Bykfixer

The bike above was custom made by a fellow who makes a living building bicycles for Worksman in New York. We talked about a few dimensions, cogs and wheels. It has a 2 speed coaster brake wheel called "kick back" where you press the brake lightly to switch from low to high. After it arrived I put a 22 tooth rear sprocket and 36 tooth front sprocket for 0-12 in a hurry with a high gear that lets me cruise at about 18mph. The car was a 2001 Honda Prelude my son bought real cheap with a botched rebuit engine. The piston walls have the same material as a Porche engine and the folks that rebuilt the engine honed it like a conventional cylinder wall so the rings never set. It was one of the last Preludes Honda built and had goodies like remote lock, and tinted windows. My son bought a torquey engine from a Japanese Accord station wagon. With the help of a couple of Prelude experts we converted the engine to US emmisions and largely rebuilt things to end up with a like new motor. Once it was fastened to a 5 speed that was also rebuilt we set about installing it in the car. The photo of my son standing in the empty engine bay was taken in May 2014. The car was on the road in October. We double and triple checked everything about 2-3 hours at a time on weekends and after work. Here in 2021 he has put around 60k miles with zero defects from our work. I gave him my pair of 91 Preludes for his 28th birthday. He sold one and finished restoring the other one. The red one he sold He kept this one until recently when he sold it to a collector. Between the 2 of us we had as many as 9 Preludes being restored at the same time one year. I have 0 now and he has the 2001. I mainly drive an F-150 4x4 for work that the company let me pick the options for. I chose to make the work truck a sleeper due to having plain Jane wheels, vinyl seats and basic work truck looks with a Raptor drive train. She's awesome. Man when you hit the gas you'd better be aimed where you wanna go 'cause you're going there quickly. The company had 2 more built to match mine. But soon I'll be trading that one for a 4wd Ford Explorer with a police package my retired boss had built. That one is sweet too. Left is the sleeper truck, right is the modern day police car. Now if DMV would get me my %#€¥ license plates I could actually drive my 04 GS 300. And soon I'll be putting my 95 rattling red Ranger back on the road. I mothballed it about 10 years ago with 76k miles on it. I bought it for work in 98 and got a company truck in Y2k. I actually replaced 3 sets of like new tires because the sidewalls dry rot so I parked it one year. It's a snail but I drove it up and down the east coast for work for a while and never had a break down, a leak or any issues. Oh, and I bought Mrs Fixer a 2018 Ford Escape for Christmas in 2019. It was minty and has heated seats. In case DMV doesn't get my plates to me soon.

Welcome aboard Bridger. Thanks for the tip.

Finger

Oh man, I remember when my son's mom bought him a car with 18" rims and tires that looked about as tall as a bicycle tire. Stock wheels were 14's but those thin tires made it so the wagon wheels fit nicely without rubbing. He was young and did not realize the sidewalls were so stiff he could actually be down to 10psi in a tire and never know by just looking. And apparently he never missed a pothole or manhole. I'd get the call "dad I have another flat tire"…… the cheapos for $100 each so he'd go to a used tire place that just loved, loved, loved those tires. My first time there the guy told me those were his favorite kind. I asked how come and he says "job security". lol After flat #6 in as many months he showed me some really cool rims in factory size with really nice factory size tires. I said "sold" and not one time after did I get the phone call "dad I have a flat tire". I did get a call when the distributor konked out or when the window leaked and got the fuse panel wet and stuff like that, but no more flat tires.

Sounds like the previous was solved. Going to bring an old thread back for a minute. My son told me the volume won't change on the factory stereo of the 04 GX 300 I bought from him. I noticed if you push on the volume knob toward the right of the car while twisting the volume knob it goes up or down. I'm pretty sure it can be fixed but for now at least it can be adjusted.

Squeaking as in every time you apply the brakes? Some pads do squeak so yeah it would be normal but that doesn't mean it's ok. It means the pads should be replaced with pads that don't squeak. Realizing that sounds snarky, what I mean is some pads are "hard" for longevity and so they won't get dust all over the wheels. Some are made to withstand heat better also. Often under normal use the high performance pads can have squeak issues. It could be the pads have warn enough that the "thin pad" indicator makes it's "thin pad" warning sound. Or it could be the rotor is warped so ideal contact does not occur but you should likely feel that in the pedal as a sort of pulsing feeling. There are high performance brake pads that are quiet https://www.autoguide.com/top-15-best-brake-pads-for-your-car Here's some.

I had always admired the Lexus way. You start out with a super reliable brand of automobile and add top of the line features that folks who don't need to ask "how much does it cost" go for and add sexy looks and you've got yourself a winner. Now for a guy like me who does have to ask "how much" the resale value held so well that they stayed beyond my price range for a long time. Long enough to forget about it actually. But my son bought a GS300 to turn into a left hand drive Aristo. First time I saw it I commented how that is one fine old car. Old I say because it was almost old enough to vote in the US. When he found a genuine Aristo in great shape for less than the cost to retrofit his GS he decided to sell it. All the kids wanted to low ball him or pay him $50 a month. The US gubment sent me a covid check and I figure my son is paying for it anyway so I signed it over to him and he in turn signed over the GS to me. Now it's got some goblins and gremlins but at 18 it's still a dam fine automobile. Will it be my last Lexus or first Lexus? Time will tell on that front. That largely depends on how quickly the money pit gets dug I suppose, because even though they hold up well, when things go bad the costs can pile up pretty quickly.

