NewGuy19

I had the Toyota dealership do the work last time using OEM parts. It sounds like the parts might be covered under warranty but that won't cover labor costs or the cost of the new plug wires.

Steve thanks for the reply. I found out today the hard way that the ticking noise I was hearing was the beginning stages of my timing belt splitting in two pieces and hitting the plastic timing cover on the drivers side. The whole thing broke today and in the process ripped up my 2 week old spark plug wires and distributor cover. Just the surprise I wanted only a little over 3 years and 30,000 miles after having the belt and pump replaced the first time.

Hey Guys, I have a ticking coming from under the valve cover on the driver’s side of my car. It first started to show up a few winters ago but would go away when it warmed up in the spring. Then as it went on it would start showing up more and more and is now to the point where it is a constant ticking. You can hear it at idle with the windows down or when you are outside the car. While driving you can hear it especially loud while accelerating or just driving at slower speeds when wind noise isn't as loud. I did a little investigating and the noise is definitely coming from the front of the driver’s side valve cover. You can also feel the ticking in both the valve cover and the plastic cover over the distributor. After some reading on here I’ve seen quite a few people saying it’s the valves needing new shims and that it can be quite pricy to have done. Just wondering if I could get any more input on what you all think it could be and what should be done. Just so everyone knows it’s a '90 LS with 170,000 on it. I run Valvoline’s high mileage oil and change it every 2500 miles to be on the safe side. Thanks for the help

Thanks for the reply. I'll get at that after work this morning. While I'm at it I think I might pull the reservoir and clean it and possibly get rid of the air control valve. It’s been leaking for a couple years but I just made a shield and bolted it between my pump and my alternator to deflect any fluid.

My P/S system has had typical P/S fluid in it since I bought the car and I have not thought anything about it. A few days ago it started making a whining sound so I started reading and found out it should have ATF in it, not P/S fluid. My question is can I just use the typical method of changing the fluid by disconnection the return line and pumping the old fluid out or do I need to drain the P/S fluid some other way before adding the ATF to it. I'm not sure if the two fluids will cause problems when mixed. I'm hoping the correct fluid and a good cleaning of the screen on the rack will solve the whining problem as the pump was replaced 5 years ago by the previous owner. I've tried doing a search on mixing the two fluids but with the number of posts about the P/S system it seems I may never actually find what I'm looking for.

That sounds like a logical place to start. But its going to have to wait a bit I'm afraid. I decided to go out and break 3 bones in my hand last night instead of finishing up some work. So my car fixing days are done till I get my cast off. Or regain the use of my fingers.

Thanks for the reply. I know there is nothing wrong with running regular gas through the motors as the knock sensors are there to adjust for that in the first place. I just find it funny that both sensors threw a code right after he filled it up with regular gas but there are no noticeable problems. I have put over 300 miles on the car in the last two days for work and plan on filling it up tomorrow to see if anything changes, maybe disconnect the battery and see if the codes show up again with the new gas. I called up the local Toyota dealer to see if they could help me out and they suggested that perhaps the sensors are both bad but the car never picked up on it because there has never been anything but premium gas in the car. It just seems to me that even while running the same grade gas there will be enough variance where the sensors would have to adjust things a little bit. I have read through many posts on here about knock sensors however none of them seem to be similar to this problem. I guess if worst comes to worst I can take everything apart this weekend and replace both sensors and connectors, and while I'm in there do the starter as well just to avoid doing that job further down the road.

Bump it back up to the top. Anyone have any ideas? I'd like to take care of any work before I take it in to get painted on monday. Don't wanna mess up my nice new bumpers after that.

I have a 1990 LS with 145,000 miles on it. I started my car up today after letting my roommate take it home over the weekend and noticed I had a check engine light on. Codes that showed up were as follows: 52 - No. 1 knock sensor signal 53 - Knock control signal 55 - No. 2 knock sensor signal I have no idea what would make both knock sensors throw a trouble code at the same time. But I talked to my roommate and he said he filled it up with regular 87 octane gas because it was $0.23 a gallon cheaper. I have always run premium in the car and so did the previous owner. Is it possible that my computer is just slow in picking up the signal from the sensors since its been so long if ever that there has been anything but 91 octane run in the car? Also I disconnected the battery to erase the codes and see if it was just a fluke but after about 20 seconds of running the light came back on. The car still runs and drives just as smooth as ever as if there were nothing wrong with it. I have done some searching through old posts but have not found anything similar to my problem.

corrected :) Well the increased value of the car isn't what I'm going for here, its just an added bonus I'm just looking to make the car look better while I'm driving it and hopefully prevent any future rust problems. I chose to go with the best body shop with the most experience in town even though they are the most expensive and I had to wait well over 3 months to get an appointment scheduled. There's usually a reason for all that.

I am having my car repainted next week. The surface shows its age with many dents, surface rust spots and chipped paint. Normally I would never paint a daily driving car but I plan on keeping this car around for a long time and don't want it to start rusting out on me like most of my previous cars. I got a lot of bids to repaint my whole car and bids to just do spot work and blend it in. Most bids for a total repaint were in the $4000-5500 range. To just fix the damaged areas and get rid of that god awful light green pin stripe most bids ran from $1000-1100. I opted for the second option seeing as the majority of the car is in good shape and only certain areas needed fixing. Just for fun I ran down to the Maaco store in town to get a bid from them, and they told me they'd repaint my whole car for $1250, something about that sends out a red flag in my head.

