sbrunz

Hi All,

Just joined the forum after purchasing a 94 LS400 with 90k miles. There are some electrical issues with the car and was hoping someone had advice on best to get them figured out and fixed:
1. It has the famous flickering dashboard, should I send this to the lexpert?
2. The radio lights go off when the headlights come on.
3. There is no backlight on the radio/ac cluster, its pitch black at night.

Also when I take it to my mechanic to check it out, is there some things he should look for or resets to perform?

Thanks for any advice, hope to be a contributor some day as I learn more about the car.

Legender

Welcome to the club and congrats on the low mileage purchase.
As with most new things this will be a learning activity for you as you read about others past experiences and read the sticky notes at the top. Search is your friend.
As with most electrical things...tracing the problem from the power source to the problem will be the key, checking all wires and fuses.
Insure all the maintenance is up do date on the car. If not done already, it is time for timing belt/water pump and associated seals. Then all other fluids.
There are some known weaknesses that you should be aware of, power steering pumps, tilt wheel, ECM... but these are all well documented in the forum. Happy reading.
Enjoy the car and welcome to the forum.

sbrunz

Thanks for the quick reply Legender, will start with the owners manual and make sure all the bells and whistles are working.

dicer

90k Miles is the timing belt change miles point, so depending on the price you paid its likely they just off loaded that maintenance item to you. You should do transmission fluid change, differential oil change, brake fluid change. So what options does it have? Color?

If you want to learn more about the car and to check out the wiring diagrams you will need to trouble shoot the electrical issues you can get the info here.

https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfo....toyota.com%2F

TaninAuto

Hi, Tanin Auto Electronix here. We are vendors on the site. If you get through trouble shooting and there are still issues involving the cluster and climate controls, contact us. We do repairs on these often and are happy to help out.

Here is a link to our instrument cluster repair service:

http://www.taninautoelectronix.com/L...ter_repair.htm

Let us know if you have any questions at all. We are happy to help out!

DoktorYes

Simply replace the Caps on both boards in the cluster. That will solve all the problems you have.It Did on my 1994 LS400.Look up $3.00 fix in search mode.

Hypnotyk

Well when I installed the head unit on my Gs I wired the ground to a part of the frame where the headlights apparently were also ground to so when my headlights were on the stereo would shut off. Maybe similar?

dicer

I should add, unless someone is looking for a project, and mention of "my mechanic" doesn't sound like a project, I would advise to stay away from an "OLD" car, why? Because there is going to be tons of other problems cropping up and if you have to pay someone to attempt the fixes, you soon will be into the much newer car region of the price range. Even very low mileage LS400's of the early 90's vintage are going to be a money pit of sorts if you have to pay for the work, your just better off going with the much newer ones like Billy has.