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I picked up a 1995 M/T SC300 two weeks ago in less than stellar shape, because manual. It was recently wrecked on the driver's side and had no fender, a chunk torn off the bumper, a messed up door, and shattered headlight on that side. As it turns out, the passenger side was also hit 8+ years ago when it was a CA car (GA-CA-WA-OR). The fender and door have been replaced/repainted on that side. The trunk w/ spoiler was also painted and the 3rd brake light was never hooked up to the factory wiring; not sure if it was replaced due to damage or a preference for the spoiler.
The guy I bought it from, who I believe is also a CL regular, traded a friend for it a week prior as a possible driveline spare for his 5-spd / hardtop / cloth seats SC300, but he didn't have the room to work on it and had to pass it on. The turn signals were non-functional and it had the baldest tires I've ever seen, being worn through the steel belt in places. Additionally, the ABS has a Code 36 (front right or rear left sensor), which I haven't started troubleshooting yet. Rainy weekend, no turn signals, bald tires, no ABS... It was an energizing drive home!
I brought two of my mounted spares along so I'd have good traction on the rears, at least. The car only tried to kill me once, when I slowed going into a turn and the wheels completely locked up, sending me sliding in a straight line until regaining control. I guess traction on the main braking wheels would have been good.
I did commit the cardinal SC sin, unfortunately. The outer door handle on the driver's side didn't work, so the window had to be pushed down to reach for the inner handle. The seller had said he might keep the door card for his other SC, so I brought along extra rod clips to change the presumably broken one out. He decided not to grab the panel, so I waited until I got home to take it off and swap the clip. Having never had a SC with that problem, I forgot that you're not supposed to lower the window too far or the rod gets permanently damaged. And having no turn signals, I had little choice but to do so for hand signaling. I had to climb out of the passenger side of my new car when I got home. After 2 hours of trying to pry my way in there to get to the rod, I finally had to just destroy the top half of the panel to gain access.
I still didn't know at that point if I was going to build it or part it for the M/T setup. The seller and I shared that line of thought, being basically 50/50 about which way to take it. A friend was interested in the shell (for a LS swap drift car) if I pulled the tranny; I offered the shell/engine to him for free if he helped.
I started stripping it down, taking off parts I would sell or keep, with the goal of getting to the root of the electrical problems via simplifying. Eventually, I decided to keep it and "build" it. It's got Tokico Illumina shocks + lowering springs, tinted back three windows (probably darker than legal here, and definitely darker than I like for visibility), slotted / cross-drilled rotors and extremely grippy pads up front, matching rotors and pads for the rear still new in the boxes, and generally good condition aside from endless cigarette ashes and lots of water from the door that wouldn't quite close. It's my 4th SC and the first that still had the first aid kit, tool kit, or trunk top carpet.
I've never been a truck guy, but there's no denying the practicality of a big open space to throw stuff without worrying about the interior getting dirty. Thus, the SC Work Truck is born. It's my test bed, so to speak, for all the stupid stuff I'm always wanting to try on the nice one. I'll continue fiddling with removing unnecessary stuff now that core functionality is mostly addressed.
Although, with a black and a white one, I really should have gone with Yin (black) & Yang (white). Stripped down beater = negative/dark, luxury cruiser = positive/bright ... pretty well sums them up!
On to the pictures...
Hey, it's not perfect! I found some wheels and nearly new tires that were a good fit, but didn't like the look of the dual 5-bolt pattern up front. So, I painted the centers of the rears before mounting them (had to wait on more narrow lug nuts) and put on some Lexus caps to mostly conceal the unused pattern.
Swapped in my RX8 driver's seat when it was time to put the half carpet in. Yes, it is possible to have a stripped interior without losing the driver-centric plushness. I tossed the nasty carpet from this car and used the one I had cut up a long time ago from the old parts car, never having been brave enough to go that far with the other SCs. Needs to be trimmed down a bit where it comes up to the shifter. I originally had left the center section attached so it could span the center console and have the edge concealed that way.
