Cornwall

Hi all

I have a 1995 GS300 and the power steering stopped suddenly in the middle of parking

Does anyone know if there is a relay or fuse that controls the steering, as I don't think it is actually the pump as it was great then gone and last time I had a pump go it was gradual and getting stiffer then went

This was really sudden in an instant

Hope you can help

Thanks

If you can smell fuel I doubt whether the smell is cause the engine is flooding as it is injection unburnt fuel shouldnt come out of the pipework, only out of the exhaust and thats miles away from the smell zone

first check the fuel pipes that go onto the fuel rail

Then get a torch and look below the manifold at the injector seals, its a bit akward to see but if an "O" ring is split then the fuel comes out over the inlet manifold and you will see it wet, unfortunately to change a 4p O ring is a day job and you have to take off all the inlet manifolds and pipes to get to it, the job is actually easy unbolting and bolting back up, but time consuming, and dont forget to tippex mark all the vacuum hoses for reassembly

to see leaks easily get a mate to turn the engine over while you look, as a minute bit of petrol stinks like hell but can be hard to see, if in doubt cover the joints in talcum powder and look for damp

To check all is sparking well, the easiest is to remove the rear plug cover and pull number 5 plug and turn the engine, look for the spark, the leads on the older cars such as yours and mine are prone to tracking when damp so cover them in the trusty WD40 this time of year

Now I had a similar starting fault, for no reason the engine turns over and wont start, and it boiled down to me touching the accelerator before it fired up which confuses the ecu

Don't ever touch the pedal when starting from cold until it fires, if it doesnt start then leave it alone for a while and let the steering wheel move fully and watch the abs light go out, then try it, if it is flooded you may even need to leave it for a few hours, as it is a !Removed! to get rid off as apparently when cold if it doesnt fire the ecu thinks it needs even more fuel and throws the damn stuff in by the bucket load

Also charge the battery up to max, the ecu is very voltage sensitive, and although a battery may have enough to turn the engine, voltage drop can stop bits of the control system working, on my GS again i had the same, as it was turning over easy enough i didnt suspect the battery, which in the end went flat, a jump start from my freinds battery on full power and it started dead easy, a new battery and no more problems

Good luck

If your only smelling petrol on start up, check your injector seals top the manifold

when warmed up the injector and the fuel manifold expand and can seal up a leaking o ring that weeps when cold

eventually the leak will be there when the engine is hot as well as the leak gets worse

get the torch out and look along the inlet manifold when cold for wet bits

I am not sure if the fault on my GS300 auto box has the same cure as the LS, but this happened to me in England

I cleaned out the throttle body etc a while back, and have done a fair amount of work due to a blown head gasket, which is now done (very easy once you remove the manifolds

I then was getting a high tickover and when engaging gear it was like i had been rear ended the take up was so sudden and harsh, and changing gear on the move was so severe I thought my driveshaft was going to break

Nice man at Lexus told me to adjust my throttle body sensor switch as it was over fuelling on tickover and to much power when engaging gear, apparently it can also sense the gearbox somewhere in the electronics

So I adjusted it and the problem dissapeared, the car ran smooth again and tickover was good

The Lexus technician said i was the second with the same fault and the first one had been told his gearbox was knackered and $4,000 for a new one by his local garage

Takes a few seconds to set up the sensors but what a difference it makes

Was the car running 100% before you parked ?

Recently I had to change my head gasket on my GS300, and I couldn't find a manual that covered it

And as usual with my luck I only found the manual downloadable just the day after I finished

I have absolutely nothing to do with this site so I am not selling, I am a member from England that wanted to share the knowlege of a good workshop manual and where to find it

Apparently the LS manual is as good as the GS300 manual, but I haven't seen it

Dirt cheap downloads as well from $15 to $20 and the GS300 manual is over 2,200 pages of clear PDF and it covers absolutely everything

http://www.tradebit.com/searchfiles.php

Cornwall, can you get to that pipe while the engine is running, if so what happens if you cover it, ie put your finger on it? Is it an inlet port, does the idle change? what happens...if it changes the idle, chances are you have a situation, I'm not familiar with the 1st gen motors...good luck...D

HI Daryl

I found it thanks to a manual I downloaded from a site in USA, and it even does right hand (brit side) drive

It is a really good manual and soon tracked the little thing down, it was hiding under another pipe I couldn't see

just a bit of a shame I didnt find it before I changed the head gasket, as it would have helped quite a bit

Update on my head gasket change

set the top pulleys with the marks at the dead top

set the crank on "0"

rotated the engine 3 times and they were still spot on (yippeeee)

So I boxed it all back up, and checked everything three times to make sure nothing left hanging around

turned on ignition and it started in literally half a second, all seems absolutely great,

apart from one thing

the throttle body is so easy to do, and now i have done it twice you can get the throttle body on and off in less than an hour no problem, vacuum hoses simply line up

now at the back of the engine on the right hand side is a lovely collection of vacuum hoses, and i have no hoses left over, and i have an open pipe, it was open when i dismantled it, i thought i would find the hose dangling or something when i stripped the manifolds, but no hose and i cant find anywhere it may even connect to

please does anyone have a list or a diagram of how these vacuum hoses connect

Thanks Darryl

That was a great help and I think my mind is happy again

The only difference is the inlet pully on this one is a VV one ? mine is an early GS and same as the exhaust version in that it is 5 spoke

Spun the engine manually 5 times and it all lined up again and again so looks like a starter today

Have you got the heater and air con on at the same time ?

