Banshee365

FWIW I've gotten pretty good at the EGR tube lately. I pulled several at junkyards until I found an intact one. I remove the forward exhaust half as if I were removing the trans or driveshaft. It's easier than messing with the rear cat fasteners... With the cats removed the upper EGR tube bolts are fairly accessible. A long 3/8" extension and universal is really all that's needed. Putting the bolts back in is a little challenging but still pretty easily doable. I removed the steering rack as I knew it COULD be in the way and it was garbage anyway. Leaking all over the place. Filled with power steering fluid. I'm using the one off the white car. I don't think it has to be removed to pull the engine, but since I was removing it at some point anyway I went ahead and did it before the engine removal. I doubt the hood will go straight up with the struts removed. The hinges are near maxed when the hood is up. That is common on Honda's and Mercedes, you can actually move the struts on some of those to a different location for more of an angle.



Also, I can finally condemn this engine. I thought there could possibly be some binding between the engine and trans with a backed out bolt or something. But, the engine is hanging from my hoist with the torque converter still attached. The engine will still only rotate 10-15 degrees before hearing a metallic sound. I removed all of the plugs and dropped a long 1/4" extension down to the top of the pistons while moving the crank that little bit. Cylinders 7 and 8 do not move at all when the crank is turned. As I said a few pages ago; "Something bad happened here folks..." It's lost at least the 2 rear rods and who knows what happened to the crank. As I mentioned a page or so ago, the flywheel had a little play up and down with pried against the trans case. It's a little bit of work to find out what happened and I may not mess with it until the car is done.

I haven't personally heard of a 1UZ coming apart in a stock application so I am certainly interested to see what happened.

Banshee365

I've gotten a couple hours lately to get the cars apart. The black and white cars both are missing their drivetrains now. The black cars drivetrain is sitting in the garage for future autopsy to see what came apart inside. The white cars drivetrain runs really great and is now sitting in the garage, still together, awaiting transplant into the black car. This drivetrain removal is really rather easy on these cars. And it's really nice how clean the engine bay looks after it's removed. A lot of thought and engineering went into this thing. Everything has it's place. Everything is nice and tidy looking.

A few things that I found on the good drivetrain upon removal are the motor mounts and EGR tube. I noticed an exhaust tick when accelerating under load with the white car. The EGR tube is partially split and is leaking as indicated by the black soot marks near it and on it. I have a good solid one from a salvage yard that I will install for now. The drivers side motor mount stayed behind with the crossmember when lifting the engine. Totally separated. The passenger side mount wiggles a bit so maybe it's partially separated. I happened to come across 2 genuine mounts on Amazon for $145 so I jumped all over that, or else I would just use the intact ones from the black cars bad engine. Those are probably aftermarket or something, who knows. All I need to order now is a new alternator connector and another random connector that is escaping me right now.

Tomorrow I'm going to degrease the drivetrain while hanging it from the hoist. It's got some crud all over it from years of leaking valve covers, power steering leaks, and front crank seal leaks.

If anyone has any questions on drivetrain removal for the 95-97 let me know.

dicer

I think since your so good at wrenching on LS's and fly you should be able to fly all over the US and volunteer to fix our LS's for us. In your spare time of course.

Banshee365

I couldn't afford the fuel my airplane at work requires. But, I do ask where people are located if I see 'FL' in their location spot. It could be fun helping someone out in my area.

Banshee365

I put two parts orders in today that I need to get the car done. One from RockAuto and one from Lexus of Pembroke Pines (LPPParts.com.)

From RockAuto I ordered a Edelmann (sp?) power steering pressure hose and a full set of rubber brake hoses. I'm an advocate of OEM parts almost across the board but sometimes I don't mind giving aftermarket a try when it comes to consumables like rubber parts. I've used a Gates pressure hose before and it worked fine. I could have a hydraulic shop replace the rubber on my OE hose but I bet the price would exceed purchasing a new one. The 2 brackets that hold the hose to the engine have to be swapped to the new part as the aftermarket hose doesn't have them. That's a huge difference between aftermarket and OE with things like this. LS400's I've seen with aftermarket pressure hoses usually have them zip-tied to the engine as they were installed by hack-jobs. Removing the old brackets requires a little bending of the metal but it goes right back down when installing on the new part and makes for a very clean install. The aftermarket hose is available with or without the hard line that attaches to the rack. This, and last, time I opted for the part without the hard line at the rack as I will just swap it. This union is usually very tight and sometimes requires some heat to break it loose. A GOOD set of flare nut wrenches is your friend here. This is sort of a crappy job most of the time but I'm going to replace the hose and all with the engine out so it will be rather easy. I can every get my torque wrench in that way to properly torque the banjo bolts at the rack and such. It's not possible without torque adapters otherwise. I went with a Napa brand set of rear brake hoses and a Dorman set of front hoses. I usually hate Dorman with a passion (except Ford intake manifolds. They're decent.) but I'm interested to see how bad they can screw up something as simple as a brake line. The OE lines are about $40 each while aftermarket are between $7-$16 each. I was going to reuse the hoses from the white car as the black cars hoses are cracking on the outside, but upon closer inspection the white cars hoses are cracking in the bends too. It's not worth the risk. Change them.