HVAC and cigarette lighter modifications; will add a lower brace to lock the stereo cage in better. Subaru shift ****; probably will get a round delrin **** at some point. Removed some of the junction box wiring already and rerouted the remainder to the passenger side of the shifter.
The truck bed! Hmm, can you cut out the horizontal seat mounts or are they structural?
Wink 5-panel mirror. I had a 4-panel mirror on my first car and absolutely loved it. Been wanting to try one on the SC and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Turning one bracket inward and one outward, it lines up with the visor holes and doesn't require any drilling. (As a FYI to people retaining their headliners.)
Bumper repairs (gobs of plastic epoxy + T-Rex Tape) and makeshift fender to help hold it together. Replaced the shattered side marker and fog light reflector. Had to rebuild some of the headlight wiring that had smashed connectors.
Ah, that side looks better.
Fairly stock engine bay. The tinkerer in me has to do something with that mess of wires and hoses...
I still have a bit of water leakage after shimming the driver's door hinge, mostly from the door openings since I removed the plastic from both the actuator and speaker ones. I figured that was just for moisture control against the back of the porous door card, but the vertically curved shape of the panels allows water to drop straight down through the opening. Bummer, that won't look quite as good with exposed plastic and mastic sealant. (Update: Even with that sealed up, some water seeps into the sill/carpet at the back edge of the door. The door is slightly too far forward and not sealing properly against the weatherstrip, so I added some additional weatherstrip on the opposing surface.)
The sunroof drains also seem to be allowing water in in their general vicinity, although I've yet to actually witness where the water is dropping in. Seems like it only happens when the car is angled forward (parked downhill or braking) and when it rains especially heavily. There's probably a small blockage I haven't managed to clear that backs up a bit. At least there's no interior to get wet! (Update: I still haven't caught it in the act, but the water seems to be getting in around the windshield header. I'll need to pull off the trim and seal that up.)
Things left to work on include:
- Find a replacement fender and see how much bodywork is needed to mount it up. Bike fenders would be cool, a la Lotus 7 clones.
- DONE: Get the ABS sensor sorted out. The front Right sensor was dead, but was sent a replacement Left sensor and had to wait a few months to complete.
- Pare down the dash to flow a bit better. Easier said than done, as the dash is a surprisingly light 11 lbs and there's very little excess to remove.
- Chase down the assorted clunks and squeaks. The main one seems to be from the front right suspension, with a LCA bushing that looks shot.
- Relocate washer bottle and maybe charcoal canister to trunk. Supra fuel tank in the spare tire well?
- MOSTLY DONE: Eliminate all unused wiring.
- MOSTLY DONE: Centralize the door controls; revisit my old attempts to eliminate the pass. controls from the loop.
- DONE: Moon roof delete.
- DONE: Build a heat shield for the Spectre intake.
- DONE: Build some sort of storage system since I removed the glovebox, arm rest cubby, and both door cubbys.
- DONE: Lay down some sort of pad for the rear seat. Camping pad?
- ALMOST DONE:Get it down to 2999 lbs! Currently very roughly estimated at 3075 lbs w/out spare tire & jack. Hmm, a CF hood and no bumper/fenders would get me within 20 pounds...
^ Thanks. I wanted to avoid using the overly beefy SC rails. Plus, they're a bit too wide for the RX8 upper rail that slides through them, which probably wouldn't work. So, I cut the feet off the thrashed seats from the old parts car and had a neighbor weld them on for me. The width of the rails is spot on, so you just center the feet on them and measure the distance front to back.
I'm not positive, but I don't think the hood was latching for the drive home. I didn't notice it until later... I figured out how to remove the latch assembly and found that the little spring that holds the cable to the housing had come off one of the hooks. The drive home would have been doubly exciting if the hood flew up on me!
