behind overheating (water pump, power steering hose, radiator, thermostat, even ran the little blue gels through the radiator system to find a leak nothing still over heating and coolant over boliing). One simple thing you oughta check is the controll fan unit located behind the glove compartment. This little gadget could be the root problem of your woes. The CFU has little diodes ( small battery looking thingy's) if you look carefully at the top of one of those diodes and it has a bulge it is blown. So you will have to replace the whole unit. It doesn't cost that much the only issue is the labor involved in getting to the control unit it is a pain. The CFU controls the Fan's speed mainly telling the fan when to kick in on high gear to cool the engine and prevent over heating. I worked long and hard on this believe me one simple thing.

Later on when taking a trip I blew a head gasket and instead of doing the heads I replaced the whole block with a used one that was checked for compression and all and was guranteed on the mileage. Replacing the block was much cheaper than getting the heads done since the engine was already knocking. I hope this helps.

Hello,

I have 1993 ES 300. The head gasket recently went in it ( no water in the oil, thank god). I had a mechanic who was a friend of the family (owns own shop) replace the head gaskets along with the water pump, heads done, timing chain, pulleys, etc. It took him almost a month. When I got it back it started to over heat so he replaced the Hydraulic fan motor because he said it wasn't pulling enough air through. Still starts to overheat, so he recommends to replce the radiator, so one last chance and I have him replace the raditator. Picked the car up Friday night and what hapens? It starts to OVERHEAT getting close to the "H" on the gauge. Suggestions? I'm thinking of replacing the temparture sensor and change the thermostate (it was changed with the head job). I can not think of anything else to do. Car has 132,000 and was taken very good care of. Thank you for any help.