From the dealer I ordered lots of seals and hardware. I ordered a new alternator connector housing as both are broken on both cars. I also got a full set of power steering crush gaskets, a new power steering pump reservoir o-ring, front and rear catalytic converter seals, 6 new cat/manifold nuts, and a new set of hardware for the rear cat mounting. I'm going to try to fix the P0420 and P0430 codes while suspecting that there is a leak between the O2 sensors. That is pretty common. I took the cats off the exhaust today to inspect that joint. Some of the metal has appeared to erode away but I can't tell of some of it is by design or not as it's rusty like most exhaust components. I'm going to wire brush it all real well and maybe run a sharpening stone over it to flatten the mating surface as much as I can. The gaskets were pretty crusty so the new ones should help out some. They are the same style as the gaskets at the front of the cats which are a crush style gasket.

I start vacation Sunday and none of the parts are going to be here by then so there are some things that I can start to do before that all gets here. Today I wanted to get rid of the mess that 20 years of fluid leaks left behind. The crossmember was completely covered in oil and grease to the point where you couldn't even tell it was supposed to be silver bare aluminum. I took one look at it with my brush and dawn dish soap and said, "Nope.... Pressure washer time.." I fired up the pressure washer and cleaned it up being mindful of where the water spray was going. I didn't get any electronics wet. The harness that bolts to the cross member and runs to the alternator has been removed as I'm using the one from the white car after I replace the alternator connector. There really isn't much wiring after that is all out. I cleaned the crossmember spick and span as well as the strut bar brackets and such. I even sprayed down the AC compressor as it was totally covered in grease and oil from valve cover and who knows whatever else kind of leaks.

The next few things that I'm going to do this week are to start swapping the suspension over. I'm going to use every component on the front end from the white car to the black one. The lower ball joints are shot on the black car and I can visually tell the strut bar bushings will probably make noise if I use those. The white cars strut bar bushings have some cracking but are still intact I think. That's such an easy job when it's all together that I'm going to forego changing those now. I had thought about just dropping the engine cross member with lower control arms, struts, and strut bars attached and just swapping it all over to the black car that way but part of me doesn't want to mess with the crossmember fasteners for some reason. I'm getting an alignment anyway after it's done so swapping it all over piece by piece isn't going to cost me any more money. I am probably going to leave most of the rear suspension on the black car except for those arms that are bent from some idiot thinking they were a good jack point. I felt a lot of play in the rear diff on the black car so I'm going to compare it to the white one and maybe swap the rear diffs over to. It would be a perfect time to set it on the bench and change the diff fluid before install. Before going any further with the white car after that i'll probably hook a battery up to it and pump the fuel into cans to empty the tank. Then I'll throw the old suspension parts on it so it can roll so I can drag it back to the woods until I finish stripping any good parts off it. Then it's off to the scrap yard.



PS: Can you guy's spot the bad trans mount on the ground back there? If LS400's are anything, they're predicable....

AandSC

Thanks for taking us along for the ride! Nice to see the progress. Looking good!

Banshee365

Yesterday I got the front suspension all cleaned out of the black car. I got some good parts to keep as spares. The wheel bearings and spindles seemed to be in good shape. Even the upper control arm bushings and ball joints were nice and tight. The lower control arms bushings were good. The strut bar bushings were rotted and cracked as usual but haven't' broken apart yet. I doubt they would have made noise just yet. The lower ball joints are totally wasted. And, who knows how the struts are but I'll keep them as spares. I zip-tied kinks in the brake hoses to stop any draining as I am replacing them anyway. I left the wheel speed sensors dangling as the connector is up behind the wheel liner and I'm sure they will work just fine.

On another note the motor mounts arrived today. I was suspicious of them being genuine like the Amazon ad said but their satisfaction guarantee policy gave me the confidence to give them a go. They were sold as a pair for $146. I thought that price was pretty low. To my joy the parts are genuine and are in their original packaging from Toyota.

dicer

Those jets drink the juice. So how many gallons per engine per second? How big is the plane? At least you should have a car in decent shape when your done.

Banshee365

I'm flying a King Air B200 currently. It's about 140 gallons per hour at take off or so. The jet I flew in the airlines burnt about 10 times that during takeoff but it's all about quality of life so I'll take the smaller airplane all day!

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dicer

140 that's 2.333 a minute then. Yeah jets are the ultimate in gas guzzlers, makes a big SUV look like an electric powered vehicle.
I always figured the big planes engines took a gallon a second per engine. And the fighter jets likely flush 20 gallons a second in after burner.

