cduluk

Always will be :) Working on another headlight projector retrofit, this one's gonna be AMAZING <_< Should be done in a month or so :)

Yeah, make sure it's an Rx300 remote. Although the LX key looks almost the same (with the separate red panic button), it won't work. Needs to be from an Rx300. You can differentiate the Rx300 key from the LX key because the LS key has a label below the emblem whereas the Rx has the fcc id engraved below the emblem. Also, the unlock on the Rx300 has an arrow whereas the LS is plain. Any Rx300 remote can be reprogrammed to another Rx300 with a few steps. You can do it yourself actually, no need for the dealer. And you can get a local locksmith to cut you a new blade, most charge $25-50.

Thanks for the compliments :) I used walnut veneer which is the same wood that the rx300 uses. It's pretty thin, not all types are the same, but it's about as thin as a piece of poster board. The stains i actually used are a mixture of orange and yellow food coloring followed by a minwax mahogany stain. Easy to apply, dries quick, a water based stain and permanent when cleared. I start with a 250 grit sandpaper to roughen the edges, followed by a 400 grit to get it smoother. As far as the electrical work, the resistor values depend on which LED's i'm using and also depends on what my source voltage is. Normal source voltage is 12-14V and the average white/blue LED requires 3V at a max of 20mA, so anywhere from 400-600 ohm resistors will be fine per LED. Resistors lower the current to the LED's as they would burn out with 12V and such a high current.

My rx300 had it stock (it's an '03), i just made a custom bezel for it :)

ebay, just make sure you get an oem one though.

dealer msrp is around $2,000 i believe.

Thanks for the compliments guys (: Yes indeed the lighting in the center drawer is a help. At night you can't see a darn thing in there

I'm going to guess your problem is that the dye has actually been removed (which may look like dirt). Order some touch-up dye from magic mender and use it to touch up the spots. Can you post pictures?

Another update- i made another username on clublexus so i could "quote" my posts that had pictures so i could copy the URL's onto this site, but now i can't even view clublexus.com because "the administrator has banned my IP address". Damn lol. At least we have 4 computers in our house. I am copy and pasting all my DIY posts from clublexus to the Rx300 forum of this site for anyone who wants to see them and ask me questions about them :) Here are the links to the threads i posted on this forum: My own wood re-dye pics: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=57089 My own LED mods pics: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=57088 Sample wood steering wheel refinish pics: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=57087 Sample flip-up cup holder wood addition pics: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...showtopic=57086

Hey guys :) I just wanted to post a few pictures of my rx300's interior wood trim that i re-stained a while back. Last summer i got sick of the boring walnut wood, so stripped the clearcoat and dyed the wood with some red alcohol ink. Then re-cleared the wood with car clearcoat. I think the darker wood fits the car so much better, it's a match to the reddish wood of the 02-04 ES. I also custom made wood on the ashtray cover, surrounding handle and on the center flip-up cup holder. Just purchased some walnut veneer from ebay, steamed it, and superglued it to the surfaces. Then sanded it, detailed it with black painted trim, stained it with the alcohol ink, and cleared it. I wanted the pieces to look VERY oem :) You will also notice what look to be "volume buttons" on the steering wheel, but in fact i wired them up to be my radar detector and laser jammer "ON/OFF buttons. I purchased a used ES wheel on ebay and put the switches on this wheel which is a 'similar' style. You may also notice: 1. My custom navigation molding. I made it recessed a little because i think it helps with glare and it just looks better. 2. My headlight control roller switch on the panel below the ignition. I wired the auto-leveling switch from the rr control arm to the cabin so i can control the headlight hight from the drivers seat 3. I bought some "coach edition" seats from an 02 model. They just look cool :) So tell me what you guys think! :)

I added another light mod too. I bought some rx330 illuminating scuff plates. Had to do some cutting, heating/melting/shaping etc but i got them to fit in pretty well! There's no way the Rx300 didn't mate with something else to produce the rx330, because these pieces were SO close in size. lol Also changed out the amber to white-ish blue which i think looks much better. Now it matches the keyring hole i changed to the same whiteish blue. These scuff plates now go one whenever the keyring light does because that's what i used as the power source. Just ran wires under the carpet to each location. Took 4-5 hours to do minus the trip to the accident room lol... Got the scuff plates for $165 shipped to my door from ebay. The tan of the rx330 matches the tan of the rx300 perfectly. absolutely perfectly :) Here are some pics! :) Tell me what you think.

