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So ive decided to join the peasants again and got a 90. Been looking for awhile. She has her battle scars but is a solid runner! Price was right. So, first order of business, drivers window actuator, and lower discharge hose for the ac. She also needs new mirrors (theyre duct taped) tiltaway steering wheel is dead. Prob needs a new ziptie lol. Suspension is well, awful, and the seats are ripped and brittle as toilet paper..
Good stuff..
Cluster is fully functional. All guages are good and needles arent burnt. Most of the power accesories still work. Tool kit is all there. No rust and trunk is dry. Subwoofer is still good, climate control display isnt blacked out, engine is smooth as silk, transmission is REALLY jerky going into drive and reverse, but shifts all gears. All the vital stuff is solid, and its got a bunch of new parts on it.
Now that i finally have my 90 project car, its time to get my 95 right again. And finally have the money to do it.
so i got er home last night (10 mile trip and first real drive in her). Heres what i got.. (need advice) i know the 90 well cause i had one for a long time, but not as a 250k tired 30 year old car.
Engine STRONG. so smoke or overheating even when bounced off the rev limiter. No ps leak (for now) and cooling system does its job. (sits just a hair over 1/2 way up and i could tell when it kicked it bc it would drop slightly when the thermostat kicked in) which is normal for a 90. My old one was always like that. Coolant fluid is really dark so god knows how long its been changed. Battery looks like it belongs in a lawnmower so that will be changed soon as well. Starter spins perfectly with no funny sounds so must have been changed at some point. Idles kinda low but doesnt hesitate at all or stumble over itself.
Transmission goes thru all gears but feels like its going to shoot out of the back of the car when put in drive, and has a crunch when going from 1 to 2 but 3 to 4 is barley noticable. No hesitation at all going into D R or other gears. (assuming it needs new mounts and probably fresh fluid?) differential feels fine and doesnt make any bad sounds. Shifter is VERY loose. How do i tighten this?
Front end is really bad. Everything pops and clicks going over bumps but no banging in turns. Steering wheel has alot of play in it. More than normal -ball joints/tie rods? How do i get rid of the play?
Brakes are solid and stops on a dime. Everything feels good.
No warning lights is good.
Ac compressor seems fine, and just has a feon leak but i know where it is.
Drivers window doesnt move at all. Needs an actuator but all 4 others are smooth and work good. Central locking system trys to work but only locks driver door. Rest have to be manual.
Passanger front door wont open from outside. Has to be open from inside
Memory seats dont work, but pwr seatbelt pretentioners are good and go up and down fine. Power seats are fully functional which is great. Tilt away is a fight to go in and out but does it. Just gotta mess with controls. Up and down just grinds (needs ziptie trick) sunroof retracts closes and tilts fine but really needs oil. Rubber seal around it is dust, all other rubber is good tho.
Prob 60% of the lights are out. Cluster is fine but radio and climate is about 50/50. Needs 3 bulbs in the back. 3rd brake light is fine. Drivers map light is out. Passanger is good as is dome light but wont come on with the door open. Vanity mirror lights good. One headlight and 1 fog light is out. Cluster is perfect tho which is rare these days, but really glad it is.
Front seats are obliterated but back ones look like they were never sat in. Car was sideswiped at some point but really only the doors affected. Everything else fine.
Radio is working fine, antenna grinds so will need to fix. Left door woofers are out but tweeters good. Right door woofers and tweeters work but surrounds are gone. Sub in the rear deck is good and seems to have been replaced at some point, but its oem. Cd player lights up but is unresponsive.
Its a project. The classifieds group will be my friend and ill be spending alot of time roaming pick and pull yards, i must be out of my mind taking on another tired ls400 when i have an ailing 95 ucf20 thats still absolutley beautiful but needs help. I couldnt resist a 90 tho..
She's a little rough around the edges, but not too shabby! Welcome back to the 1st gen club
I would definitely take a look at the all of the ball joints and control arms, when possible. At 250k miles, it wouldn't surprise me if parts are worn. Bad shocks could be contributing to that, too.
For the passenger door, you'll have to remove the door trim and check the door handle linkage to the door handle. When the handle is lifted, a rod is pushed downward, opening the latch. I've seen these detached before.
When you say that the shifter is loosel, do you mean that, when the shift release button is depressed, the shifter moves forward and back with little resistance? I'd imagine a spring or part of the track might be a little worn. Here's speedkar99's video for a general visual of a Toyota shifter assembly:
Otherwise, if you mean the shifter handle is loose, there is a screw that holds it on on the bottom right, I think. It might be hidden under a small cover.