Banshee365

I got a few hours to work on the car today. The black LS400 has a heart again. The engine and trans is in sitting on new OEM motor mounts and the OEM trans mount I replaced when the unit was in the white car before it's demise. I started reconnecting some grounds and such to get a head start on that but found a slight problem. The little bracket that bolts to the AC compressor that has the ground bolted to it is all stripped where the ground bolts to the bracket. It's so bad that the bolt just turns freely with no intent on backing out so I can replace the bolt and bracket. I've tried everything to put some pressure between the ground and bracket while turning the bolt to no avail. It's pretty much a rivet at this point. In the morning I'm going to take my cutoff wheel to it to get it separated and replace the parts with the ones from the white car.

The engine is a REALLY tight squeeze going back in with new mounts. The new mounts aren't compressed at all and hang really low. It get's to a point where you can't go back with the engine/trans anymore but the mount studs still have over an inch to get until dropping in the cross member. One option is to slightly drop the crossmember. I opted to use a little flexibility in the mounts to push the studs back with a pry bar to get them to drop in the holes. I didn't have to put much pressure on there as the tip of the stud is a good way's away from where the mount flex's so a little flex goes a long way at the tip of the stud. If the rear engine hanger was an inch or so more forward it would really help a lot. I removed the trans cooler lines before install as they were really in the way coming out since I left the AC condenser in the car. It only took an hour or so to get it dropped back in from start to finish with removing and reinstalling the hood and such. I'll feed the harness through the firewall and hook everything back up shortly. I'm planning to start the car and move it before tearing the interior out. While the engine was out I replaced the pressure hose on the steering with an Edelman or whatever branded one. You have to reuse the hard line at the rack but that's a piece of cake with the right flare nut wrenches and with the engine out. You've also got to use the brackets from the OEM hose to make it secure correctly. I see these hoses in the junkyards all the time just zip-tied to the engine rather than done the proper way. I can't tell a difference between this Edelman hose and the Gates hose that I've used in the past. It's held up good. The OEM hose is pretty ridiculously priced. If my car were a cherry mint 40k mile car I'd go that route, but it's not... I also liked being able to torque the banjo bolts on the rack to the proper torque. With the engine in, that would only be possible MAYBE with torque adapters.

It's looking nice and clean under there with the degreased engine and shiney new pressure hose and such. I'm not far out from cranking her up. I'm waiting on 2 cat gaskets as I accidentally ordered two of the gaskets where the exhaust pipe connects to the rear exhaust section right before it Y's out instead of the ones I really needed. But I can use one of those now and save the other. I wasn't planning to replace that one as it usually seals back up fine.

I'm looking forward to getting after these leaves with my 756 CFM blower here soon.

Banshee365

I got most of the bits hooked back up to the engine and went to tackle the rear suspension and drivetrain today. I want to use pretty much everything out of the wrecked car for the black car. I think the diff bushings and such are shot on the black car and it has a lot more miles. I spent a little time under the rear today looking around to make a plan of attack. I was first going to just remove everything piece by piece like I did the front end. It wasn't bad doing that. The more I look at it the more I think I'm going to go a different route. I think I'm going to just drop the whole rear suspension and sub-frame member at once in one piece and swap it out that way, There is too much crap going on with the diff, axles, suspension arms and all that junk to go taking it apart piece by piece. I think I'll just remove the upper strut nuts, get the exhaust out of the way, disconnect the parking brake cables and brake lines and drop the 4 large bolts holding the whole thing to the body. I looked up the torque and it's 133 ft/lbs for those bolts. I'm a little concerned about removing the crossmember and reinstalling with the original sub-frame bushings as they are probably pretty squished and dry-rotted but I think i'll give that a go. The diff bushings at least are shot in the black car so what do I have to lose. The rear diff on the wrecked car has 140k painted on it with marks on the drain and fill plugs. I can only assume the diff was serviced at 140k miles which was 25k miles ago. This and many other reasons are why I want to swap everything over.

dicer

Personally I would not remove or install the engine with the transmission still attached. I've only done that maybe 2 times, and when I did the whole radiator support came out of the way, Its so easy to scratch stuff up and or break something trying to do that. Now if you had a lift and could drop the engine and transmission out the bottom I'd go that route.

Banshee365

Yea, I've left the trans in and pulled the engine or pulled the trans and left the engine depending on what I was doing. I wanted both units for the other car so removing both at the same time was the sane choice. It's easy on the LS400. The only issue was when I went back in with the new mounts as they were so much taller. It may have been easier to drop the mount studs in the crossmember without the trans resting up against the trans tunnel but the few extra minutes dealing with that was way better than having to deal with torque converter nuts, the bell housing bolts, and all the brittle wiring to remove and reinstall the trans from the engine.

With the radiator, fan, and shroud out of the way there is tons of room as far as the radiator support goes. It's easier if you remove the trans cooler lines though as they stick way in front of the pulleys.

If I had a lift I MAY have taken the entire assembly out with the crossmember but still probably not in this case. In a front wheel drive application, you bet I would do it that way. But for RWD this is as easy as any.

wolfy53

Fantastic work here Banshee! Glad to see you keeping the black car on the road. These cars are true gems and its nice to see them out of the junk yards. Can't wait to see the finished product and the before and after pics. Keep it up. Thanks for documenting it here too.