damon

The water pump on my 94LS seized yesterday & broke my accessory belt.
The Timing belt is still intact but does show the wear & tear of 170,000 miles.
It is cracked & glazed but I would have loved to have seen how far it would have gone.

PERRYinLA

Way to go, Damon, and in a way, we did see how far it went - (at least) 170,000 miles, or about twice the amount those Peace-of-Minders say it should be changed at.

Just more ammo to advance the argument that, as Rich (Lex400sc) once said, the timing belt is about the last thing to worry about on our cars.

nthach

wait a minute, isn't the water pump in the 1UZ driven off the timing belt? Then how did your serpentine belt break?

damon

All I can tell you is that the Water Pump is totally seized & the serpentine belt is broken. The Timing Belt is still intact.

Update: It was a huge bearing in the fan assembly.

hyperopt

It doesn't sound like your water pump seized but rather the fan bracket bearing went out. Replace it and resume endurance test if you so wish.

damon

Hyperopt was indeed correct. My fan bracket bearing sounds like a salt shaker & you cannot make it move with a pry bar. Total destruction in its interior. This is a 2 1/2 " bearing folks! It did give audible warnings prior to me driving it again on 05/09 & I made 2 calls to my mechanic friend saying to clear space. It seized & I got out the AAA Card & made call #3
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I have long since acquired all of the parts for the timing belt change & have had them packed away in my trunk. I say all, but I had everything except plugs & you guessed it , a fan bracket. It seized so hard that the bracket broke & the bearing split when it was pressed out.

Ordered one online from Park Place in Plano. Everything that spins on the front of my 1UZ-FE has now been replaced. I live back among the "current-maintenance" crowd.

Actually the serpentine belt did not fail either. It was spinning around the frozen in place pulley on the fan.

damon
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On a side note to Perry in LA & everyone with an older LS.

I was rather shocked to see that the radiator on MY LS was every bit as dirty as the picture you posted here:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...51#post1232751

hyperopt

I am curious and want to ask you if you wash and spray the engine compartment often? Water may have entered that bearing and shorten its life.

parula

hyper, gppd question, how are these bearings lubed to go 100ks miles as on my Honda. Friend has a Ford with pulley bearings going routinely. Should I oil them?

damon

I live in Dallas so I would not think that this bearing saw more than average water.
Never clean my engine. Several bearings did not seem up to snuff as we went thru them.

None are anywhere near the size of the fan bracket brearing.

damon

hyperopt

Fan bracket bearing is monstrous and supposedly "sealed". Can't do anything with that bearing except to replace the whole fan bracket at monstrous price. The much smaller serpentine belt tensioner bearings seem to out lasted that monstrous fan bracket bearing in my car and can be replaced for a few bucks. Lexus engineers removed the waterpump as the fan mounting platform and replaced it with the fan mounting bracket and jacked up the street price the of the mount by at least 3X - a poor design in my book.

HarrierAWD

Spraying the engine bay is never a good idea. My approach is to vaccum it first to remove loose dirt and dust, then use wheel cleaner to remove that greyish road grime. Lots of elbow grease, but it's better than having electrical or bearing problems later on.

For the same reason, use undercarriage flush sparingly. I do it just once at the end of the snow season. No rust under my 2002 RX300 - just some spot surface rust on the main CAT.