LEXIE

bela-- thx for the info... will check it out. lx

vy, my computer knowledge is rather limited but i do have two usb ports on back of tower. i wanted to buy a dig cam several yrs ago but when i reviewed the specs they all said not compatible with win 95. i just assumed it had something to do with the opt system and not a physical hookup to the tower. obviously i am not gifted in this area so i just let it ride and went on to the other mundane things an old retiree does like play golf and drink red wine. sometimes i wish my current unit would just blow up and force me to upgrade. i know we are straying from the purpose of the forum but thx for your reply re the dig cam thing. lx

stagg, if it is truly the high pressure feed line to the rack, it has a crimped fitting the connects the rubber part to the metal part that enters the pump. i dont think you can repair it. i have read somewhere on this forum, i think, where you can have shops that specialize in this type of repair do the hose repair job fairly cheaply. a new hose is going to cost you $350 mimimum. not sure about quality of knockoff brands if there is such a thing out. hate to cut this short but i am late for happy hour. hope it is not the high pressure line. lx ps--- i thought i had a leak at the same exact location u are talking about..junction of hose to metal.. but it turned out to be leaking at the connection to the pump and i ended up replacing the seal, o-rings and the copper gasket at the pump inlet and all was solved. sometimes the fluid runs down the metal line and collects at the junction and it appears to be leaking at that point.

s'mate, i have looked into the purchase of a dig cam and as u said they are pretty inexpensive but none are compatible with windows 95. all the ones out there require win 98 or higher and i really am comfy with the 95 opt system that i have grown so used to...especially the nice fax feature. we prob dont want to start a computer discission here but i guess it is about time i upgrade. it is kind of like wanting to keep ur lexus forever since it keeps on serving you well as my ibm aptiva has. lx

staggs, second time to post this..did not show up on active posts. if the hose that is leaking is the high pressure line going from the pump to the rack you are looking at some pretty big bucks. if it is the little section of hose that returns to the resevoir with a couple of silver clamps then the 21.99 you mentioned is in line. or if it is the low pressure line from the reservoir to the pump, not much either. can you tell which line it is?? L

staggs, if the hose that is leaking is the high pressure line going from the pump to the rack you are looking at some pretty big bucks. if it is the little section of hose that returns to the resevoir with a couple of silver clamps then the 21.99 you mentioned is in line. or if it is the low pressure line from the reservoir to the pump, not much either. can you tell which line it is?? L

vy, good point and would be happy to accomodate your suggestion but i'm still in a cave...no dig cam and have windows 95 as opt system. how archaic can one get??? lx

several months ago i had to replace the poa valve (back pressure regulator) on my SC400 a/c system. there was a fitting on the low pressure line to the valve--27mm i think.. that was impossibe to get to with an open ended wrench because it was too long and butted against engine block. i cut most of the handle off a 10'' cresent and left about a 2'' stub which i ground down so i could slip a 3/4'' socket over. that allowed me to attack the pressure fitting at a right angle with good leverage using the 1/2'' ratchet handle. earlier this month when i rebuilt my p/s pump, i was able to use this same modified wrench to break loose the bolt that holds the hi press hose to the p/s pump...another difficult-to-reach fitting. a really neat tool with a lot of flexibility....covers up to 30mm metric span. lx black 93SC400 61kmiles '65 mustang 289 with 98k actual miles

hey guys, i guess i had a couple of wines too many at happy hour yest eve and wasn't very diplomatic with my comments re the spoiler. it is an individual thing (choice) and as commented by exdot, just the mere fact that the topic can be discussed freely is...well isn't america just great. hope you don't kick me out of the club because i sure am reaping big benifits with all the knowledge avaiable here. peace, lx

rookie, monarch thx for the info. i'm paying close to $16/gal for the rec lexus coolant which i buy here at the toyota dealership..... seems a bit high?? i remember reading on another forum where toyota runs a special ever so often on the coolant. if i could get it for around $10, i would stock up on the stuff since i plan to keep this machine forever. L ps: still have the '65 mustang 289 coupe (totally renovated, 98k act miles) that i bought new 40 yrs ago.

