ArmyofOne

I can't seem to find the garage or gallery. Is it just me? <_< I like the look-it reminds me of the look when I first joined! ← it aint just you...i cant find it either. there were a LOT of images in there ...id just give it a few days. ;)

heh that sounds easy..unfortunately i have no idea what the hell shims are...i have never used them. my contour had the shims and everything all in one pice, you stick the pad in the caliper and put the spring back on and your good. LOL. i gues thats the difference between a car that was $25000 new and a car that was $12,000 new. and the pads that are ont his car are the originals (the rear anyway) at 140,000 miles... ;) ill pull the wheel off on tuesday and if i have any more questions, they will be posted here LOL.

Josh (last name witheld) Black Jade Pearl 1990 Lexus ES250 140K and leaking everywhere, but running nonetheless. im in da DF Dub (Dallas/Ft Worth for all you non texans LOL.) i am in houston fairly frequntely, about once every 2 months or so. 'i actually have one of the more performance moddable motors of the ES series, the 2mz-fe. with a P&P job on the heads i can gain 40 HP....theres a few other goodies which i already have: Magnaflow Hi-Flow Cat Removed Res. DENSO Spark plug wires NKG cold Iridium Plugs. and a few others to come. i plan on leaving her stock for the most part...

are the rear pads on the ES series difficult to replace??/ i have done disk brakes only once before, on a simpler car... tey cant be too har, right? i canget the pads for both rears for 26.99 at autozone (duralast gold ceramic)...how long do you think it will take?

meh, i liked the old one better...theres too much white here...me eyes no likey... but thats why there are sunglasses!!! LOL.

and jp, what is your name? i called that cell # in your sig and a woman answered...when i asked for JP, she siad i had the wrong #... i called your shop and left a message on your machine. i will see if i can make my way out there tuesday, you have an email also BTW. thanks for your help. there doesnt appear to be anything coming from around there, bit i dod just notice today that the o-rings around the valve cover bolts are dry rotted and leaking...could this be the source rather than the cover gasket itself??? EDIT: JP i just talked with my dad, he said that we could do the valve covers...but... i know that if it turns out its something else leaking too, and we fix the valve covers, we'll be wasting the $25 and the weekend becuase you will just have to break the gasket aagain when i bring it to you, and valve cover gaskets cant usually be reused. i dont have a TQ wrench, but i can rent one at autozone if need be. also, its gonna take me a tank of gas to get there and back. i will get out your way eventually. the leak seems to have slowed since i changed the oil this morning...drastically. it has just been leaking for so long (previous owner said about 3 years) that ther eis oil ALL OVER the underside of the motor. it will have to pulled to ever be completely cleaned. if i keep the car that may be something i consider...but with parts flying off in car washes (another story) imay not be able to afford to keep it! EDIT#2: i can take much more detailed pix tomorrow if need be.

naw man, she burns no oil that i can see. no smoke other than whats coming out of the rigth wheel wheel from dripping on the resonator. it goes away after a few minutes. and its white. if it blew blue smoke, i would not have bought the car. i had it checked by Park Place ;lexus, and they said it appeard to onlybe the valve covers, but they wouldnt know about things like the cam seals unless they took them off. should i pull the plugs and check em out? BTW, i changed the oil todayand put in valv. max life (in the red containers) with a bosch oil filter #3330. runs much smoother. quiet. anyways, when cam seals go, isnt there usually oil on the spark plug?? JP, i will call you tomorrow on your cell phone. you are like, on the other side of the city from me...but i will see if i can make it out. i am SURE the car isnt burning oil. its just leaking...quite a bit. JP, how much is your diagnostic Fee? cause after buying this car, i have like $100...that i really cant spend. if you can fix this car for ~$350 parts and labor, i will let you do it...but i also understand completely (being a mechanic myself) that you cant diagnose it from 50 miles away. i would do them, but i woudl get in there and find something else terrribly wrong, and i dont know anything about toyotas...at all.

