Micah

Be careful when you go to a transmission shop or the dealership. Both the toyota dealer and the transmission shop put dextron 3 into my transmission. Both insisted the it was the replacement for type 2 fluid, but I insisted that the dealer use the type 4 toyota fluid (cost 5 dollars a quart and the entire job cost 175 dollars). They wound up flushing it again with 10 quarts (this is what their machine said it cut off at). Type 4 was expensive, but I feel better that it is in my transmission. Everything I've read says to use type 4. Was I correct? I have the 96 sc400 v8.

Good deal, keep us posted. What was the total cost if you don't mind me asking?

I'm taking my car to him tomorrow to get the front wheel bearings replaced. I'll ask him tomorrow.

Is this the gas that they use in densely populated cities? When I lived in Baton Rouge (south louisiana), they made us use a more expensive fuel b/c of air quality.

I'm not really sure of the exact frequencies in the stock 4 channel amp, but the rear speakers get a high pass feed sent from the factory amp. I would guess the crossover point to be somewhere b/w 100 150 Hz just using my ear to guestimate with. I would say somewhere in that neighborhood should do. The louder your music is going to be, the higher I'd set the crossover point b/c these speakers are intended for midrange and high frequencies. Loud Low frequencies could mess them up. You compensate for this by adjusting the crossover to a higher frequency

What's E10? NEver heard of that.

Oh. I didn't realize that these cars had an oil level sensor, and I always thought that was the oil pressure light. Most cars don't have one of these. It would have to be in the oil pan if there is such a thing. I'm not sure, though. If you are positive that you have oil in there up to the appropriate levels on the dip stick and the oil pressure light isn't engaging, then I would say you have no problems. I don't know what kind of sensor this is or how it works (whether its a switch or a potentiometer, must be a switch of some kind), but I would say it probably has some crud in it or on its contacts. I wish I knew where to tell you to look for this. I would start like I said around the oil pan. I'll ask a mechanic tomorrow. I know one who owned one of these cars and is familiar with them.

I did the same thing but with a metal washer from true value hardware. That is a good article and should work as long as the motor didn't give out. Do you hear the motor running when you try to move it up and down? If you do, this should work. Its a common problem and the gear gets out of sync with the screw attached to the motor causing them not to connect.

Check this post for specifications on the coils: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...=33721&st=0 You can check the coils with a standard ohm meter. Just check resistance b/w all of the pins on the coil

Sounds to me like you may have a short in the amp. You may not need new speakers. The short may even be in the wiring going to the amp. Hard to say. Cleaning the volume knob will not help. It only sends a signal to a chip inside the radio that actually controls the volume. The knob itself has only one channel (mono) and can't handle a stereo signal. I don't believe that cleaning it would have an effect on the mids. It may help if your volume is adjusting erratically, though. I don't have the wiring diagram for the nak, but on the pioneer system, each mid and tweeter is driven from the same channel out of the amp (there is only 1 front right output, not fr tweeter and fr mid). This tells me that your amp should be working. I'd start looking with the head unit if I were you. It may be the equalizers built into the radio. I'd spray the crap out of the eq knobs with some contact cleaner while adjusting them up and down. It does sound like an open circuit somewhere to me. That's my 2 cents.

It could be that the sender is bad. Try buying a new sender at a parts store and install it. It may or may not fix the problem. Other things: dirty oil filter, oil return passages may be dirty, worn out engine, low oil levels, weak oil pump, cam bearings that drive the oil pump could be bad, and I'm sure there could be others as well. This is an indication that your engine may not be lubricating correctly. If you have a mechanical guage handy, screw it into the oil pressure sender (I believe that these are just switches and if the switch goes out, it will send a no oil pressure signal). I've heard this can be pretty common on most cars and should be your first step to diagnosing your low oil pressure levels.

Desoldering iron, radio shack, 10 dollars. Works great. . .has the bulb build into the iron.

I have a set of ebay shocks and they're still going strong. I think it cost me about 45 dollars (I think that was with shipping, cant remember) to buy both new ones

The smell isn't in the engine compartment. It comes out of the exhaust. Can it still be the manifold/injectors if it comes through the exhaust?

Good one.

My aunt recently hit one in my truck when she borrowed it. Did a bit of damage, but not too much as she tried to miss it (and we don't get snow in louisiana). I hit a dear on I49 once in my grand prix, but it was dead already in the middle of the road. I would have missed it, but some idiot jumped out in front of me (i'm assuming to collect the dear) and caused me to swirve onto it. My whole car jumped up off the ground, it broke my cd player (never worked again), blew a headlight and fog light, and messed up the front and rear alignment. When I sold it, it still had dear hair under the car. The car never drove the same after that.

Yeah. Probably something in the valve body, but I'm thinking about having it totally rebuilt. Hopefully after christmas sometime. I think that it's probably some o rings that when heat up do no seal correctly inside the transmission causing the harsh shifting in 3rd. Other gears OK.

Alright. I tried it and it seems to have helped the responsiveness of the car (it smoked a lot when I did this. It probably smoked for 10 or 15 minutes). It didn't really help the shifting, though. Oh well, probably just take it to the tranny shop again and see about having a rebuild done on it.

I did this with some Gumout Carb Cleaner and it seemed to help at first, but after a week, it was back to the original state. Maybe I should try this. It seems like it's a bit different as it goes in w/out spraying it in. You actually have to pour it in. I assume you put yours in through the pcv valve, right? My car right now tends to shift hard into 3rd gear and gets worse milage than I did a few months ago (immediately after my tuneup). It also idles rough with the A/C off, It feels more like a 4 cylinder camry. Idles good with a/c on, though. I may try to find some of this locally. I think you can get it from your local marina as I have heard people using this in their outboard engines to decarbon them. I think this is what it was developed for. Probably why it works so good (outboards can really build up some carbon deposits). Anyways, mainly wanted to know where to put it in. Should it only be installed through the pcv valve or through multiple vacuum lines like the one near the throttle position sensor (tps) as well?

I was thinking O2 sensors maybe as well. Or even the Valves may need some adjusting? I plan on having all this checked after I get my boat finished this month. Would it be the cats if it only happens upon startup because I thought that they had to be hot to do their job right. The car's not hot when it starts first thing in the morning and therefore not burning off the excess gas. I'm just worried that a lot of my gas may be going out the tailpipe. I am going to put some lucas fuel injector cleaner in the tank and see if that helps.

sounds good. I have new wires and plugs along with rotors and distributor caps and timing belt. I think i'm going to have the compression tested to see what's going on in the engine and see if there is excessive wear there.

I hope to get at least 250000 before I have to replace the engine or transmission. At 214500 now. Transmission seems to shift hard every now and then (namely after its been warmed up or it gets to a certain operating temp). I'll probably find a low milage tranny next summer and have them swapped out. I'd have it done now but I'm in the middle of replacing my engine on my boat for next summer and getting it ready for season.

Sounds good. That sounds logical. Thanks for the help!

Your probably correct, but you really need to be good at soldering b/c too much heat in the wrong place could damage something. It is very expensive to send the thing off, so If you can do it yourself you can save a lot of money. You may want to invest in a desoldering iron to remove the old lcd.

Thanks, That would be great!