I agree 100% with your method of maintaining your car. I do the same with mine. All maintenance and repairs have been done by my Lexus dealer except for tires and battery. My 04UL is now 14 years old but looks and drives like new to me. Don't see anything on the road that causes me to be envious and want their car instead of mine.

 

I happen to agree fully with regards to finding any other car to replace my trusty LS430. They just don't make cars this way anymore.

 

I used 2 gallons of the Asian coolant. It filled engine and radiator. It had enough to fill overflow bottle. then I bleed the air out of the heater core and it dropped the coolant in the overflow to the bottom of the site glass.

I will buy more to fill the overflow bottle to full.

 

Does anyone know how much tranny fluid the radiator holds? I am going to be replacing my radiator this coming weekend on my 2005 LS430 using the Denso towing model I ordered from Rockauto. I planned on purchasing two quarts of Toyota WS from a local Toyota dealer but want to make sure that is enough. Maybe I should just buy 3 quarts to be safe but I thought someone might know how much the radiator holds. Thanks!

 

I would never try to disassemble a radiator to replace parts of it but the parts are available...
You can use the diagram to get a better idea what's inside including the size of the cylinder holding ATF. 2 quarts should be plenty just cap the 2 hoses so you don't lose the fluid inside them.

 

Thanks Bradland. I will definitely cap the hoses so I don't lose much from them. I will post how much I used on here once I am done with the job.

 

Hey, FYI similar level of price and difficulty to change a radiator on an LS460. What fails is the damn small overflow tube at the top on the radiator. Most of the time it snaps off when you lean on or bump into it slightly when working on something inside the engine bay like change out a serpentine belt or tensioner pulley etc. The tube gets brittle around 8 to 10 years. A design flaw. Lexus tech put a cover over it to avoid contacting it.

 

 

I am doing my radiator tomorrow afternoon. Any tips beyond what is included below. What about the foam around the sides of the radiator? Does someone have a source for this or just use what is there? Thanks.

 

Believe it or not I have not worked with these types of hose clamps before. Always the worm type. On my wife's car which is GM and has those clamps, I put the one clamp I undid, back exactly as it was, where the clamp had made an indentation in the hose and where it joined the thermostat housing, only to find it leaking after highway driving. I then slid the clamp further back, and leaked stopped. That's how I've always done replacing the same hose and reusing the clamp, so not sure why it leaked. A guy I met at a wake who is a tech stated his theory is the rubber is old and hard and once you've taken it off it's like trying to apply pressure on something that is now hard (as if the energy is being deflected if you will). He said he's not sure that what he's saying is why, just his own theory, but that it's happened to him on many jobs and what I did was how he corrected it as well.

I"ve read online that those constant tension clamps are to be replaced, not reused, with disagreement on that. But that's my theory. Because when you open it up, you are bending a piece of metal the opposite way--an old piece of metal and you bend it back quite far against what it wants to do. I too got away with Channel locks on my wife's car, but I have since bought Knipex pliers which will lock open, you don't want it releasing on you while you're trying to move it, not worth it...I've not done the LS430 so YMMV.....

edit I know quite expensive so I ordered from amazon UK which was cheaper even with DHL shipping, the video shows how they work. And knock on wood some cars you can't get to them with pliers...

 

i just got done doing the radiator, hoses and thermostat. some questions: anyone notice any difference leaving the foam off the sides of the new radiator? how much fluid did it take you ro refill? i only used about a gallon. only about a gallon came out so i'm not too nervous. anyone else buy a gates lower radiator hose and have to trim about 2.5 inches off it to make it fit without hitting the serpentine belt? and it there a reason to fill the overfill tank? i cant see how it ties back into the cooling system. fluid comes out of the radiator and into the tank, but the tank just seems to over flow onto the ground from there.

i also used the towing denso radiator but the fitment was a little off. it will work, just isnt quite right. its also made in china, not japan. is that something new?

 

My only comment in your questions, doing this job myself last month, is that you may have put the lower radiator hose upside down. I did exactly the same first time and the hose hit the belt - I flipped the hose and it was perfect.

And you should fill up the overflow tank - it is technically an expansion tank and coolant will flow into it as it expands and heats up - but the when the coolant cools down again it will 'suck' back into the radiator. The radiator cap is a two way valve letting coolant in and out of the expansion tank.

 

that makes sense, i'll fill it.

 

yep, I just filled the radiator through the cap hole and ran the car through some heat cycles with the cap off (thermo fans turned on and off a few times and both radiator hoses were hot to confirm thermostat had opened and radiator has flow through) made sure the rad was full after heat cycles. Then I put the cap on and filled the expansion tank up to the full line and check this line after a day or 2. worked for me!

 

I wonder if anyone can confirm that if a radiator is purchased at the dealership that it is still made in Japan and OE. Sometimes that stuff is gone especially on old cars. The one on Rock can't be OE nor OEM, it has to be aftermarket. It's not spelled out for Japanese, but it is for German, and usually American as well. i.e. AC Delco has OE, OEM, and aftermarket grades of each component. Sometimes aftermarket is referred to as Advantage, and OEM as Professional. OE they simply say OE or original.