i think when they coined the name "spoiler" as an option to add to the back of an already well fashioned car ( sc's in general) it was a good choice of words...a detraction in my opinion; but, not to many buyers who are fortunately much younger than my 68 yrs of existence and have a different view of what is "cool". it's hell to be old but great to be above ground, lx

new2-- try removing the catridge that holds the cd's and repacing it. maybe even wipe the cd's off with soft, clean cloth. removing/replacing the magazine might cause it to reset. lexie

monarch-- thx for your reply. i guess your point about the lube and corrosion protection are well taken...i will add another qt. the reason i cut it short was because another post pointed out how much more efficient the heat transfer was of the mixture being closer to the water side..i.e., with water being much better than 100% ethylene gycol. i'm sure the tradeoff is not worth it. could you direct me to about where these drain plugs are located on a SC400. i assume i would have to drop the splash shield to get to, right?? any idea what size wrench. lexie

i want to replace my coolant. i have decided to go with a 4 to 5 ratio of lexus specified antifreeze to distilled water. i live in fl and dont need anymore protection. i.e. i dont need a 50/50 blend since we very seldom see temps below 20 deg F. my system capicity(sc400) is 9 liters dry..... will either of these concepts work??? i plan to run the car continuously and open the radiator drain !Removed! and purge the system for about 30' with household water getting rid of all old coolant mixture. now i would like to purge all the water remaing in the block w/o messing with the block drain plugs. can i do either of the follwing: disconnect the large feed hose to the top of the radiator and lift up and pour distilled water into the hose and force the old mixture from the block into the radiator and out the drain. with engine still hot the thermostat should be open and allow this to happen. my other thought was to blow the water out of the block by using a pressurized garden sprayer tank (empty but pumped to max air cap). i have a rubber plug that will fit the large hose and i can mate the pressure sprayer hose end to the rubber plug by drilling a proper sized hole. if necessary i can slide the hose clamp up to secure the plug from blowing out. as in above case the car must still be hot enuf to insure thermostat is open for fluid to leave block and return to radiator. if i can empty my system of all fluid, it will be very nearly full and close enuf to my ratio of 4/5( actually 3.750/ 5.250) by adding a full gallon of coolant and filling to max with distilled water. i know it sounds like a long way to get from point a to point b but as i said i prefer not to bother with the block plugs. appreciate any comments, lexie

99 i mistakenly said i hooked up the garden hose to the suction hose but i meant to say to the rubber part of the return hose. the nipple where the return hose goes was plugged off. re leakage: none at all. i just pressed and twisted the funnel into the resevoir and the tape seated in nicely. yes i agree, a clear plastic container mounted atop the reservoir would certainly make this a cake walk. be nice if you could find one that held a couple of qts or more. i have some clear jugs that i get drinking water in (zephyrhills spring water, 1 gallon cap). i will cut a hole in the bottom and see if i can come up with some kind of simple seal that will mate the jug top to the reservoir since i plan to flush one more time soon. lexie

a quick story about the sensitivity of changing fluids in a vehicle. i have a honda crv and rather than go to the dealer for the transmission fluid change, i went to a fast-oil change service and they said they could do the transmission change but had to add an additive to make the fluid they added match the honda standard. so some few weeks later while driving on the hwy and letting up on the gas i kept getting this weird grinding noise which was driving me nuts.. thought tran was going out. i rememberd the fluid change at the " fast- rip- off place", took it back and asked if they ever had probs like mine in the past and they said never. i went to honda and got five qts of their fluid and, changed out and the noise dissappeared immediately. moral..yes p/s pumps, transmissions, hydraulic fan pumps, engin, etc., all have their limits as to how far you can stray from the recommended additive. -------------------------------------------------------- re p/s fluid replacement. it cant any any simplier than this: i just finished replacing the seal/o-rings in my p/s pump and wanted to do a complete fluid purge of the system. you can do this w/o removing any parts like the coolant tank or whatever. bought 1 gal of dex III. disconnected the suction line from the resevoir to pump and forced a 5/8", 8' piece of discarded garden hose over the rubber suction hose. found the biggest a**ed funnel i had and wrapped some electrical tape around the spout to make a tight fit when wedged into the resevoir. poured about a qt into the funnel and put discharge line into gal jug... this setup makes it easy for one person. started car with steering wheel level and let run for about 5 sec and cut motor to check how much was pulled out of funnel. after doing this and a few times with the wheels turned full left and right you get a feel for how long you can run engine before depleting funnel contents. ran the whole gal thru and fluid was clean at the end and all air was purged. in no time at all i had the system purged and the pump was running as smooth as a baby's a**.

sometimes just replacing the p/s fluid with fresh will make it quit...it did for me but i used a product mnf by havoline and i think it caused my seals to go. use dextron II or III. if you replace the fluid you will have to do it in steps buy drawing down your reservoir (use turkey baster) refilling with fresh and driving around for a while.... probably have to repeat 10- 15 times to get a good purge. how many miles on your car??

