rsamuel

I Had this problem a number of times with mine. My SC is gone now, rest it's soul. But I did have a pretty permanent fix for this. I hand bent the rod back to about the right shape, and I installed it with the regular clip (i still have a box of them and could send a couple if needed). Then I took a medium sized zip tie and went around the whole clip and rod below the "L", then also around the flat metal piece that activates the rod when you pull the handle. I left the zip tie just ever so slightly loose so there was play in it. The idea is the zip tie stops the rod from torquing the clip wrong, but does not actually hold everything tightly in place. It holds it all loosely in place. Anyway, the fix lasted years--the rest of the car's life. Let me know if you need some clips. I believe i have a small box of ten for each side. I would be willing to share a couple (but one day i want another SC)

Had the same issue. Ended up being the alternator. It goes slowly at first and makes the engine just behave weirdly. I was checking idle air control valve and wires to ecu from various components. But i gave up and eventually it got worse and because the alt goes slowly it wasn't till it was downright bad that I caught it. It usually goes around 200k miles...

I have a similar experience. I always wanted to do it and i wanted it on the v8. Still haven't found a great solution though it is not impossible. There was one good post about someone who did it. My take aways were: don't do it yourself unless you're really good, and don't let just anyone do it. There will be a little bit of custom fitting that you don't want some dope doing with his hammer. Someone with a machine shop or some metalworking skills. here's the post from the other forum: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/performance-and-maintenance/710238-my-sc400-manual-conversion.html

That shift lock override is a mechanical release. It shouldn't not work. So if it's still difficult to shift out of park when the shift lock button under the removable cover is depressed, it probably is just leaning on the gear. So to fix this, have one person depress the shift lock and pull the shift lever, while one or two others rock the car forward and backward a little to get some weight off the gear.

Oh by the way this is the manual for the 1993. I am pretty sure they are the same in many ways but in this detail, maybe not, I have no way to judge that.

Hey Robb-- I don't have the expertise to be able to do that for you exactly, but I have just bought the full set of lexus repair manuals which I'm using to work on the interior and slowly the rest. But if you can give me a bit of a technical description of what you need that maybe an engineer inexperienced with cars might understand, I might be able to find the manual pages that refer to your issue and send you some pictures. They are incredibly detailed, but there is no index, and I can't exactly control+f to find "pinion angle" ...Well I was about to send that when I realized you were talking about where the driveshaft hits the diff. I know what those pieces are, lol. Attached is that section. Let me know if any other pics will help --Ralph

Hi, I posted this on another thread, but thought it may help you...

Hey all, So I had a problem that may be the same as a number of you. Others sound like they may have a different problem. Intermittently, usually just after lifting off the gas pedal, the car would die. It was also idling rough, and low, and sometimes moving between 500 and 1200 rpms regularly like once per second (very rough idle). Giving it gas almost always would stop it form dying, but i would ahve to sit at a light with left foot on the brake and right foot trying to help the idle stay up. A number of theories proved incorrect: Failed power steering pump (yes I have rock hard arms now), failures in the electical systems (fixed but no effect), and others. Then I thought about the fact that I almost always get gas at the same place. One day I went somewhere else, a more expensive gas station, and threw in an extra container of fuel injector cleaner and engine cleaner stuff that is supposedly in all these gasolines anyway. Think Chevron Techron, Shell V power, etc. Anyway, the problem hasn't recurred since that fillup and since I stopped going to the chevron by my house. We all know, I assume, that the engine needs high octane (premium gas). In fact it calls for 93 where I can usually only find 91 and that's in San Francisco, not Santa Fe. I am suspecting that that chevron gas either was not the rating it claimed, or did not contain the techron. I had been going there for years. probably 19 in 20 filllups happened there. The car has 200k miles on it, and I think giving it lower quality gasoline especially without the cleaning additives doesn't manifest immediately, but slowly, and if the octane rating is a little low, it may just not give the engine the power it needs and probably confuses the idle computer, etc. And obviously if the detergents and other additives aren't in the gas, it's going to muck up slowly. So my suggestion: Fill it with one of those Lucas fuel injector cleaner bottles and some nice premium gas from a nice gas station. I bet it stops happening.