hmmm...i always thought rare cars wuld be worth more later on. especially the "numbers Matching" ones. but your right, my friend will be lucky to get parts for his 84 corolla...let alone $400.

are you open today??? or i can call monday. thanks JP. :D it is quite the drive, and i may have to stop and add oil halfway there . i wonder, can you also wash the GUNK off of my motor???

i just had an estimate from the City garage around the corner frm my house (they do AWESOME work, have been taking cars there for a while, as have my parents, and their friends) and i was quoted $311 labor only for front and rear Valve Cover Gaskets and PCV valve. he said (and this is all true) that if the PCV valve is bad (or clogged) then it will push all the prssurized oil out through the seals. great (i knew that), but what does that do if i want to put synth in after i get the leaks fixed? how are the internal seals (valve seals etc) going to be if the PCV valve has been bad all this time? i can almost garuntee you that it is, the last owner drove 2 miles total every day, and never took the car over 3,000 RPMS. he also said that i would need an UIM (Upper Intake Manifold)gasket, because the UIM, and TB have to be removed to get to the rear valve cover. for only the rear valve cover and PCV valve, i was quoted $267 labor. i think this is the route i am going to go. while i could do both of them myself, it would take alot of something i dont have...time. i can do the front one in a few hours, but the rear bank is gonna be a B****. so where can i get cheap gaskets??? i would thin autozone would be as good a place as any. so that sounds about right for labor charges im thinking, what do you guys think? __________________

cool, well since its cheap to replace the bulb, and it needs replaced anyway, i will start there LOL. if its the sensor, it will stay bad. im beginning to worry about what the price of parts is going to do (increase/decrease) as these cars get older and more rare...its getting to the point where the dealer doesnt even carry parts for certain cars (for instance, my friends 84 corolla) anymore.

yeah, i like them too. so what are your opinions on the value of this car? is it gonna go up?? stay the same forever?? drop down?? they are rare, but then again there wasnt a big demand for them. im thinking in 5 years, if it hasnt increased at all in its value, i will just trade it in on a higher model lexus. :D or i might just keep it, cause its something you dont see everyday. my neighbor said: OMG dude, i havent seen one of those in forever, it has to be one of the ugliest cars i have ever seen...IN A GOOD WAY!!! :D

when i moved here from anchorage alaska (to DFW) in june of 03, i thoyght..."cool, no more ice, snow and sand on the roads (Alaska didnt use salt beacuse they would use so much, it would alter the sodium content in the oceans)...anyway... when i gt here, it was a complketely different story. my ford contour, was in MINT condition before i left. now, a year later, the clearcoat on the Gold Metallic paint has begun to fade and the headliner has decided to unstick..all due to heat and sunlight... the lexus i now have, has been here since it was built, and there is NO clearcoat peel or fade on this car. not only that, but the exterior (other than the paint peel which i have determined to be poorly prepped before paint) is almost flawless. and its 15 years old. my ford had 340,000 miles of harsh alaska winters (9 months at -20 degrees farenheit will kill an engine if you dont plug in the block heater) and then a year and a half of harsh texas summers (sometimes over 105 degrees...in the shade) and it was just starting to show problems. but guess what, all it takes is a little TLC and time. my cars get a coat of wax once a month, washed once a week and an oil change at 3K on the dot, unless they use synthetic. (3 of which, the contour, the concorde and the ram do, the lex doesnt cause its elaking right now, once thats fixed, in goes mobil 1 10W30) if you want to keep your headlights looking new WAX THEM. its that simple. the chrysler concorde limited is 2 years old now, and the headlights still look brand new...because i wax them, same with the 4 year old ram truck. same with my 15 year old lexus, same with my 10 (almost 11) year old contour. my buddies 97 civic (stock) has headlights so hazy you cant see at night...he has NEVER waxed his headlights. there is something to be said for MAINTENANCE. now i realize that you bought this car recently, so this isnt nessecarily your fault. but there is something (short fo buy new headlights) that you can do... http://www.meguiars.com/store_meguiars/pro...l.cfm?sku=g-123 Meguiars plastiX will take alot of that oxidation off of your headlights. if its bad enough, it wont cure it, but it WILL help, i stand by that. you can get enough (1 packet) at your local Autozone to do both headlights and then some for $1. so go do it! lol. ask the autozone guy for meguiars Plastix...he wil get you some. then keep them waxed, and keep in mind that if you buy new ones, not only are they gonna cost you a fortune (likely to be 500+), but they will rehaze in less than 3 years if you dont wax them. i promise this. so long story short, even ifd you dont wax the whole car, wax the headlights once a month, it only takes a few mi8nutes. you will save yourself $$$ and ugliness in the 10 minutes a month it takes to perform this maintenance