As for the front seats, these seat covers are a pretty good alternative to OEM and are fairly cheap too. I discovered them from a thread by Pandito, who sent in his covers to have LSeats make a template. I'll share the album he sent me here: https://imgur.com/a/OQxYb
On a side note, it's good to see that your car has had the horns swapped out for the improved 1991 horns, over the 1990 versions. If you want the 1990 disk horns for originality, I have a set.
EDIT: I noticed the cowl seal is missing in your engine bay picture. See if you can pick one up at a yard. The front end of your car looks really straight, with those original panels.
Transmission problems definitely sounds like an issue with the mounts.
91 horns? my god how the hell can you tell that? lol i never would have noticed. neat thing to know tho! it has a very late build date. 7/90 which would make one think its a 91, but august is the first month of build, well, in those days. i was convinced it was a 91 till i looked it up in the database. the title says its a 90, vin says its a 90, national database says its a 90, and TIS says its a 90, so its gotta be a 90, just a very very late build. maybe that explains the 91 horns. wonder if the car has more 91 parts and was "caught in the middle" like a 90 and 1/2 or something weird like that lol.
body isnt perfect and pictures lie. drivers side has some really ugly dents in the doors. car looks lightly sideswiped.. will be looking for doors at the junkyard. shouldnt be too hard to find.
gear shift itself is loose in the housing. it goes into gear just fine, but seems to be floating. also O/D OFF comes and goes. seems to be a dirty switch. gotta giggle most of the switches for stuff to work. probably just dirty and needing contacts cleaned or something stupid. i know these cars are brick ****houses and everything pretty much lasts forever on them.
ball joints and tie rods kind of scare me alot. last thing in the world i want is for one of them to fail while im driving. they are seriously shot and clang bang and make all kinds of clunks when going over bumps. is this car still safe to drive while i restore it??
what about the play in the wheel? its pretty bad. bad enough to make me not want to take turns too fast. am i gunna loose something at some point?
my biggest concern right now is making sure its safe to drive, as in catastrophic failure stuff like that. thoughts?
Cool! You are totally right with the build date, and it's still true today. When I worked at Mercedes-Benz, I read up that next year's models always start in August of the previous year. So, your car probably has 1991 parts and some of the improvements that came with them. Your car might even benefit from the 1991 EGR revisions, which I can check later. I got 1990 non-trac EGR lines for my car as backups, and noticed they changed the routing of the pipes.
Here are what the 1990 Denso "disk" horns looked like. They produce a slightly quieter, sour sound. It sounds more like a foreign car, and less American:
As for your suspension, I would think that a full inspection needs be done. I can't see or feel how the car drives, so I want to be careful what I say. The best advice would be to stop driving the car now and begin inspecting, but I think you will be fine doing local driving only on mostly flat roads with little to no pot holes at residential speeds. I would not drive this way for more than a month, and would definitely avoid highway or high-speed driving until you can figure out what needs replacing. The play in your steering wheel is usually directly related to these suspension issues. Different parts have excessive play, so the steering wheel can fidget around.
For the shifter, you can try adjusting the tightness of the handle, but it sounds like it would be best if you either removed it to clean the contacts and adjust the fitment, or replaced the part with a junkyard one.
Also, in your last picture, someone lifted the car improperly from the bottom of the front left fender, putting a dent on the undercoating portion. Check there for any rust formation from split undercoating. Luckily, the panel is replaceable (or you can leave it or try fixing it), and that doesn't affect your frame.
Other notes about the photos; your pinch welds are straight, which is fantastic to see and the front end fitment looks super straight.
EDIT: Your right headlight has a water seal leak. Might as well pick up a 1990-1992 headlight. I have a few notes on adjusting the lens
Wow... that is a huge project. Do you adopt strays also?
Good luck on this one... at least you've got your weekends filled for the next year or so between the 2 cars.
Man, that's alot of work it needs. I think I would have passed on that one. (Unless maybe it was free.) There's one thing I really don't like about the 90-92, and that's those rims. Directional rims.... Ya just can't rotate them 4 ways, only front to back. Your front rims are switched to the wrong sides.
The first thing you should do is check that front suspension. I had a ball joint snap on both my LS's. Luckily I wasn't on the highway. An upper went out taking a corner at about 25 MPH, and a lower at about 5 MPH. Both had same results---trashed fenders, bent tie-rods, and slashed tires.I can't imagine if they went out at 80 MPH like I usually drive.
