monarch

Did you search any of the collision parts catalogs of the sites linked in some of the messages? Lots of times parts not listed in the mechanical parts catalog can be found in the collision catalog

I think your first task may be to locate the differential drain plug and drain it. If the drained fluid is pink / reddish like the rest of your fluid then you can breathe a sign of relief that the regular transmission fluid and differential fluid have been mixing all along and your regular drains have helped keep the differential fluid fresh. If on the other hand the fluid drained from the differential is brown then you know it hasn't been mixing and is 207,000 miles old. Brown fluid isn't a good sign, but not a fatal one either. It means the fluid is old and has gradually become partially oxidized, but not severely burned. Vintage Toyotas I've purchased with brown fluid survived alot of years and miles after being filled with fresh new fluid. Black fluid is more serious and suggestive of possible transmission failure in the not too distant future.

You said: "With overhead-cam engines, it [the timing chain] has to be 3 or 4 feet long... when you use a chain for that kind of length, it's more likely to loosen up, slap around and eventually break." So I showed photographic proof that even 30 years ago Toyota had learned how to build overhead cam engines with 3 foot long timing chain mechanisms that are capable of lasting 600,000 miles. In my own '92 Toyota pickup the chain mechanism lasted 417,670 miles at which time the chain tensioner occassionally started sticking in the retracted position and required replacement. Obviously Toyota learned long ago - before many of the people here were even born - how to build timing chain mechanisms for its overhead cam engines that were extremely durable when lubricated by ordinary dinosaur oil. Out here in California it is routine to still see 1970's overhead cam Toyotas on the road still running their original timing chains.

Well now you've seen and experienced the reward - 203,000 troublefree miles - of following Toyota's recommendation to just drain and refill the pan at regular intervals using factory fluid. One reason flushing is wrong at this point is that it's a total waste. Why? Because the insides of your transmission are squeeky clean right now due to your regular 10,000 mile fluid changes. Literally as clean as the pots and pans that come out of your dishwasher. So any total fluid replacement procedure is not going to improve the shifting. A Toyota cooling system can stay squeeky clean too for many decades by just draining and refilling the radiator every year or two with the factory original coolant mixture. No need to ever flush because no cooling system deposits or corrosion will ever occur. I don't have a V6 so can't answer your question about the differential. It's possible the jerkiness or whatever new you are now feeling is due to something like a weaken transmission mount rather the transmission itself. Make sure the fluid level is correct as overfilling can sometimes contribute to a feeling of rough shifting.

Since 1975 Toyota has been building overhead cam engines with long timing chains that are capable of lasting over 600,000 miles when lubricated by ordinary dinosaur oil http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/synb.jpg

?$?l?W03ES,Sep 25 2005, 01:03 PM] What could this possibly have to do with the life of the timing chain/belt? ← Nothing in regard to the life of a timing belt, but alot in regard to the life of a timing chain. Unlike a timing belts, a Toyota timing chain is lubricated by engine oil. More importantly, timing chains have tensioners that are lubricated by engine oil. Tensioners are the first parts to fail in a Toyota timing chain assembly. When worn or contaminated by specs of dirt, a tensioner can stick in the retracted position causing the chain to run loose and scrape against other parts inside the engine or causing the chain to jump a tooth or two or causing a chain to fall off. Clean engine oil and clean oil and air filters assures many hundreds of thousands of miles of troublefree service from the timing chain tensioner(s)

Yeah since 1974 Amsoil has been making these bold claims. If there was really data available to support such claims it would have been acquired by Amsoil and made available to the public 31 years ago. But the top managers of off brands like Amsoil and Royal Purple know they can still sell their product without providing data to support their bold claims. They know that as long as even a tiny% of car owners fall for such claims, companies like themselves will stay in business forever because there is always going to be an inexhaustable supply of 16-35 year olds who are: 1. Attracted to flashy ads that make bold claims 2. In that "I gotta experiment and see what happens phase" 3. Don't yet understand that lots of dirty old businessmen are getting rich taking advantage of the innocence of young people in this way. 4. Fall for the "placebo effect" - they IMAGINE they're cars have more power and run smoother after switching to synthetic.