I just had my best bad idea yet: I've had a 2-bike Yak Rack taking up space in the garage for years. If I can figure out a way to permanently mount it to the roof, it would complement the "mudder" aspect of the car nicely and also eliminate the need for a trailer for most longer stuff that won't fit in the car.
It'll add some weight up top, but I plan to do a sunroof delete of some sort which will offset it.
Maybe put just one bike tray on and add a metal mesh basket to the other side, then mount a donut spare to it like an expedition van?
Bagged up, that's 2.75 lbs of wiring, as pictured. The previously removed airbag wiring and antenna wiring up to the roof is another 1.6 lbs.
The factory over-wiring is rather ridiculous in places. There's a 12-wire wrapped up connector by the left tail light that 80% just loops wires back on itself. It's so bad, in fact, that the blue/green speaker wire pair (probably for the left door speaker, but I haven't confirmed that) that runs across the left back seat and through the white plastic junction box, goes into the trunk, to that connector by the tail light, back out the other side of the connector, back up the trunk hinge wiring bundle, into the cabin, back down to that same white plastic junction box, and up the door sill through the other end of the junction box! Even worse, after removing all the wires I didn't want from the connector, the only two wires left are the speaker pair!! A 3" patch cable would have eliminated 15' of wiring. (I may have found the reason for it here.) There are other such examples that I haven't traced back to where they go.
Update: The grand total of wiring removed is now at 5 lb 7 oz. Most of what's left to do involves pulling the dash, so eclipsing 6 lbs won't be a high priority.
Cleaned up the wiring and mount on the tranny tunnel. The bundle is now clipped to the bottom side of the shifter base. Much cool points. That's as close as I get to wire tucking!
That white plastic wiring tray is a PITA to open up, as you have to unbolt the e-brake first. And that for just a small handful of wires that get routed to that side... There's more than enough space and wire slack to route them to the other side, so I just cut off that side of the tray so it doesn't pass under the e-brake cable anymore. (Update: I originally removed the CD changer wiring and left the main head unit stuff, but later decided if I ever add a stereo it won't be a traditional one up front, so I went back and removed the speaker outputs, switched and +12v power, etc. That eliminated all the wiring that runs down the tranny tunnel and to the white plastic tray. If I want to hook up something in the trunk later, I'll tie into the HU power signals and run the wires down the passenger sill for a cleaner setup.)
I haven't un-bundled the left side trunk harness yet, so some of that will get opened back up and more pulled through once the antenna and cell phone wiring goes bye-bye.
Ugh, what to do about rear seat wiring?
My plan is to do some sort of basic foam pad for a passenger seat, for the rare occasion I have a passenger in this car. (That's why I have other cars!) I didn't really want the wiring bundle running across the base of their butt in that case. There's enough slack to take the earlier exit from the tranny tunnel tray and drop down in front of the seat base, but then what to do about a clean re-entry and merge with the door sill wiring and side support metal bracket?
I considered going straight up between the rear seats and dropping down through one of the sub/speaker holes. It would need to have enough slack to set aside for fuel pump access, and it would be a lot of connectors to pull through the passenger side grommet for rerouting, plus some of the ground and power wires split off in that area and might be tough to separate. Also, I left the main stereo wiring in place in case adding something back in later, so time-consuming routing of the wiring through an area that may be reclaimed by speakers in the future would be a bad idea. On the other hand, I'll never put the stock sub amp back in, so that panel would be free.
Decided against a DIY lever/lock system for the time being, so shaved the inner handle mounts down as a compromise.
Not pictured, but I finished up the temperature control ****, having taken one apart a long time ago to see if the volume section could be eliminated. Easier said than done, as there's no distinction between the wiring connectors for the two separate controls. I ended up just cutting the circuit board at the bottom of the light sockets for the volume section, shaved the housing down to that height, and taped it all up.
I also swapped in the tired-but-not-dead trunk struts from the '98 SC4. The SC3's were barely adequate to hold the trunk lid up with the spoiler removed. With the spoiler, let's just say the top and back of my head are far too familiar with the bottom of it.