The Mrs and I have allergies so we take a sip of Nyquil each evening at bedtime. The supplied cup is great if you are sick and need that reccomended amount. But as a sleep aid or help with allergies a little swig from the bottle is plenty. I know plenty of people who use it year round as a sleep aid. We often plot about finding the factory and tapping into drums of the stuff in order to keep a few gallons in stock. Anyway there's all these cups leftover. Now some people say "Jello shooters". But what else can they be used for? Recently my refrigerator/freezer quit making ice and dispensing water. The Maytag man is two weeks out and the Mrs wants ice in her tea. I had about 15 of those stupid cups in the bathroom closet so…… I used a ziploc container for a tray and filled them with water so now the ice bucket in the freezer is bursting with ice cubes. The ice just pops out of most but some need to sit a minute or two before they'll let go. Anybody got any other uses for Nyquil cups?

I get to drive my Lexus past my neighbors house while fixes his beamer (again).

Fast forward 6.25 years and $20 got me 6.05 gallons if 93 octane. Gyah! 5 bucks aint gas money no more. Used to be mid grade was 10 cents more than regular, premium 10 cents a gallon higher them mid grade, but Saturday in my town regular was $2.79 and premium $3.29. Yet at one point premium was a dollar more than regular. The Rush song Red Barchetta was bouncing around my head on the ride home as I pondered a day when driving a petrol burning car will be a novelty.

A new Lexus one is over $3000 retail. $2200 at lexus parts now and $350+ for used at eBay etc. Check out this video to see why $400 to swap the part. A lot of work to do it correctly.

😎 Best of luck. A lot of dealers have really good mechanics. Sales people and the parts guy? Not so much, but often times the younger mechanics are excited about working on cars and the older/wiser mechanics are there to keep them in check when need be. At least that's been my experience at various dealerships.

Any updates to share?

Thanks for the write up. I'll have to train myself to use straight line only when washing as I've been doing circles for decades. I have a well used but fairly nice black car with lots of highway miles, so lots of small chips on the hood. Last time I did up a black car with high miles the hood had a million billion tiny white dots when I was done. Ugh. Looked great from 100 feet and the paint was like a mirror but……those tiny white dots used to laugh at me every time I got near the car. I definitely don't want to repeat that trick.

Can't explain the "thunk" but it sounds like your car thinks that a wheel is spinning faster than other wheels as if you have a traction issue. The system in the car then throws it into what some call limp mode. It reduces accelaration ability in order to compensate for the so called spinning wheel. Do you have an ABS light lit? A CEL? Or is it just the VSC light? The traction control system uses info from the anti lock break sensors to give feed back to the transmission and the engine monitoring computers. They decide how/if to adjust things to control wheel spin. When I first read your quest I wondered if the Lexus had a hi/lo set up in the differential and the "thunk" was it going in and out of high range like old 4 speed dump trucks used to do, essentially making them 8 speed trannies but that does not seem to be the case. I'm new to Lexus so this quest had me going "hmmmm, what could it be"…… Sorry I can't provide specifics. I wonder if perhaps if it's simply an old fashioned broken axle with the smart system kicking in thinking you are driving on a wet dirt road…… 🍿

here's a leather dye how to: https://blog.wardrobesupplies.com/use-fiebings-leather-dye/ And how to dye plastics: https://www.semproducts.com/blog/4-easy-steps-to-refinishing-interior-plastic

https://www.toyota-tech.eu/wire_harness_rm/RM06H0E.pdf Here's a broken wire or connector repair manual. Hope nobody ever needs it.

Original Equipment Manufactor as in the way they did it in the factory when producing the car. It can be done close to that where like "1990" said above, you remove a bunch of stuff instead of taping edges and covering areas they don't want painted. But $8800? Phew, that sounds pretty pricey. Are you just wanting to correct the flaws or are you looking to change the color from say blue to white? If you are changing the color then yeah 8k would not be so unreasonable since they'd have to disassemble all kinds of things to do it correctly. Some would call that a "frame up" paint job where the car is largely disassembled, painted and reassembled. That would be a true OEM paint job. If you just want to correct exterior flaws like chips and scratches it should not cost $8k.

EPIIIIIIIIIIC!!! I want one now.

My boss uses dryer sheets in his cars. He swears by them. I tried it in a car I have moth balled and so far so good. They smell good too. Swap them out every couple of months.

I'm a fan of Lexus vehicles in general but when they elected to plaster the front with a Darth Vader face across the whole lineup I just can't get excited about anything they produce anymore. Others may feel the front look is the best look Lexus has ever produced. Hey, that's cool. But about the time Acura vehicles all came with 'Klingon war bird' fronts Lexus seemed to take it to the next level too……It's like Acura was taking the luxury car where no car has gone before and Lexus was trying to get folks to think the force is strong with this one. At least Acura improved on the 'Joker smile' front end. I suppose I'm old fashioned but to me the original Lexus style grill was the best looking front end to see in the rear view mirror or approaching from the opposite direction.

These days a tv repair man is a rare thing but if one does not know how to fix an amplifier yourself, a tv repair man probably can. Great info Yamae!

Mine are flaking somewhat on a two of the four. I'll probably scratch the loose stuff off with a stiff plastic bristle bathtub type brush, clean the rims with Bar Keepers Friend to remove oxidation and spray with an engine clear coat. The Bar Keepers Friend is applied as a dry-ish paste and use an old tooth brush. It's a mild acid safe for alloy and alluminum wheels and it works great. Someday if the mood strikes I'll have them powder coated if I don't end up finding a nice set at a junkyard. Lots of crashed cars at junkyards have nice parts.

Suh-weeeeet!! Thank you very much.

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed reading that.