Looking for someone with definite Lexus LS 400 experience. A coworker has a mid 90s LS 400 and wanted to change the distributor caps (or whatever they are called) as part of a home tuneup. He asked me to take a look as he was having problems. First Toyota V8 I have seen up close and I was surprised to see a cap mounted to the front of each cam pulley and tham aappretnly boxed in by the front cover. He had taken the top cover off to expose the cam belt and pulleys, etc. The question is, do you have to remove the front engine cover to change the caps out. Sure looked like it, but I cannot imagine you having to do this.
Oh, so much fun. I've done that on two cars so far. You do need to remove the cover, or at least remove the bolts so you can flex the cover out of the way. It helps if you remove the accessory belt. I can offer you a PDF of the manual pages tonight if you'd like - I'm at work and they're on my laptop at home. I can also look at my wife's car to jog my memory on any other pointers I'd have.
Any work on these cars is time consuming, but for the most part makes sense and if you follow the steps it'll come apart and go back together well. Trying to skip steps results in thrown tools and torn hair. Just be glad he didn't ask you to help with his starter.
Is it okay if I send you info tonight? (Or do you need it sooner?)
Oh, the starter. BTDT. Of course, the only thing that ever goes wrong on that car is the starter. What a joy.
Our's has CoP, so can't help you on that.
dculberson
He won't be working on the car until this weekend. I'm not sure he has the caps yet. So tonight or tomorrow would be fine. I am sending you a PM with my coworker's email address. He has access to a Lexus site that says the radiator needs to come out!
I got the email; I'll try to send the PDF tonight. I'll also look over the engine and see what painful memories pop up so I can pass the lessons along. ;-)
These engines can be very difficult to service, depending on what you're doing, but they're really tough. My wife's car was bought for $500 as a potential challenge drivetrain donor, with 239k miles, a salvage title, and a broken timing belt. (Non-interference engine before 1995.) It turned out to have the original water pump in it, so probably the original timing belt as well. The pump had seized, causing the timing belt to melt and shed all of its teeth throughout the timing belt chamber, and overheated the idler pulleys and making them both seize. I replaced the pump, idler pulleys, tensioner, and belt, and the thing purred like new. Keep in mind that's 239k miles with obviously poor maintenance. The car was then so nice (even all the electric gizmos work) that my wife wanted to drive it. Here it is a year later and I haven't had to do a thing. I did do a tuneup but that was voluntary.
(Of course, that left me aching for another one to strip for racing, but that's okay.)
I passed up a 95 SC400 with rear end damage for $1500. I thought about it real hard, given that I have a 92 Truck with a bad motor just sitting there taking up space. But, with the Locost and the Europa, I'm very project-poor so I'll just have to wait for another. If it had been a 99-up (CoP, VVT), I'd probably have bought it anyway.
Well, I just sent him an email with the PDF's and a commentary and summary of steps. Hopefully I didn't scare him off. If you're going to help him, you should have the commentary. Here it is:
Hi there! I'm sending these PDF's at the request of spitfireball from the Grassroots Motorsports forums. He said you've got an LS400 you're trying to do the distributor caps on.
The PDF's are (1) distribu.pdf is how the remove and replace the distributors. Obviously you only need to go as far as the caps, since you're not replacing anything more. (2) timingbe.pdf is required for reference to the distribu.pdf for certain steps. NOTE: I realized these are for 1995-1998 LS400's which have a little bit different engine cover set up than the earlier ones. But even if you have a 1990-1994, most of the steps are the same. For 90-94, just skip the "remove v-bank cover" step since you don't have a large v-bank cover.
You definitely shouldn't need to drain the coolant or remove the radiator. I've done the distributor rotor and cap without doing so. The manual steps include draining the engine coolant, but I believe that's an error as it doesn't have you remove the radiator or anything else holding coolant. You do need to remove the drive belt (aka accessory belt) and such (step 8 in the timinbe.pdf) since you need to remove the drive belt idler pulley. So I think instead of "See steps 3 to 7 and 10 to 14 in timing belt removal in Engine Mechanical)" it should say "steps 4 to 8 and 10 to 14."
Summary of steps:
1) Remove air cleaner inlet, air cleaner and intake air connector assembly
2) Remove drive belt, fan, fluid coupling, and fan pulley
3) Remove Right and Left No. 3 timing belt covers (those are the ones over your plug wires)
4) Remove drive belt idler pulley
5) Remove Right and Left No. 2 timing belt covers
6) Remove and replace distributor caps. (Hint: do the rotors while you're at it.) (Second hit: Rotors are keyed, make sure they're nested on the key before tightening down the bolts.)
And the ever loved: Reassemble.
It's involved, with a lot of parts to keep track of, but not exactly difficult. It's also possible to skip some steps but I always regret it when I try that.
Is there something floating around the net that has some tech tips for a timing belt on a 99 LS400? The factory shop manual (which I have, complete set) is pretty thorough, but sometimes there's an extra tip out there. I need to do out timing belt in the next year or so. Only has 90K miles on it, but da book says it's time to do it. I guess a new water pump too. I stick with Genuine Toyota parts for water pumps that critical, but I think Gates belts are OK.
Thanks for helping out. He has a 94 model. I looked at it the other day and the timing belt has cracks in it. Since it is not an interference motor he is probably going to let that go for now.
Obviously that's up to him, and it could last tens of thousands more miles. It's a few more hours to do the timing belt once he's to the distributors; you need to pull the radiator for room to work and get the crank bolt off. That's a biggie; I ended up buying an "earthquake" impact wrench (supposedly 600 ft lbs of torque) to get it off. (Did great!)
Honestly, I did a tuneup on my '95 and saw cracks on the belt. I decided to wait, as well. Sometimes you just want to get the project done.
Oh, Dr. Hess, when I did the '92's belt, I just did a bunch of searching on the Lexus owner's club site, and read the how-to on lexls - http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/engine/timingbelt.html - in addition to reading through the factory manual. It's like anything else on these cars; take your time, keep bolts with what they go to, and don't rush yourself. Obviously I haven't done a '99 so I don't know any tricks for that year. But the manual and tutorials online prepped me for it.
Thanks. Doesn't look too bad. No worse than that starter and I don't have any dizzies to worry about.
If the belt has cracks, replace it now. Just do it. They can't be too much at O'Reilley's.
Dr. Hess wrote:
If the belt has cracks, replace it now. Just do it. They can't be too much at O'Reilley's.
I'm sure you're right. I just find it tough to motivate myself to work on the daily driver. I'll get to it, I promise. And if I don't, and it ends up bending some valves, I'll fess up and let you gloat.