monarch, if your LS is basically like my SC400 under the hood, the alternator will be readily accessibe by just removing what i mentioned in my post to you. the removal will be easy ..just a couple of front bolts and a electrical plug to disconnect. i dont think removing the shroud will be necessary. below are listed several web addresses with lots of good stuff to guide you through the whole deal of p/s reapir or replacement. check them all out and if i can help further just let me know....go for the seal replacement if you can, it will only cost you around $25 bucks. i got mine from spartan motor mall and it is an original lexus repair kit. if you want to order from them call 1-800-998-7557 and ask for gary fish.. he has been very helpful with me. have your vin number at hand when ordering and just say a guy from pensacola fl recommended you, it may help with your discount. if you prefer a new pump just price it when you call and compare around..i think he will be the least expensive of anyone as i found out after doing a lot of checking. i am not soliciting business here, just trying to give you your best shot. i realize that some of the web addresses listed below are long but just copy and paste into google or whatever search engine you use and it will take you right to the meat of this whole matter. good luck ----------------------------- http://planetsoarer.com/Power%20steering%20pump.htm http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...r+steering+pump http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...r+steering+pump http://www.intellexual.net/faq.html#041 http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread...eering+seal+kit

monarch-- let me say that with the help of this fourm and lots of research on the net the job was not that overwhelming. step by step to remove the pump: 1) remove the engine coolant overflow tank. just a couple of screws holding the plastic tank in place ( most of the bracket screws in this whole project were metric 10). then you have to remove some small hoses to free the tank. i found a vice grip very effective for hose clamp manipulation. the jaws are fairly wide and when you squeeze the clamp and lock, you can slide it down with no problem. you will then have to disconnect the level sensor connection. just inspect the connection and you will see a little lock device that you press down to release the mating end. the tank should now slide up and out. now you must remove the p/s pump reservoir. use some sort of device like a turkey baster to draw out as much fluid as possible. i found that if you have some small tubing that fits over the baster end you can get most of the fluid out. remove the three bracket screws that hold the reservoir in place and disconnect the low and hi pressure lines. you can expect some residual drippage which can be stopped by plugging the hose ends with a pencil or such. now you must remove the air filter assembly. ther are 3 maybe 4 retainer bolts that you remove.loosen the hose clamp on the corregated rubber attached to the black plastic intake line and pull to release and the whole unit will free and come out. loosen the nut on the p/s pump pulley. i think this is metric 17. remove your fan belt by placing a metric 14 on the tensioner nut and draw the wrench handle counter closkwise and merely slide the belt off the same pulley(tensioner). now you must break the vacuum switch loose from its mount to make accesible one of the two infamous bolts that are a bit** to remove. the vac switch is located on the passenger side just in line with the pump. there are two bracket bolts holding it in place. once you free the vac switch you now have to break the brass nut loose that holds the high pressure line in place to the pump. this one is kind of hard to get to...no room for a socket but if you have a large metric boxed you can prob reach. i just happened to have had a cresent wrench that i had cut the handle off except for about 1.5 inches and was able to place this over the nut and use a socket wrench over the 1.5" stub to get leverage to break the nut loose. now for the infamous bolts. these two bolts are located on the back side of the pump and are parallel to the firewall i.e. pointing to the sky. they are hard to see and the passanger side bolt is higher than the driver side bolt..almost 45 deg angle facing car. i was able to remove both bolts from under the hood with much effort using a boxed 12 metric wrench. the upper bolt on the vac switch side was not that hard but the lower bolt on the alternator side was tough. by trial and error i was able to finally get the wrench on the bolt and break loose. once that happened it was finger removalble. if you can jack the car up the lower bolt is much more accessible. now the easy part is removing the nut and bolt from the front side facing the pump and once done the pump slides right out. you did not mention if you were replacing the pump or rebuilding the existing pump but i would be glad to direct you to the tutorials for rebuilding if that is what you plan to do.

As I mentioned in the battery disconnect topic I rebuilt my p/s pump with an OEM seal replacement kit. During the process I used a few "tricks" that saved money and time...some of these are probably old but I thought they were worth mentioning. ------------------------------------------ To remove the snap rings, I only had a pair of ring pliers that expanded rings for removal... these needed to be compressed. I had an old pair of needle nose pliers that I modified by grinding a small notch on each tip end. If you dont have a grinding wheel with a sharp edge you could use a sharp file to make the notches. The modified ring remover worked great. When driving out the bearing/shaft I used a wooden dowl since I did not have an aluminum or brass rod. When you drive the dowl against the shaft end, lay the pump face down on concrete floor for max resistance. When I tried pounding on top of my workbench there was too much give and the bearing would not break loose. Once you get it started, then you place the pump on open vice jaws drive the through with ease. When I replaced the bearing/shaft assembly, I heated the aluminum pump housing by laying a trouble light bulb on the pump bearing opening. I put the bearing/shaft assembly in the refrig freezer for 1 hr. With the pump housing in the vice and all mating surfaces wetted with p/s fluid, I was able to drive the bearing in with very little effort. I did not have a socket that would span to the outer bearing casing so I used an old pvc fitting that matched just perfectly. When flushing out the old p/s fluid, I used a discarded 5/8" garden hose cut to about 8'. The rubber hose end of the high pressure return line wedged in tightly into the hose and there was no leakage during the purge process. A water clear plastic jug is useful during the purge process to allow acccessing the clarity of the fluid being removed. During the air removal process, I found that a fairly large funnel wedged into the resevoir kept the fluid from splashing all over the place and also allowed more surface area for the air to dissapate as the froth came up int the funnel. Nothing earth shattering re the above comments but every little bit helps when you are as unskilled a mechanic as I...which must be obvious as it took me about 12 hours to do the repair. Nutshell.... my labor plus $23.50 for the seal kit beats 6 to $800 for the job outside if using new pump.