NOT what i wanted to hear...for that price, i will live with the damned light. i do have a left liscense plate lamp out, would that trigger it??? i cant believe my car has a light to tell me when i have a light out LOL. it doesnt work for the front, i have a foglamp out (the yellow one on the drivers side) and it doesnt say anything about lights up front LOL.

damn photbuicket, lets try this again...im not sure why, but i think they deleted my account:

i resized them in photo editor, they are 800x600...need me to go 640x480???

yes, that damed thing drives me nuts, and i get people telling me: "uhh...dude, whats with the light???" :chairshot:

ok. cool. well i looked a ltitle closer and it looks like in addition to 1 headlight (my right one is stained badly) theheader panel is cracked in several places, i will need to replace that when i replace the bumper...

ok here are the real Photos...the way a lexus is suppsed to look. sexy in the sunset (minus that front bumper, gawd that thing is awful...) and the best one: i have these in Unaltered, full size pix if you are inerested. just PM me. what do you think??

i know, its already on its way...thanks man!!! whew...as long as thats all those lights mean...i thought there was something wrong with a sensor or something in the rear end...i was kind of worried...but if all i gotta do is change alightbulb...then i feel better...thanks. EDIT: does your 94 ES have that ECT power thingy???

heh new ratings...i took it out today and opened er up...cleaned out the motor really good *cough* Triple digit speeds *cough* Handling: 8/10-(the steering wheel is still off centered) i think the steering system was out of wack because this car just DIDNT get driven...i put more miles on it today that it had ever had put on it in a month for the last 5 years. (put 68 miles on er today) once i got it moving and actually use the steering wheel other than to just make a right, 2 lefts and another right to get to motorola like my boss did (he lived right behind the office), it got the fluid flowing and seems to feel really good. Speed: 9/10-(its alot faster than i thought with the OD off and the shift lock override on B) ) Power: 9/10.-for its time and class the 2.5L Four Cam (cant tell if they are DOHC or not, dont think so...)V6 puts out a decent amount of power. Ladies factor: 9/10-ladies dig the key and the car that goes with it, guys think its a rebadged camry (its a good thing i could give a S*** what guys think about my car ) Comforts: 10/10-for a 15 year old car, its got a lot of nice features. thansk to this car, i now have build quality standards, compared to this lexus, that ford contour's interior was !Removed! (may she RIP :cries: ). it was only 10 years old and the drivers seat was starting to tear, this car is 15 years old and the seats look brand new...)

ok, there are 2 lights on my dash...that i have no idea what they do... the first one looks like a car, and on the rear it has little marks...like illumination marks or something: and the other...is ECT (yes thats ECT, not ETC). its located in the center fo the tachometer (which comes in handy BTW)...there is a switch on the center console that turns this ECT light on, i have driven with it both on and off and i felt no difference in driving or performance: can somebody PLZ tell me what these lights are for??? the one thats always on when im in any gear...it really bugs me...

a codder pin huh? ok, i will look at it this weekend...1 more thing, are these lights fixed?? or aimable???

i can snap new pix today, if it will help... im guessing the bubls are similar to those on an early LS400 that had the same color bulb in the same location...but im not sure...

how do i remove the bulb from the OEM yellow fogights??? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/Arm...ne/DCP02086.jpg they are the ones closest to the grille in that one...