I did the same and it really does change from hot to ice in a few degrees

I am rebulding my 1994 GS300 head after doing the head gasket and sorting out some tuning

I have refitted the belt with the TDC on the crank pulley at 0, same as manny

I remember from taking the belt off to take off the cams that I had the two top pulleys set with a small "0" on one of the 5 spokes facing upwards

Least that is what I remember, but memory does play tricks sometimes

Can anyone confirm the relationship of cam marks to pulley marks, and am I using the correct mark to set the belt to pulley correctly

any help appreciated

As yours and my GS300 are older models there isn't much crash test data available but try here

http://www.internetautoguide.com/crash-tests/index.html

They go all the way back to 1994

I feel very safe in the GS compared to other makes and models I have had

your other three choices BMW Volvo and Merc are obviously well made cars as well

The Volvo has always been a safe car, loads and loads of air bags turn into a bouncy castle in collision time

Older Mercs are built like Panzer tanks just in case, newer ones don't really fill me with the confidence as the body build quality just isn't there these days, besides do you really want to drive a German Taxi tarted up to look good ?

BMW crumple like a paper bag to absorb the impacts, then you throw them away

with the nice long bonnet of a GS at least the accident happens a fair distance from the occupants, and I must admit I like that in a car

ooops forgot

I live in Cornwall down in the southwest of the UK where we have all the best beaches and the best surf

Basingstoke is closer than Teeside but still about 220 miles from me

Hi Driveteam

Lucky 17 yr old daughter to be allowed to drive a GS300 in England the high insurance costs on the GS300 means that 17 yr olds can't get to play unless daddy is really rich

I was unfortunate enough to have a bump in my GS a few weeks ago, it was a corner to corner bump with a Toyoya carina, quite low speed

The Toyota Carina damage was lights, smashed bumper, smashed wing, bonnet slam plat and radiator, in fact a complete crumple zone workout

The GS has a broken fog light, cracked sidelight, a mounting on the bumper broke free and a dented wing that popped out with no remaining damage and I felt almost nothing inside the car

Just in case there was any damage to the GS300 steering etc I let the insurance check it all out, and they said no damage, no twists, as new

OK that was quite low speed, but I felt 100% safe

The bad news was that the insurance repair quote was horrendous due to the price of the parts as the GS300 was a relatively low volume car the price of spares from Lexus was amazing, they paid me to keep the car and go away and stop bothering them, the cash I have used to repair the car and for a project I am doing to the engine

Hi from England

seen your speeds in USA, not bad for freeway style driving where you have 242 lanes and miles of straight roads

In dear old Devon, England we don't have freeways or as we Brits call them Motorways, here we have small roads usually covered in cow !Removed! and mud with bends and hedges and walls a foot from the car

This means we sometimes slow down a bit

But just so you can see what it is like in the green and pleasant quiet countryside of England, here is a clip my son uploaded to youtube of him and his mate in his Cosworth 4x4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVfHZHPb8iE

If you listen to the talking he actually peaked 5mph above what he said

And there is a classic line just near the end where he was pulling up near home which I love

Enjoy a Brit driver

Hi there MDM

I am over the water in UK but booked in here to pick USA brains as well

So returning the favour I hope

I have had my GS300 Mk1 (same as yours over there) for only a few months, and it had basically sat in the previous owners garage for 4 years and did less than 500 miles in that time

I had bad idling and lack of power as well and stalling although it was ok when I bought the car, it started playing up soon after

I took off the throttle body and it was like a barbeque in there so I took it off, not a bad job to do, all basic unscrewing nuts and hoses, don't forget the water hose half hidden underneath the body but you can get to it

Mark the vacuum hoses with a little tippex or paint to make it easy to put back on

Cleaned it out with carb cleaner and a rag, cleaned out all the vacuum hoses and checked and cleaned the sensors

Now here was the lucky bit I found my problem and my cure by accident

Just after the air filter box is an air sensor it looks oblong and has the electric plug on it, i took that out and couldnt work out how to clean it or what it really did, it is held by 3 phillips headed screws

I reassembled the lot and started it up, and it ran lovely smooth and even and a quick drive and the power was back

Getting back i opened the bonnet and checked the connections for safety and found I hadn't tightened those 3 screws on the sensor, so I screwed them up tight

Back in the car and it ran like a sherman tank, now i thought thats daft what happened ?

The only thing I did was tighten the 3 screws so open the bonnet and slackened them off again and it ran beautiful

i tinkered !Removed! in and out and found just tighteneing them finger tight worked well

Now I am not sure obviously if this is your problem, but thats whjat it was on mine

Good luck