jpourcy

Hi Billy, Nice model A. I restored a 1926 Chevrolet back in the 70's. The body was made of wood surrounded by sheet metal. I actually had to replace wood on the vehicle. Jerry

Hi Fellas, Most of you already know how expensive those new Lexus front upper control arms are. 1st Generation - $660.00 a piece from the dealer. There are aftermarket bushings that you can install in the control arms but to my knowledge, no upper ball joints. When the ball joints wear out, you have no choice but to replace the control arm. On the internet I have found some control arms as low as $177.00 for the right side and $154.00 for the left side but I do not believe they are original equipment. But there is a cheaper fix if you can catch it early enough. You can drill a whole at the top of the ball joint and add a grease fitting and grease the joint. The joint seems to be made the same as ones that come with a grease fitting but with no hole. I did this on both of my upper control arm ball joints and it works great. You can also do this to the outer tie rod ends. But you cannot do this on the lower ball joint - not yet anyway. I'm working on it. If you catch it early enough, you can add this grease fitting and keep that ball joint greased and more than likely it will last the life of the car, then when your bushings/bearings wear out, you can replace them at a reasonable cost. It seems to me that many car manufacturers are doing this, not making joints to where you can grease them. Can you say, " No Maintenance?" But when they wear out you have to replace them $$$ DUH! Just another way for them to make a buck. My upper ball joints did have some slack in them and it seems by pumping the joint full of grease it really helped out. It made it much tighter and keeps the noise down. I changed the tie rod ends but I added grease fittings to the new ones. Hopefully I will never have to buy those again. I took the control arms out to do this. If you have an angle drill, you might be able to do this with the control arms on the car. 1. Centerpunch the the center of the top of the joint. (Be careful not to tear the boot if you have it off the car.) 2. Drill a 1/8 pilot hole. 3. Redrill a 3/16 hole. 4. Using a tapered short straight grease fitting, start it into the hole and tighten it up. I got mine from NAPA Auto Parts. 5. Reinstall the control arm. 6. Pump it full of grease and you are done. If you keep it greased on a regular basis, it should last the lifetime of the car. The upper control arm ball joint has very little pressure on it compared to the lower ball joint. This means that you will not ever have to buy a $$$ new $$$ upper $$$ control $$$ arm. Jerry

Hi Guys, Well, I changed the engine mounts today and as you would expect, it was a pain. Took about 3 hours. But the results were worth it. Now my Lexus rides like a Lexus. Super smooth and quiet. The best it has ever been since I bought the car. I forgot to bring my camera to work with me, but the engine mounts were just like the transmission mount - broke in two pieces. I'm surprised the engine didn't do a somersault when I gunned it, all the mounts were broke loose. If anyone needs the info, just let me know and I will give a step by step how to do this yourself. Jerry

Hi Guys, I can't find anywhere in the Lexus service manual about replacing the ATF strainer or even taking the pan down and cleaning it. Is this even necessary? Would just a change of fluid do the trick or should the pan be dropped, clean or replace the strainer, and clean the pan also? I have been told the strainer in the LS 400 transmission is not even a filter but rather just a strainer. Does it need to be cleaned? Why isn't this in the service manual? I bought my 91 with 117k and now it has 168k and I have never done anything to the transmission, but I would like to do preventative maintenance. What is the best route to take since the service manual doesn't say anything about it? (I find that kind of strange.) The only thing I can find is about draining the pan and adding a couple of quarts of fluid. What is your method that you prefer and what kind of results did you get? Thanks. Jerry