Hey guys!! Just thought i would post a few pictures of the interior of my Rx300 where i've added some LED modifications. A few years ago my cousin purchased an 07 Rx350 and i noticed some of the nice LED upgrades, such as blue LED's in the cupholder area, and LED's in the inside door handles. The night i got home, i drew up some plans and schematics to add these functions in my 03 Rx300 :D In these pics you'll notice: - green LED's in the coin drawer. I mounted a switch to control the lights to illuminate only when the drawer is opened. This is for all the nights at the drive-thru at Burger King fumbling with change :P - green LED's in all 4 interior door handles. I chose green so that it would match the factory green of the radio console etc. I initially had amber like on the rx350, but decided green was a better match. - blue LED's in the center top drawer illuminating everything in the cup holder area. I also created a white LED tube illuminating my radar detector controller and display. There is also a blue LED illuminating a "slit" at the opening end of the ashtray cover. Lastly a blue LED illuminating the handle area where you open the drawer. - blue LED's illuminating the flip-up cup holder. When the cover is closed, the outline is illuminated as well. I also have white LED's in all 3 dome lights, not pictured. These lights may seem EXTREMELY bright, but they're just right. They also dim with the rest of the radio console lights etc as they're on the same circuit. I hope you enjoy :) Please comment!!

The whole process took about a week. I was able to bake each coat of clear between coats, which really sped up the process. It took 8-10 coats of clear to get this finish so smooth. The leather looks totally brand new, the matte finish really makes it look nice. The leather dyes also give the leather that “new car smell” too J. This is a good alternitive to spending $2k at the dealer for a new one, that’s for sure J So tell me what you guys think! Hope you enjoyed the pics!!

The finished result!!!!!!!!! I threw in some old airbag part I had to show how the color matches. It appears the leather is lighter than the airbag, but that’s only because the leather is matte (dry).

The next step is to mask off the wood so I can work on the entire leather surfaces. I am using an airbrush (same airbrush I used to apply the car clear for the wood) with Magic Mender’s “matte” clear for leather over the entire leather surfaces, front and back. I used a blow-dryer in between coats of matte clear to allow the dye to soak into the leather and bond well. After the first coat of clear, I realized I needed a tint to better hide the little nicks. I mixed a 10:1 ratio of clear to taupe and sprayed a coat over the entire surface. After this I applied a few more thin coats of matte clear to give the leather a textured matte finish to make it look new again. After the leather dye was completely dry, I removed the tape from the wood and gave the wood a final buffing using the ScratchX.

These little scratches and nicks can easily be fixed by touching up with some leather dye. I’m using Magic Mender’s crack filler and taupe#13 dye to fill in the nicks. The first step is wipe down the entire leather surface with rubbing alcohol to evaporate any water that might be seeped in the leather. I used a toothpick to dab the dye over the little nicks etc. Although the surface does look better with the little nicks filled in and dyed, the entire leather surface still needs re-finishing.

Although I wear a lint-less overall and keep good dust control, you can’t make the finish perfect. Some little pieces of dust (I’ve had flies get on the finish before GRRR) get on the last coat before it’s fully cured, which need to be wet sanded with 1500 grit sandpaper and buffed/polished out with 3M scratch remover followed by Meguiar’s ScratchX to get a nice shine. The next step is to un-ravel the tape over the leather and give that a nice re-finish. The tape leaves behind some excess glue (especially after being in the heating booth (aka an old oven). I used a 6:1 ratio of water to woolite and a cotton towel to remove and glue and dirt from the leather. But even after being cleaned by the woolite solution, the leather still has that ugly shine resulting in years of use. Over time, leather gets shiny and scratched from peoples filthy hands and rings.

