well have to keep track of these pictures somewhere so i decided to do a build thread. i apologize in advance because this is going to move sort of slow since i am head of household with a crappy job lol.

some of you might be familiar with my SC. yes i wrecked it. yes i feel crummy about it and yes i still miss it to this day. ill never be over that car. so much blood sweat and tears went into that dang car and i pissed it all away. towards the end of its lifetime i wanted to sell to buy an LS. well i guess it kind of worked out since i have an LS now but i wish that car was still in existance. this was it.

(first was green later was white)





anywho after all was done i managed to scrape about $1800. i was in debt because of the accident over all was just a bad situation.

new car:
1995 Lexus LS400
no air suspension

CONS:
320k miles. leaked everywhere, smoked when started, had PS whine, heated up when speed rose above 50ish rear struts blown.

PROS:
almost mint paint. some paint chips. big chips on rear bumper. only damage to interior is torn driver seat, and dead LED in climate control. the passenger side window switches need replacing because broken tabs.

My rule for cars. Make reliable before pretty. i learned the hardway with my SC300.

anywho lets get started with the pictures.
these are the pictures of the add.









i bought the car for 1600 after two days worth of haggling. lol. the ad said 1900. in person he wanted 2500.

so yeah $1600.

i replaced the thermostat (it was completely missing when i got the car) and refilled the coolant. boom over heating problem fixed.


next was the leaks. i started with the valve covers.
i dropped a spark plug wire clip into the timing belt cover and cranked it to try and get it out. it made sense at the time. yes that was the dumbest thing i could have done. anywho car wouldnt start. my buddy is a tech so he came over and diagnosed it. crank sensor was being blocked by the clip. so the tear down began.






items replaced.
water pump
timing belt
both idlers
cam seals
crank seal
valve cover gaskets
spark plugs
oil pan gasket
powersteering reservoir o-ring
water return pipe o-ring
crank positioning sensor
cam positionning sensors.
all bearings for pulleys.
timing belt tensioner
serpentine belt

well this is what it was looking like while i was putting everything back together.
turns out timing was off originally so i fixed that. also had to replace the harness that connects to the positioning sensors because it was shorting out and making the car not start. after i put everything back together.

car is back up and running. have to replace the dang oil pan because oil drain bolt thread is stripped but its okay for now. next up is that oil pan and coilovers to get rid of the strut problem in the rear

Nice LS!! Does look pretty minty with that amount of miles on it! Am currently have my coil over up for grab if you want to check it out in classified :P

For the degree of wear on it, it's actually not that bad. This may seem like a silly question, but did you powdercoat some of the parts on the engine?

oh thanks but i actually know a couple people lol. were getting KSports for about 400$ brand new from the owner lol.

something like that lol. high temp paint

an interesting start, let's see how it goes from here. good luck!

damn. i don't think i'm willing to tackle a job like that. looks pretty good so far!

It's actually a fairly straight forward job as far as timing belts go. Looks intimidating but as long as you take your time and note where all the different bolts go, and there are a lot of different bolts, its as simple as timing belt job gets. there is a fair amount of stuff to take off to get there though, which is where most people get put off.


an interesting start, did you degrease/scrub/clean the engine bay before you painted those parts or did you just clean up the parts you painted and didn't touch anything else?

holy goodness i was there scrubbing everything in sight for 4 days straight, wasted about maybe a gallon of spray on degreaser. used a metal toothed brush and rags and a water spray bottle. holy goodness it took foreeever lmao. but yeah to answer your question i cleaned every last inch i could reach with the dang brush. engine was BLACK before and now its soomewhat silver lol.

thanks! yeah my financials are crap so i have a rough start but then it picks up after maintenance lol.

thanks! coilovers coming in about 2 weeks? hopefully i can get tow links, trac rods, and control arms all together for max cambursss

little update.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=...47489700550688

I grinned like a retard. That's all I'm going to say.

lol u wut m8

lol, I just find little things like that to be very cool when I think about how it must be set up haha.

haha thanks then i think lol. im a believer in the little things make a difference lol