I took it out for a spin tonight and wound it up for the first time, now that it's on good rubber, has the lighting addressed (*), and for good measure is on an estimated 350 lb diet. It ran great! I also wanted to make sure I hadn't been overly ambitious and pulled some necessary wiring.
I was a bit lukewarm about the W58 at first, but it's definitely growing on me. Either I'm getting used to it and/or gaining confidence in the condition of the car, or the weight reduction has eliminated the initial slightly sluggish feel. Short shifter options appear to be quite limited. Hopefully, going with a **** that sits lower will cover that need. It feels ~1" too high currently. Of course, I'm in a seat that sits an inch or more lower... I didn't care for the seating position of the stock lazy-boy chair for working the clutch, so that had to go.
(*) Well, mostly... When I removed the shattered reflector from the left fog light, I found it odd that I couldn't power the bulb directly from a 12V battery. I checked the right fog and same thing. I figured there must be some sort of relay or voltage regulator for them that only works when hooked up to the harness? Well, the fog lights didn't work last night with the car running. So, I checked the manual and there's a FOG fuse alongside the Seat Heater (which I don't have) fuse in the box adjacent to the main one in the driver's footwell. I went to check if it was burnt out this morning, and the box isn't even there! Unless my eyes are deceiving me, a P.O. must have removed or relocated that for some odd reason. That's in the same area as the worn/modified wiring in the first post.
Knocked out another item on the to-do list, building a heat shield for the intake cone filter. Why everyone overlooks this essential item while bemoaning the performance hit of aftermarket intakes is beyond me.
That filter could use some cleaning...
Will either do a second version with mounting tabs built in, or add a L-bracket to attach it to that fender line mount for the stock airbox. Also one on the other side to attach it to the floor.
Went with the textured side on the back.
It was my first time forming ABS and it took more heat than expected to soften it, so there was some rippling side effect that isn't very noticeable once installed. You can see the cutouts I made to slide over wiring bundles.
Cardboard template. Got it pretty close on the first try.
If I wanted to spend a lot more time with clay and tape, I could extend the height a bit more to follow the hood line. I figure it's pretty close as-is and will only allow heat in when idling. Airflow should pressurize the chamber enough when driving to negate the small gaps. My SC400 hood vent won't fit the 2JZ fan placement, but if I come up with a modification to make that work, I imagine it would address the majority of idle blow back heat.
I'll look for some sort of door edge guard to place around the perimeter. In the meantime, I did a quick and dirty electrical tape wrap to soften the edges that might rub against stuff.
Much better! The filter is red... Who knew?
I took the easy route to lock the shield in place securely. The filter was so dirty, it would probably benefit from another cleaning in short order.
A ratty glove box gave it's life for the next highly essential project... Gotta have somewhere to set stuff.
Sub-14 oz glove box / cup holder. It is a Lexus, after all.
I added a cup holder base and some adhesive felt to finish it up nicely. I'll trim a bit more of the bottom, front-facing lip. I don't need that much left behind for structural purposes. I also need to add a lip in front of the felt to keep stuff from sliding out when accelerating irresponsibly.
Further refinement, with a felt pad and cup holder base to lock drinks in better. The 50mm Delrin shift **** is a big improvement. It sits 3/4" lower and feels great. I may swap the temperature and hazard switches to opposite sides, or move the hazard button down into an empty spot in the white junction box.
2" 6D nails work great as place holders for 1/8" rivets.
Measure twice, cut once. All the holes lined up right where I wanted them in the reinforced channel. I cheated the traced line forward ever so slightly, because the rear channel is narrower. I'm thinking those vertical pieces along the front edge and sides of the opening will get used somehow for running bracing across the panel.
Getting the measurements right...
I marked the inner line 2" in from the edge all the way around, then laid it over the roof opening with the mark facing down. I lined it up as evenly as I could on all 4 sides, then taped it down in that spot and traced the opening (the outer line) for exact placement of the holes to be drilled.