I then stained the wood (which is walnut btw) with a mixture of stains to get the best match. I let the stain dry over-night in the oven at 200 degrees. The following day I let it air dry. If all of the stain and moisture in the wood is not evaporated, the clear will not bond and bubbles will form. Here’s after the stain and first coat of clear was applied. As you can see, the first coat of clear does not fill in the ‘grain’. This is why several layers of clear are required to get a smooth shiny finish. I’m using Dupont’s two part clear (same stuff used on car finishes). It’s extremely hard and durable. It resists cracking and fading, the best stuff I’ve used. I let each coat of clear bake in the oven for 30mins-3 hours at 140 degrees to ensure each layer is cured before the next is applied. And after each coat, I wet sand with 600grit sandpaper to remove any imperfections. After a few more coats: It took quite a few coats of clear to get a thick smooth finish. After the last coat:

Hey guys. This wheel was pretty dinged up. I thought it could be fixed with a simple wetsand and re-clear, but little “ring marks” in the wood were too deep. The clear needed to be stripped and the wood sanded, re-stained and stripped. I also needed to touch-up and re-dye the leather as it was pretty scratched up as well. Here are some details to the re-finishing in case any of you guys wanted to do the same :) So here we are: At this point I had already wetsanded with 600grit and applied 3 coats of clearcoat before we both decided it was best to strip and re-stain. The first step at this point was to strip the coats of clear I added, and the factory clear as well. These pictures show the stripper lifting the clear I added. The factory clear takes a lot more work to remove. After my clear was removed, I applied a few more layers of stripper to let it soak into the factory clear. After soaking for an hour or two, I scraped the clear off using small pieces of oak (which is a very dense wood, hard enough to hold up and scrape, but not hard enough to dig into the steering wheel wood) After a few hours of scraping and sanding.

Then it was time for the LED mods. I used two 5mm white LED's i got from Hong Kong. Wired them up with resistors and ran the wires in the little arms. In the pics they appear blue, but they are true white. Just my camera. Then you can wire the + and - to the ashtray light. It will dim with everything else too :) The whole process took around 2 weeks. The hard part is waiting for the paint to cure between each coat. The more coats you add, the better the finish will come. I hope you guys like the pics :)

As you can see the first coat of clear still shows the 'grain' of the wood. Certain parts of the grain absorb better than others, which result in the un-even finish. I let the clear air-dry and baked for 30 mins at 140 degrees. When the first coat of clear was dry, i wet sanded with 600 grit sandpaper to remove some of the 'bumps' and un-even surfaces. After wetsanding: I repeated the process of more coats of clear, wet sanding, more clear, until all of the 'grain' was filled in and the surface as flat as i could get it. It took about 10 coats to get the best finish. After the last coat of clear, i wet sanded with 1500grit and buffed and polished with 3M scratch remover followed by Mequiar's ScratchX to get the best shine.

After some sanding Not pictured, i spray painted the belly and sides of the panel with krylon's flat black. Notice on the wood panels in the rx interior, the sides and trim are black. I then stained the wood with a mix of two stains. After the stain has been applied. Then it's time for the stain to dry completely. If there is liquid stain or moisture left in the wood, the first coat of clearcoat will not bond, and bubbles will form. I baked in the oven at 100 degrees for 4 hours. Let air-dry overnight. The following evening, it was time for the first coat of clear. I used duponts two part clear (same stuff used on car finishes).

I wanted to add wood to the flip-up cup holder cover for the rx300. I added walnut veneer to the flip-up cup holder cover and added white LED's to the little 'arms' and blacked out the inside. Here are some pictures and details in case any of you guys wanted to do the same :) So here we are: The first step was cleaning and sanding the cover This is the thin layer of veneer i will be using And believe it or not, i've found the best bonding agent to make the veneer bond to the plastic is you guessed it, superglue. It melts and bonds to the plastic and absorbs into the veneer to make an air-tight bond. I used a foam brush to spread the glue on the plastic, then layed the veneer over that, and pressed and held in place with C-clamps. Baked in the oven at $100 degrees for 1/2 hour to dry the glue.