True story: so last week I head out to work after not driving my 00 plat GS4 for a week because of snow, ice & gravel on the roadways, and after a minute or two the CEL pops on. P0325 No knock sensor signal....so I start poking around & notice grey hair ontop of the engine cover.

I get a quote from JPI & a place called Cedar Hill automotive. JPI wanted 440 just for labor to get there & the Cedar Hill place didnt call me back for like 6 hours.

I start undoing clip after clip after clip....this Lexus engine seems super hard to work on WTF! & un doing plug after plug after plug...after about 5 wierd clips & 2 dozen wiring plugs, & a dozen bolts, I pop off the intake manifold. Lo & behold! Is that cotton in there?

A rat built a nest about the size of a football & chewed through the wire for knock sensor #1 and some wire that goes to some vacuum solenoid on the bottom on the manifold. Time for the soldering gun...where's the solder? I spend like 3 hours looking for the solder & after 2 splices, some solder, & some shrink wrap its as good as new.

Time to put this thing back together...what about torque specs?? Thank you club lexus, I found them on some scanned pages: 13 ft lbs for the TB & intake manifold. Piece of cake. Fire it up, perfect! no codes. No leaks. Where'd my saturday go?

Thinking back, the car seems pretty easy to work on, as long as you know how to undo all those wiring clips. EVERYTHING is bolted or clipped in place under that hood. I just wish my digi cam had batteries.

 

wow man you need to get you a cat glad you got your car fixed

 

Just one week? Those mice/rats didn't waste any time. Glad to hear the GS is all back together and the problem was solved rather cheaply.

 

That's what I'm sayin'...only a week! Damn! Them rats is fast!

 

did you find the rat?

 

Where are you in TX? Good thing we don't have much of a rat problem where I live.

 

Hey all the money you saved time to get a cat for the rat patrol

 

yeah, it IS time for a cat. I live 15 minutes east of mckinney..out in the country. Around DFW the only places I see vermin are out in the sticks and in 'established' neighborhoods with a lot of landscaping. I put some sticky traps out, but I havent cought the rat yet. When I do i think i'm going to take the trap out in to the yard & shoot it with my 9mm...quick, painless & vengeful.

 

Wow that really sucks... for us DIYER'S good job!!

 

Man, I can't believe you found that problem. You are like a super sleuth Yea, house rats have been a problem in our area. I live in West Plano and last year we had a mess of giant house rats hanging around. I found a family of them living in the rocks of my Koi pond. I pulled back some rocks and they started scattering. I smashed about 4 of them with a shovel. The rest ran under the fence to my neighbors house. I tore down all the stone in my pond and haven't had them around any more. Good thing they never made it into my garage.

 

My neighbor bought a Range Rover Sport and a mouse ate all kinds of wires in the engine, The dealer could not figure out how to fix it so they gave him a new one.

 

damn, I guess I should have tried getting a new one Yea west plano is the 'established' neighborhood I was mentioning. That and far north dallas where my mom lives. every time she plants flowers, about 1/4th of them get eaten by mice. I grew up in far east plano, and theres almost nothing there at all in terms of wildlife.

It gets like 8-12 degrees colder where i live than in town, so its below freezing 28 nights out of each winter month. if its below 40, yo ucan bet there will be frost on anything outside...so animals like to come inside.

 

Great job diagnosing the problem. Now get that rat!!!

 

Wow thats crazy! Just be glad the rat wasn't near the fans when you started it up one morning. Glad to hear you got everything fixed.

 

that's because its a range rover