Only the throttle plate (butterfly valve) and it's surrounding bore need to be cleaned of accumulated goo. It's easy to do this by first lightly spraying cleaner on the butterfly valve and surrounding bore to loosen the goo, then scrub the parts clean with a toothbrush that has been moistened in the cleaner. Next wrap a thin towel (a lint free microfiber towel is ideal) around the head of the toothbrush and use it to wipe up the liquified goo. The throttle plate and surrounding bore will end up sparking clean. The engine will start right up because only minimal amount of cleaner were used. The wrong procedure which some owners follow is to spray the throttle plate and intake area behind the throttle plate heavily with cleaner This causes hard starting and may damage nearby parts like the throttle position sensor.

Some Toyota / Lexus dealers and independent Toyota / Lexus specialty service shops like JPI Importz refuse to do flushes, even though they are highly profitable, because they know there is a small risk the flush will cause a customer's transmission to fail and they don't want to have to foot the $2000-$4,000 replacement bill. These same dealers and shops are comfortable doing pan drains and refills because they know there is no risk of transmission failure involved with that procedure.

I heard the Avalon's V6 is a slightly reworked version of the V6 used in the 2003 on up Toyota 4Runner which means it uses a timing chain. Toyota has been moving away from timing belts since the late 1990's in favor of maintenance free timing chains. The life of Toyota timing chains varies widely - between 150,000 - 700,000 miles - depending on whether or not the car is driven by a leadfoot driver and if the engine receives regular oil and filter changes.

Your AC system merely has a slow refrigerant leak due to a worn 0-ring seal somewhere. Get the leak located and fixed by a shop equipped with an electronic leak detector and then keep using the old genune Freon R12 to maintain system reliability, durability and cooling performance. Instead of letting shops gouge you on the price of R12, buy it cheaply yourself on ebay. Just use "Freon R12" as your search words. Buy the 12 oz or 14 oz cans. System capacity is about three 12 ounce cans and a can costs only $10-17 on ebay at this time of the year (closer to $10 by Thanksgiving). Despite what their ads say, many ebay sellers will not insist upon seeing evidence of section 609 certification prior to mailing you the R12. If they do, then for only $15 you can quickly get certified by taking a short 25 question test online that's offered at http://www.macsw.org/ Virtually no AC shops or other AC authorities will tell you about any of the above tips because they are getting rich talking customers into converting to refrigerant R134a. These shops use all the tricks of the trade to convince customers R134a conversions are a good thing; e.g. calling them an "upgrade" "environmentally responsible" etc. plus they lie and say "R12 will be scarce and unavailable any day now". They've been feeding that falsehood to the public for the past 12 consecutive years!

Have you ever heard of an older Toyota / Lexus transmission slipping and / or failing real soon after a simple transmission oil pan drain and refill? Probably not. The risk free and inexpensive procedure for renewing the fluid of an older Toyota transmission is for the owner to perform about 4-5 oil pan drain and refills over a period of days so the fluid and transmission are gently and gradually cleaned up.

The great mystery to me is why tens of thousands of people used the interstate highways to get out of town?? Why didn't they just drive north and west from Houston on the numerous uncrowded back country roads? Some reporters tried the back country roads and found it was easy to get away from Houston and Galveston. Another mystery to me is why didn't the tens of thousands of people follow the course of the hurricane on TV before deciding to leave Houston? If they had done that they would have seen the hurricane was NOT directly headed for Houston and there was no urgent need to evacuate. They would have also seen the hurricane was weakening to a category 3 which is too weak to flatten houses and threaten alot of lives. Now it looks like some lives will be needlessly lost from flooding - again because people aren't monitoring the storm and realizing that the storm is going to stall out and dump 10-20 inches of rain over the area just east of Houston.

The Lexus factory repair manual recommends only a transmission oil pan drain and refill. Catastrophies like this http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...topic=24298&hl= never happen after a simple transmission oil pan drain and refill. They only sometimes happen after the owner has been pursuaded by commercial interests into thinking a "flush" is better. Then when the shocked owner confronts the commercial interests they will say "don't blame us because your transmission was obviously on it's last legs anyway."