Hi LS400Luver, If it is just the surround foam on your speakers that went sour, you can order new surround foams and replace them yourself. I just repaired my subwoofer located on the packing shelf. It was fairly easy. Sounds good as new. Contact Simply Speakers: http://www.simplyspeakers.com/ 1-800-511-3343 (Ask for Tom, he sounded like he really knew his stuff.) And tell them what size speakers you have. The rear subwoofer is an 8 inch Pioneer and the part number is: FS-8 It comes with directions, pictures, glue an everything you need to change the foam. It was $21.95 with the shipping. The subwoofer has a special metal frame to fit the packing shelf. It would be kind of tough to find a replacement. Sounds like the New Orleans dealer gave you the runaround or they did not know what they were doing. The cam and crank seals should have been replaced when the timing belt and water pump were changed. I guess they did it that way so they could charge you twice for tearing the front of your engine down. Concerning keeping the car, here is my story: I came across my 91 LS 400 about 3-4 years ago. I do collision repair for a living and someone had wrecked their LS and I bought it from them for $1000.00. It was not in great shape but the price was right. I kept it all this time and tried my best not to put any money into it except for changing the oil, brakes and regular maintenance items because I did not know if I wanted to keep the car or not. It has all of the problems of these older LS400's and I have put off doing any of the work. I kept telling myself, "Should I scrap the car or keep it?" There were several things that made me decide to keep the car. 1. My boss has a friend that is a multi-millionaire and is in the investment business. He just paid several million dollars for his new home that he had built. This man can buy any new car that he wishes to buy and pay cash for it with no problems at all. Sure he has a new Mercedes but he also has a 1990 Lexus LS 400. He prefers to ride around in the 20 year old Lexus over the brand new Mercedes. I asked him why and he says it is a better riding car. He says he takes his Mercedes to Vegas and places he needs to show status but he prefers to drive the Lexus. He has kept the maintenance up and has even had the seats reupholstered. He refuses to let it go. 2. My wife's friend had a brother who was a bigshot here in Baton Rouge Louisiana. He was a bigshot with The Shaw Group, a Fortune 500 company. They gave him a new company car every year or so to drive. He drove a Lexus for a few years and then they traded him up with a Mercedes. He complained about the Mercedes and told his company he wanted his Lexus back. He said it was a better car. 3. I got in an accident back in July and my work car, a Toyota Corolla was totaled. I rented a brand new 2009 Nissan Sentra for a few days. After driving in the Nissan, my wife and I both realized that our old raggedy Lexus, even with the suspension problems it had, drove better than the brand new Nissan Sentra. I told my wife that we would be hard pressed to find a better riding car than our Lexus. So I decided not only to keep the car, but to fully restore it back to factory condition. I have full intentions on spending several thousand dollars to restore it back to original condition doing most of the work myself. For what it's worth, that is my story and I am planning on keeping my Lexus just as long as I can. It has 168,000 on the odometer and I am hoping to get well over 300,000 so it is worth it to me to spend the money on it. And one other thing, being in the automobile repair business all my life, I HATE spending money on automobiles. Automobiles are a bad investment, I would rather spend my money on real estate. But since we need some type of transportation, we have to spend money on cars. I have found my 1991 Lexus LS 400 to be a keeper. And I ride in and work on all kinds of cars and I am not easily impressed by automobiles. Sure my LS has plenty of problems, but every car you get wears out, it doesn't matter what brand you get. I have found Lexus to be in the upper crust when it comes to durability and long lasting. I am an I-CAR Gold Class Professional and I have been working on automobiles for 33 years. I know quality when I see it. Jerry

Hi Guys, Changed the transmission mount today. It is like night and day! Problems I was having: 1. Vibration 2. Could hear transmission whirring as it worked. 3. Seemed to shift hard. You could feel it. 4. Sounded like I had an exhaust leak. 5. Noise when I turned the A/C compressor on. All the engine noise was amplified through the transmission resting on the crossmember which is underneath the front seats. The metal on the transmission mount was resting on the crossmember. Actually when I pulled the crossmember loose I did not unbolt the mount, but when I pulled the crossmember loose it dropped along with the bottom part of the mount. The mount was so bad it was in two pieces. In this first picture you can see the bottom part of the mount is still attached to the crossmember with the top part in front and the new part out to the right side. This next picture shows a close up of where it was rubbing metal to metal. It was three spots, the very center, above and below. This is what causes all of the problems. And here is a top view of the situation. My Lexus now has a smooth quiet ride and I haven't changed the engine mounts yet. I will try to get to them this weekend if I can squeeze it in. How to test if your mount is bad: Put the car up on stands and climb underneath. Grab the transmission at the driveshaft and push up and let it fall down. If you hear a clunk, it is hitting metal on metal and you need to change the mount. At the most, a 15 minute job. Super easy, no pictures required, just keep the transmission supported as you drop the crossmember. Jerry

