sbagdon

Ahh, yes... the anticipation of a weekend of car maintenance...!

Let us know how difficult the lower rearward control arms were, and if you notice any significant difference in ride.

And I wasn't aware of anyone selling rotors in pairs... have you run across that...?

ph0bolus

Not sure about rotors being sold in pairs, this was my first ever brake job. It took a whopping 10 hours yesterday, I was terrified of taking it out for a test drive. Once I eventually took it out, it seemed fine...so far.

Not sure if the lower rearward control arms is something I can tackle on my own or not, given that it took me 10 hours for a complete brake job

I'm also getting a scraping noise from either the front or rear driver side, best case scenario it's the the rotor scraping up against the backing plate.

shwalker07

That scraping noise is most likely the black metal back plate. It can even get bent just from taking the wheel off and the rim hitting it. Usually if that happens I take a long socket extension and lightly push all areas of that metal plate in where there is a lip to do so.

DarthBacon

So I was sick and didn't feel like doing it myself, so I take the GS to a new place recommended by a co-worker to have my oil changed and front brakes done..

and when I pick her up, I get told I need to "just get rid of it and get a better car" cause I've got the vvti cam gear oil leak now...

last time i'm taking my car to that place, and pay someone to work on it, and I ordered the o-ring already to fix the leak..

ph0bolus

Pardon my ignorance, but did misdianose the severity of the problem?

DarthBacon

Yes, it has an oil leak, which is the vvti cam gear leak, but they don't know that, and saying I need to replace the whole gear, plus the car has high miles (278K), then eventually a timing belt

ph0bolus

Got an Android head unit in, and pulled out my center console yesterday. Got started on retrofitting the multi-display climate control and head unit.

I guess i'll start looking at wiring diagrams and doing the wiring after work today.

sbagdon

Did the timing belt on our '98 GS4 today... 9h59m, no break, nightmare, every nut, bolt, part, etc, had to be cleaned and inspected on the way out. All oem or oem-quality parts, service-materials, factory manual, and we have the SSTs for the crank pulley (couldn't imagine doing this job without them...!).

Been told to stop calling the previous mechanic a mechanic, and change to "circus of fools".

* under-torqued bolts
* over-torqued bolts
* finger-tight bolt on the a/c compressor
* missing bolts
* cheapest parts they could find, including all the tensioners, belt, and water pump.

Best part... they had mis-timed the cams by two teeth (to the right, so the cams were rotated counter-clockwise two-teeth...?). Kept pics of before/after. So all this time, we've been fighting emissions and VVT codes (including new VVT oil-controllers), and it turns out by fixing the cam timing, they all went away.

The car now accelerates like a scalded cat... never launched or passed like this before... finally feels like a V8. Bad cam timing really killed the power/torque.

sbagdon

This correlates to the "should I buy this car" thread...

Look at it from the perspective of the mechanic... to do the VVTi cam seal, you have to dig deep enough in to a job, to pull the timing belt, or at least the top-half of the timing belt... at which point, you might as well do the timing belt and water pump, since you're 90% there. The mechanic isn't looking at this as... this is a Saturday all-day thing as a home-mechanic, for a $9 part to stop that darned oil leak. They are looking at it as... this is now a $1k job, to replace a $9 part. So yes, if that was my scenario, I'd say the same thing... if you pay me to fix these $9 parts with $1k in labor, think about getting a new car... yet if you can do it yourself... go for it.

We've seen this for 20yrs, with the Camry 5S motor, and the oil-pump o-ring... and when the o-ring goes bad, it goes bad, we've had a car that was dumping about a quart of oil every 50 miles (best case is 4-5 huge drops every time you park)! It's an $11 part, yet to replace the o-ring, you do have to do a timing belt job, as the only way to get to the o-ring is to pull the timing belt completely off, remove the belt guide, then you can remove the 11 bolts that is holding the oil pump cover on... then you can replace the o-ring. This started to become known on the Gen3, when the Gen4 came out, and the early Gen3's had aged enough to start to exhibit this issue, and now... it's just best-practice to replace the o-ring, at every timing-belt job, for all the 5S engines. So instead of looking at it as... to fix the oil leak we have to do a complete timing belt job, we look at it is... it's time to do a preventative timing belt job at 60k miles, don't forget to order the $11 o-ring. Just a matter of perspective.

So it depends who's doing the work... someone you're paying, or if you're doing it yourself. That VVTi seal, and one other major service, could be more then some GS3's are worth. Unfortunately, Lexus is starting to suffer the fates of many European cars of this vintage... a major repair, or a few minor repairs, and you're spending more then the car is worth, if you're paying someone else to do the job. I'm not saying the mechanic was right... I'm saying I can see their perspective.

tmf2004

iTrader: (15)

Deleted Blitz Nur Spec Mufflers added 3" pipe with 3.5" Camaro Tips..

captainva

iTrader: (1)

Upload it to youtube and link it here?

tmf2004

iTrader: (15)

thanks bud, that worked..

Arussto

Collected toms strut barvat post office.

DimegirlTX

You should see how many Rock Auto boxes around my house. If it were not for Rock Auto and there very fair prices and real parts (unlike chances on Ebay)
I am able to keep my car going.

DimegirlTX

I am doing the water pump and timing belt and bought the cam seal and crank seals front.