Passenger door handle has a tiny plastic piece that holds the rod on it inside the door. That probably snapped.
Most of the stuff wrong doesn't effect the driving so just fix all the safety first. Good luck.
I never let them use chains to tie a car (I care about) down on those flat bed truck. Tire straps only. Chains remove paint, where ever paint is removed or parts are scratched or dug into by chains, will rust or are ruined.
ok so over the weekend i got to spend a little more time getting acclimated with my new toy. unfortunatly it rained like hell pretty much the entire time i was off so wasnt able to get too involved. this car needs alot of help. heres what ive discovered so far, after driving it all over the place for about an hour..
ODO isnt working. hasnt budged at all after putting about 50 miles on it.
cluster lights are working but flickers from time to time
ac works but needs freon. lower discharge hose is bad
the suspension and front end is absolutely shot. all kinds of clunks over bumps but just seems to be on passenger side. also, went to look at the PS fluid and discovered to my horror the tank was bone dry, like not even wet, which is od bc its not really that hard to drive without it.
transmission has a thump from 1 going into 2, and shifts a little hard all the way up. OD off light comes and goes. someone said its a speed sensor.
gets up to speed fast and stays there. floored from a dead stop almost sets the tires on fire, and hits highway speed quickly.
engine doesnt sound good. its strong and has no lag or misfire, other than alot of vibration and low idle after it runs and warms up after about 20 mins or so, but it sounds like a damn diesel engine! whats causing this? bad gas/oil or something more sinister? it doesnt go away. valves out of adjustment? what could be causing this?
back seats are really clean. aside from being absolutley sun scorched and dry as a bone, they look nice. just wont let anyone sit on them bc they would probably shatter like glass.
just some very very minor hairlines in the dash. no earthquakes or warpage
pulled the nasty *** steering wheel cover off the second i got it home. not great under it but not awful either.
TOTALLY ORIGINAL AND COMPLETE TOOL KIT!
NOT REALLY SURE HOW THIS TINY BATTERY IS STARTING THIS ENGINE..
spare tire and jack are there, but the spare is so corroded its pretty much stuck where it is. and its flat.
front passanger door cant open from the outside. weather stripping around sunroof is dust, but sunroof works and doesnt leak.
cd changer lights up but thats all she does. wont eject
I just bought a 1993 ls400 for 750 just to get a few parts for my1990 ls400 the owner wanted 2500 but he had only 1key so I got the car after waiting one full year but I would drive this car from cal to New York and not open the hood the only dent in the hole car is the front fender drivers side and even that can easily be pulled out but the interior looks like yours. I don’t want to make it a parts car after reading about your new project so I am thinking that if there Is someone that wants a project car I should just move it on also the power plant is so good I concedered taking the power plant and putting it in an old hot rod that would make a great car so what do you guys think should I let it go or part it out and save the power plant there is only the one bent there are no other body damage but the clear cote on the hood is peeling but the hood can be sprayed with clear cote and a good wax and your on your way. My 1990 ls400 is like new I only needed the cluster lens because mine has a small crack that’s all I needed and I put my old one on the parts car and you can’t see the crack What should I do?
I just bought a 1993 ls400 for 750 just to get a few parts for my1990 ls400 the owner wanted 2500 but he had only 1key so I got the car after waiting one full year but I would drive this car from cal to New York and not open the hood the only dent in the hole car is the front fender drivers side and even that can easily be pulled out but the interior looks like yours. I don’t want to make it a parts car after reading about your new project so I am thinking that if there Is someone that wants a project car I should just move it on also the power plant is so good I concedered taking the power plant and putting it in an old hot rod that would make a great car so what do you guys think should I let it go or part it out and save the power plant there is only the one bent there are no other body damage but the clear cote on the hood is peeling but the hood can be sprayed with clear cote and a good wax and your on your way. My 1990 ls400 is like new I only needed the cluster lens because mine has a small crack that’s all I needed and I put my old one on the parts car and you can’t see the crack What should I do?
even if its kind of rough, since it runs and drives, please dont part it out. these cars are so old now and getting hard to find. everytime ones gets parted out, thats one less original LS400 on the road, and they wont ever build them like this again. once they are gone, they are gone. dont kill it.
05-12-18, 06:43 AM
So I just picked up a project car...
Ya just can't rotate them 4 ways, only front to back. Your front rims are switched to the wrong sides. 