I had pretty good success as a temporary means by carefully positioning a heating pad over the lens and leaving overnite. You may have to repeat several times but eventually they will clear.. but also, eventually they will cloud again.

thx for all the replys guys. the reason i asked the quest was because i was going to replace the seals in my p/s unit and needed to disconnect the bat. regarding the p/s job, although it took me yesterday and today, all went well and because of all the info here and on other sites there were no big supprises. of course the infamous two back bolts were the biggest deal. i was able to remove the pump under the hood but when replacing, i couldn't keep the lower back bolt from falling out before i could get it started (threaded) so i fianlly had to jack the car up and go in from underneath. i also thoroughly cleaned the reservoir out and a quite a bit of s**t came out. after installing the rebuilt pump i purged all the old fluid out and now i am in the process of deaerating the new fliud in the system. the pump is getting smoother with each cycle of starting and rotating the wheels to complete stop, left and right. i hope all holds up...it feels good to save some $800 bucks after all is done. thx again to all for the many questions that were answered. lexie. ps... the solo drive belt removal and replacement was a snap as one of the previous posts stated it would be.

Are there any precautions in temporarily disconnecting my battery other than negative cable first. Will I foul computer system up and if so how do I restore previous settings after reconnecting. '93 SC400

I have isolated my p/s pump leak to be at the entry point of the hi press line into the pump. It is only a few drops per day and not dripping on my alternator but I want to correct before it worsens. I have elected to go the seal replacement route and have ordered an OEM kit from an authorized dealer...only $23.50. I think the leak is "O" ring related and not due to the internal oil seal since I do not detect any leakage from the pump shaft behind the pulley. I am retired and have plenty of free time to do the repair job but would like to clear up some points before I start so as to make the endeavor as smooth as possible. I have a copy of the pump assembly diagram and the nice writeup offered by lexcoupe94 and others (see tutorial below). I would appreciate any imput, opinions, clarification, advice, etc regarding the following issues: 1) Step 5 ( tutorial) -- Remove the vacuum valve on the passenger side of motor. ?? Exactly where is this valve located and what does it look like. 2) Step 6 (tutorial) the infamous side bolts. ?? are they on the left side facing the pump and will I be able to remove them from under the hood. I elected to go this way because I have no way to do the job from underneath the car. Can I get a ratchet socket on them. 3) Will I have to remove the large radiator hose in order slide the pump out and up. It looks kind of tight down in that area. 4) I am quite sure that this is "O" ring related. If upon close inspection I do not see any other sources of leaks and am confident that my problem was caused by faulty o-ring, WOULD IT BE RECOMMENDED THAT I bypass tearing the pump apart to install the oil seal. I have a vice and I could build a slide hammer to remove the pump shaft but there still seems to be a lot of precision work left to be done to disassemble/reassemble and the chances of messing the pump up or making it worse are high considering how many rebuilt pumps by so-called experts seem to fail. I would much appreciate comments re the previous questions especially #4. Thx in advance, Lexie -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Replacing the Power Steering Pump: info provided by lexcoupe94, sxylxy, FLex, hyperopt: The pump brackets are mounted at about a 45 degree angle looking at the pump from the front. The outside bolt is higher. STEP 1: Disconnect the car battery. STEP 2: Drain power steering fluid with a turkey baster. STEP 3: Remove the air intake box, overflow tank, pump reservoir and bracket. STEP 4: Loosen pump pulley with a 14mm wrench. This will loosen the serpentine belt. Remove both belt and pulley. STEP 5: Remove vacuum valve on the passenger side of the motor. STEP 6: Remove side bolts with a 14mm wrench. They are tough to see so you have to feel for them. STEP 7: Disconnect the high pressure hose and remove the two front bolts with a 10mm wrench. You have to pull the pulley off for access to the front bolts. I carefully pried the pump off with a crowbar by prying one side, then rotating the pulley 180 degrees and prying again. I would recommend using a puller though. STEP 8: If you did not buy a new power steering fluid reservoir, make sure you thoroughly clean yours out. Flush old power steering fluid too otherwise contaminants may accelerate your new pump's lifespan.

David-- Thx for the reply... great pic. L