Hi Stroker, The number to the part you need is 17630-16040 and it lists for 87.75 at the Lexus dealership. (That is either the list price or my price I can't remember which. I buy stuff through the shop I work at.) I haven't changed mine yet but I will be doing so in the next few weeks. I read that you can change it in about 10-15 minutes if you go from the bottom of your vehicle. Mine blows the smoke, kind of white and blue mixed and sucks power steering fluid. I have to add fluid about once every week to week and a half. I'm looking forward to getting mine fixed. I heard some people just block theirs off and claim it still works OK, but I would rather go back original. Jerry

Hi Fellas, My engine mounts and transmission mount came in today. I got them from Car Stuff: http://www.car-stuff.com/store/?N=10991+42...1656+11921+9200 Even though the part is made or sold by MTC, it has a Lexus part number made into it. MTC must be making the Original Equipment for Lexus I suppose, either that or they get it from the same manufacturer. Engine mount - 12361-50100 on one side and 12361-50021 or 50050 on the other side. Sticker on package says 12361-50100. Both front mounts are exactly the same. Transmission mount - 12371-50010. Same number as on sticker on package. Decent price for (I am assuming) original equipment. I'll let you know what it takes to change them, and hopefully it will smooth out my ride. Jerry

Hey Blacktop, I just looked at your car and it looks great! The steering wheel looks like no one has ever put their hands on it. Is that original or did you have a leather kit installed? Jerry

Thanks Blacktop, The illustrations are nice but unfortunately it shows that everything is out of the way. I wish it were so. I've changed motor mounts before and they only have a few bolts holding them on, that is not the problem, the trouble is getting to the bolts with everything else in the way. I will let you know if I have to take anything loose to get to them. It gets kind of crowded under there. Once again, thanks for the info, I'll use it the best I can. Jerry

I also have a 91 LS 400 and it does the same thing. The Service Manual says to test it with a tachometer tester and if it doesn't match up - replace the tachometer. Doesn't seem like it gives much room to fix anything. There might be some electronic wiz out there that knows how to fix it. I did see a place on the internet where you can send them your whole combination meter and they will fix everything on it and send it back to you for $175.00. Mine has the tach off like yours, the speedometer is off, and I have the tach needle fading. That $175.00 is looking pretty good to me. Jerry

Hi Guys, This is my first post here and I wanted to tell you guys I appreciate all the info. I have a 1991 Ls 400 and I am having the same vibrations you guys are talking about. I felt this a long time ago and the first thing that came to my head was engine mounts. It feels like the engine is sitting on the body. After reading this thread yesterday, I purchased both engine mounts and the transmission mount. Should be here in a couple of days. I jacked up my car and climbed underneath today. I pushed up on the transmission at the driveshaft and let it back down and heard a clunk. It is definitely metal on metal. After seeing the pictures of the old mounts in this thread, I knew I also needed new mounts. The clunk confirmed my thoughts. Looking forward to a smooth ride. I work on vehicles for a living and I'm planning on changing all the mounts as soon as they come in. I will let ya'll know the easiest way to change the engine mounts after I get it done. I am planning on restoring my vehicle back to factory condition, so I went ahead and purchased the 1991 Lexus LS 400 Service Manuals from Toyota Publishing. It comes in three separate manuals, engine, chassis, and electrical. When you stack them up all together they are over 6 inches thick. TONS of info. But even so, I can't find anything in there about changing engine mounts. I guess they never had one go that far to make it into the manual. I'll have to do it the old fashion way - trial and error. Jerry