Hertz has the all new 2006 Avalon available for rent, but no Lexus's.

Good tip. The problem I have in my area is that the tire shops - even the big chain type tire shops - hire 18-22 year olds who have no interest in doing accurate, precise work, use the old inexpensive type balance machines and don't keep a good, complete assortment of wheel weights in stock. On top of that they charge $12.00 a wheel.

I think the '91 is a bad choice for ultimate reliability - especially one with 150K miles. Here's just a partial list of expensive repairs you could be looking at: 1. Cracked EGR pipe requiring $transmission removal$ to replace 2. Worn out lower ball joints 3. Worn out transmission mounts 4. Broken axle boots 5. Water pump failure requiring $timing belt removal$ to replace it 6. Starter failure requiring $intake manifold removal" to replace it 7. Engine valve lifter trouble due to an irregular oil change history that could require camshaft removal to replace. 8. Leaking heater core requiring $instrument panel removal$ to fix LS400's that have been driven gently and never missed any preventive maintenance and always were serviced with genuine Toyota parts and fluids won't have these problems, but almost no LS400's are treated that well except for a few low mileage grandma driven ones.

This was in the news yesturday: Katsuaki Watanabe, the president of Toyota Motor says he has told his engineering chief to find a way to cut in half the price difference between fuel-efficient gas-electric hybrids and similar gasoline models. "I have given instructions to Mr. Takimoto to do that," he said, referring to Masatami Takimoto, executive vice president in charge of Toyota's worldwide research and development. "I assume Mr. Takimoto must be racking his brain about how to do that," Watanabe said, acknowledging that hybrid components are much more expensive than gasolineengines. One way to cut costs would be to make hybrid components in the USA instead of shipping them from Japan. He said that was possible but not likely soon.

Here in California, when the Highway Dept. has chain requirements during the winter, a two wheel drive vehicle with dedicated snow tires is exempt from chain requirement. So are 4WD and AWD vehicles without snow tires installed. So in many cases it appears a 2WD vehicle with dedicated snow tires is approximately as capable in the snow as an AWD vehicle fitted with conventional all season tires. Snow in California? Yes, in the high Sierra Nevada mountains - enough even to bury a motorhome http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/echoaa.jpg

Your car won't go faster or run better if you use Iridium plugs in place of factory original Platinum plugs or use aftermarket plug wires in place of factory original wires.

The water in my neighborhood must have a higher mineral content this year because I've got a disturbing buildup of hard water spots on my window glass, chrome and paint from lawn sprinker overspray. Does anyone know of a truly effective hard water spot removal product or procedure? For glass, chrome and the car's paint? The archives suggest using white vinegar but I've already tried that with no success. I ever soaked the glass repeatedly overnight with white vinegar and it did nothing for the water spots. Thanks for any success stories you might be able to share.

Do you know any 56 year old's who call themselves "speedshift"? "Cialisman" maybe, but not speedshift.

Toyota transmission factory overhaul manuals regard the metal mesh as a "filter screen" and call the whole assembly an "oil strainer". Specifically, the factory transmission overhaul manual says this: "Oil Strainer: Check the filter screen for clogging condition. Wash the oil strainer thoroughly, especially the filter case and the filter screen." Depending on the transmission model, the factory manual also instructs the service tech to use one or two new oil strainer gaskets when installing the new strainer to the valve body after cleaning (although on some models no gasket is needed).

While the manuals may not cover "unique design aspects" they do cover general theory of operation in great detail. Like here is just one of dozen of pages that covers the Variable Valve Timing with Intelligence system http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/mastertech/techa.jpg

The mechanic is partly right - there is no filter to replace. But there is a cleanable metal mesh filter screen that filters non-magnetic metal wear particles and clutch wear debris. However this filter rarely becomes restricted and normally doesn't need to be cleaned for at least 150,000 miles. Figure half that mileage if the car is driven in an aggressive and hurried 2 Fast 2 Furious manner as many teens and young male adults do.