lord knows we all love pics. i understand the weather as i am from wisconsin also. i laughed at the back seat pics. took me awhile to get mine out then i found all the booty welded coins in mine also haha

 

Thanks guys. All pictures are now completely added. *Know anyone that's looking for a NAV for 05 ES330? Ha. Have to wait for my post count before I can post it for sale. I really don't want to put it on eBay as I can't stand it anymore

 

U should retrofit the headlights since ur gonna open them again ^_^

 

I thought about that initially but they are already factory HID and didn't see a need for projectors. I'm not 100% familiar with the retrofit process and what I'd need. I'd rather not spend hundreds of dollars on retrofit, especially now that I've spent $2400 on blacking out the headlights

 

wow man looks goood! great start. its starting not to look like shes got 250k miles on her LOL

 

Thanks man. Just trying to make the car my own you know? Going to be dong the cam seals, timing belt, water pump, and front crank seal sometime in June me thinks. Before fall, that's for sure. Been trying to locate an exhaust/headers/intake for cheap for it to round it out. Also need floor mats. The PO put these black rugged winter type mats in and I'd like some OEM for summer time. Can anyone confirm the interior color for me? I believe there were three interior colors, black, gray, and ivory. I believe I have the gray, but the ivory and gray appear similar to me, I'm slightly color blind. Once I get the engine stuff taken car of I'll clean the engine bay as it's filth. Then continue to drive it. It currently has 258k on it. I drove it over 500 miles the last two days. Still have a clunk in the front end and in the winter cold time it has a high pitched noise that sounds like the drive shaft carrier bearing. But since it's been in the 50's to 70's the last week or so it hasn't been there. Can anyone tell me how that brake booster pump thing works? Mine runs and then stops with a "clunk" sound, is it normal to cycle like that?

 

Great job on the DIY's!

 

nice work.. interior looks to be grey.

 

That's what I'm thinking as well. Problem is I have to order the mats from the dealer as they don't stock any of these anymore. And according to the guy he has no way to "verify" the correct color code, which I think is BS and he just doesn't know

 

From your pictures interior looks grey. Good read, sucks on the mishaps but comes with the territory. I'm liking everything so far!

 

Thanks man. Yeah, $2700 pair of headlights is going to take a long, long, long time to live down....

 

Nice job man. Enjoyed reading this.

 

The headlights look great nice build.

 

Updates?

 

Whew, long time, sorry to slack on my build. So, update, short version

Car now has 325k miles, going strong. 319k miles the trans gave out. Found a junkyard with a trans with 81k miles on it. $300 Woot. Put that in and going strong. Trans install didn't go as well as hoped, found that someone previously had the transmission out, I have an oil leak that was always coming from the rear main, so I was prepared to replace the rear main. whomever was in there pulled the seal carrier and gooped the hell out of it so it no longer seals. Not wanting to pull the lower pan I decided to live with it.

Also had to cut the carpet and drill a hole in the tunnel to get at the back side of the nut on one of the bolts of the driveshaft center carrier bearing.

My headlights fogged and went to crap a matter of weeks after redoing them per earlier in this thread, since I didn't want t open them up again I bought another set on eBay and finally installed them finally. I also finally installed new fogs, etc. Wow I can't believe I can see where I'm driving again.

The car also was hit in the passenger side by my buddies wife last summer. Got that all fixed and back to normal. Will hopefully post some pics sometime soon. I bought new floor mats and am currently looking for a new piece of carpet to fix my carpet blunder from the transmission swap