I used the same 2" spacing as SCBenny along the edges, squeezing it down to 1-3/4" in the corners. My aluminum sheet is 19 or 20 gauge. It feels a bit too flexy off the car, but once following the roof's curvature, it's pretty well braced. I might do up a support underneath it to solidify it better. I suspect it'll make some crazy wind noises as is.
I ran out of light once the holes were all drilled, so I just covered it up and will caulk/rivet it tomorrow. I also need to figure out where to mount the dome/map lights now that the motor assembly is gone, as that's what the three little screws attach to normally. I've got the moon roof controls removed from the unit and will probably cut down the little separator line on the back side, then remove all that wiring when I get around to pulling the dash for final clean-up.
52 rivets, half a tube of silicone, and an overnight rain shower later...
Whew, that was quite a workout. Having a second person to help push the panel down in the spot being riveted would make it a lot less strenuous.
Yuck, ugly backside of the blind rivets. I'll probably go through later and cut them down to be less noticeable. (I suppose I need to first determine if they're semi-filled or filled core; wouldn't want to leave an open hole behind for water to drip through.) I'm thinking the stated grip range of the rivets was off a bit.
And I have light again! Although, with the bright yellow panel, it's like driving top-down on a sunny day, so maybe not needed...
The dome/map light unit lost a few inches from its waistline and meandered a bit to the right, using one of the sunroof assembly bolts as a mounting point and a zip tie to support the other end. (That's why the left side is pulled down a bit -- nothing to anchor it to up high. Maybe I can work some double sided tape in up there, or a L-bracket into the vertical sunroof lip.) Also visible, one of the two "center" straps I added to the 5-panel mirror, as they tend to sag over time.
If you're still unsure why it's called The Work Truck...
While loading up the pressure washer, my friend said I should modify the door hinge to be removable for full access. Easier said than done on these hinge monstrosities. Then I had an even better bad idea: hinge it at the floor so it doubles as a loading ramp!
Then I had an even better bad idea: hinge it at the floor so it doubles as a loading ramp!
I can't imagine that being fun to lift up and close every time. I would assume these doors are still pretty heavy once gutted. You should make your own lambo door hinges. lol
My friend did suggest going tailgate style, having the glass portion swing up. It's times like this I wish I had fabrication skills!
The deceptive part of the doors is how much the hinge weighs. If memory serves, the overall door is 90 lbs. 12+ of that is just the hinge. The door card is 10 lbs, and the glass is probably in that range, although I don't think I weighed it. I'm not sure how you'd go about making a ramp door be structurally sound (you'd start by eliminating the crash bar that RXRodger just weighed at 10 lbs) without adding a bunch of weight back, but the potential is there to have a 30-40 lb lower portion that would be easy to maneuver.
You'd break the door glass turning it into a ramp like you're talking about. Either the door would slip out of your hand and hit the ground HARD while lowering the door, or you'd slam it too hard trying to lift it up and getting it to latch.
And yeah, the doors on these cars rival a 1970's Coupe Deville for heft.
You'd break the door glass turning it into a ramp like you're talking about. Either the door would slip out of your hand and hit the ground HARD while lowering the door, or you'd slam it too hard trying to lift it up and getting it to latch.
I'm not saying it's practical, but ya gotta admit, it would be pretty darn cool if pulled off cleanly.
Fixed position non-glass window, actuators and wiring removed... Basically, just a door shell over ramps with a slow-opening hinge and straps to raise/lower it.
10-16-16, 09:39 AM
1995 M/T SC300: The Work Truck
After 2 hours of trying to pry my way in there to get to the rod, I finally had to just destroy the top half of the panel to gain access.
It's my test bed, so to speak, for all the stupid stuff I'm always wanting to try on the nice one. I'll continue fiddling with removing unnecessary stuff now that core functionality is mostly addressed.