I'd stay away from cherry bomb's. From what I've learned they tend not to last very long. A friend of mine had two of them burn out in a little over a year. They may be a great product at the start seeing as you can pick them up for a little over $20 but there may be a reason for that.

Its 2 cats, 1 straight through resonator, 2 more resonators and finally 2 mufflers just before your exhaust tips. Removing the mufflers at the point mention would be a very easy job to do for a free sound upgrade. However leaving your exhaust like that and not putting on a section of exhaust pipe to the back of the car can be very dangerous.

I just went through a similar situation when one of my mufflers went out. I chose to go with the custom route just to get a little more sound for my buck. You won't notice much of a difference by removing the resonators. The mufflers on these cars are very restrictive and will still keep the car very quiet. But on the other hand removing the mufflers and leaving the resonators in the car will result in a much sportier sounding car. Resonators are very similar to a glass pack and there for sound very good on their own. My mechanic quoted me $150 to remove the mufflers and throw on 2 sections of pipe with some chrome tips. But he only wanted $100 more to do a full custom job so I settled for that. On a side note since I did my exhaust I now get on average 4-5 mpg better. So I figure its gonna pay itself off long before I want to get rid of the car.

Thanks for the info guys. They didn't start using cabin filters till '93 as 1990LS400 stated. I am pretty good with a wrench and do all my own work. Well with the exception of my water pump, since I was 400 miles away from my tools when the pump went out. I'd like to try the conversion myself, however I understand I may need to take it to a shop to have them change the oil in the system thats not a big deal. I think I'll try picking up one of those conversion kits and give it a go over spring break. Does anyone have a diagram or anything showing exactly where the seals and valves are that will need to be replaced? I'd kinda like to have a general idea before I dig into the job.

A lower operating temperature is good to have, but that looks like something definitely isn't work properly. The only time my gauge has read that cool was on a trip home this winter while I was cruising along at 75 and it was -25 outside.

Two summers ago when I purchased my Lexus it blew ice cold air all summer long. Then over the winter months I believe it all leaked out. The previous owner stored the Lexus in a heated garage and never drove it all winter so I think the cold temps must have cracked a seal or line somewhere <_< . Last summer I lived without the a/c. I rode my bike every day I could to cut down on the gas bill and just rolled the windows down in the car whenever possible. But with a little extra money from the government this year :D I was looking to get my a/c fixed before the heat gets here again this summer. I've searched a lot on here and found a lot of conflicting information as to cost, effectiveness and how to do it. I was wondering if anyone on here has any helpful information, or possibly experience in doing a conversion. From what I can gather most legitimate conversions are gonna run you $400-500 at a shop. I'd like to do the work myself if possible. Any input or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

I used to have a set of 5000k HID's on my '90 and from the drivers point of view they were a huge improvement from the normal bulbs. I never really thought to look at my car from the point of view of an oncoming car though. However, around here it tends to be very foggy in the early fall time and on those mornings driving in the fog, the lights produced such a blur of light that i truly could not see 10 feet in front of my car so I took the HID's off and put the regular bulbs back in. I can't seem to find the Eagle Eye headlights for sale anywhere though. I'd love to pick up a set of them for my car.

Rock Auto (rockauto.com) seems to be reasonably priced if your looking for the cheapest option thats not Toyota/Lexus brand.

Found them at luxurymods, too. http://luxurymods.com/index.asp?PageAction...mp;Category=185

Here's how to clear the air bag light, http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/lighting/airbaglight.html. Hope that brings an end to all your problems.

I'm not positive with the '99s but my '90 has an electronic actuator that releases the fuel door when you pull the little lever. Mine was getting weak to the point that it would seldom open when it was warm out and it never worked when it was cold out. I called Toyota and they wanted something like $350 for a new one, so I went to a local junk yard and found one off a similar year Lexus. The guy at Toyota told me any Toyota or Lexus with the electronic opener would work. However I found out that nearly all cars use a cable system so I had to do a little searching.

When I bought my car the previous owner told me she pushed that button in one day thinking it would open the trunk on accident and it never came back out. So I tried putting the key in and unlocking it but the key doesn't turn. I'm assuming you need a master key to open it and all I received with the car is a valet key. Is there any other way to unlock that switch without having the master key for the car? It'd be nice to be able to open my trunk without having to turn my car off, get out and use my key to open it. Sorry for the hijack, but it seems you have found your solution and I thought this would be a good time to ask.

Just a quick wrap up. I had my exhaust done today at the local shop. They removed everything from the first resonator on back. In its place they ran 2.25" tubing into two direct flow mufflers and finished it off with two 2.5" chrome tips. It looks and sounds amazing. You can hardly hear anything in the car under normal driving conditions but when you step on the throttle you hear a nice rich tone inside the car. I haven't heard it from outside the car yet other than at idle but the guys I live with said it sounds great. I don't have a video camera otherwise I'd post a video on youtube for everyone to watch.

I wouldn't go to Lexus to get anything like this done. They will do excellent work I'm sure, but you will have a tough time getting them to put in anything other than stock replacement speakers. And their labor charges are higher than most audio places (at least that's how it works around here). If you are a DIYer then this site is all you should need to do the job yourself. http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/audio/ Otherwise places like Best Buy or the other mentioned places should be able to set you up with everything you need and also install it for you.