New here as ar as an SC owner goes. Just picked up a 92 SC400 witha few miles on it that I felt would be good daily driver to replace my last one. It ende up needing a few more things than I had planned and it's going to be a slow process getting her up to restored status. I am very familiar with MKIV 's ad the JZ engines but this is my first 1UZ to play with. Here are a few things I took care of these last couple of weeks.

Had a mismatched mirror that I replaced, missing fuel door,Drivers windows switch didn't work, left brake didn't work, interior was pretty rough, body is pretty straight besides one spot of rust on the quarter and the normal dings and such associated witha 20 year old car. A few transmission problems but I'm slowly working out all the bugs little by little.

 

Had a front caliper lock up on me 3 days after I bought it, didn't have time to source some LS400 brakes so I just threw new factory stuff on the front. While I was taking care of that found the usual LCA's shot, Valve cover gaskets leaking (Knew about that) and Ball joints bad. With 215K it's all to be expected.

To start battling my tansmission problems I was starting from square one dropping the pan and changing the filter when I found the front Flex coupler shredded as you can see. That thing was hard to source in a short period of time without paying an arm and a leg.

Found a broken wire in the door harness and repaired to fix the window issues, I kinda guessed this when I first looked at the car.

installed some new sockets I had laying around for a temporary solution until I can source a new tail light harness, this one was in very bad shape and many of the wires are corroded far up the loom. Planning on replacing the tailights anyway.

 

I wasn't planning on doing the interior right away and was thinking about doing a black interior swap but I came across a steal in a junkyard for all completely reappolstered (sp) seats and door panels so I jumped on them. Put the wife and kids to work and presto.....new interior. Anybody want free front seats that need to be recovered? Going in the trash if nobody wants them.

 

Solid body to start off with. Take your time and restore it. Do the maintenance first and everything else should fall into place. I am working on a 1UZ as well but it is not as clean as yours. Good luck with the your car.

 

The biggest problem I am having with the car is the transmission which I knew about when I bought the car (didn't pay much for it) and if worst comes to worst I'll put a new transmission in it but I don't think I will have to. The previous owner said the problems started when he had a service done, which I don't entirely believe after digging into it more and more.

Transmission pretty much shifts great when warm, no real problems except for low shift points even when WOT. When cold it has late harsh shifts, won't go into overdrive unless over 50mph and you have to coast for about 5 seconds before it will shift until it's warmed up. There is also no reverse until it warms up. I can rev it up to about 1000rpm and it will jump into reverse when cold but slips a bit if under a bit of load. I don't have a set of gauges anymore so I can see what the line pressures are doing. I dropped the pan thinking maybe the filter was plugged, didn't look too bad. Maybe someone used the wrong fluid in a flush or something. So I put type IV in it, shifting improved but reverse didn't. Checked the line pressure cable and someone had adjusted it so the pressure was maxed out, probably trying to get the reverse to work when it was cold. I backed it off about half way and reverse is a little better and shifting improved again but the cold shift problems still exist as well. TPS is my next stop given that under WOT it still shifts under 5K. I will be doing drain and fills on the transmission periodically too so see if I can't get some new fluid in there to make a difference, might even try some Lucas fix as a last resort just to see if it will do anything before I throw a transmission at it.

 

I plan on it, the previous owner said the T-belt and water pump etc was done about 10K miles ago but I pulled off the cam cover and they don't look very new so that may be my christmas maintenance project. (I work 50-100 hours a week and go to school) Most likely will go electric fans and do a few other upgrades while I'm down, maybe some headers.........

 

The wife did a quick polish job on the headlights too, they came out pretty good. Before and After

 

Nice quick fixes. Definitely don't throw the seats to waste, if nothing else put them in the "Pay It Forward" thread they can be repaired with a little effort. How much did you pay for the new interior you found? It looks freaking mint I'm pretty jealous.

 

I put them on craigslist with no hits at all, I will put them in the pay it forward, all the power functions work, I just don't want to store them, we just got done building a house and I'm trying to get the garage under control so storing interiors isn't helping.

I paid $175 for both front door panels, both front seats, rear seats, center arm rest and front cup holder. It was at a "you-pull" place. Totally lucked out, someone in my local forum posted up in the toyota section that they happened to be at the junkyard when they towed it in and he saw the condition so he posted it. Needless to say I was down there even though it was quite a drive and I didn't sleep for a couple days because of it ( I work 12 hour shifts). I was going to order the recover kit and do it myself for over $600 for just the seats.

The door panels aren't in the greatest shape, I don't have the new ones pictures, they are newly recovered but whoever removed them to recover them broke just about every clip and joint so I am trying to find creative ways to get them to hold up better until I can find some that are in better condition. mounting wise, but they look pretty for right now.

I'm putting new tires on this weekend.

 

Damn good price, the yard by me wanted $80 per seat and they still had a few rips in them. I found another yard in Conneticut with some nice seats, but not sure if I want to make that trip yet from Long Island, NY. I'm going to stay posted to your thread man, nice work so far.

 

Look's like a nice start. Like the blue as well. That parking boot cover is driving me nuts!

 

Everytime I try and find some wrecked SC's in decent shape, its too late. You hit the jackpot on that find in my book. It is a very nice start. I am wondering if the solenoids are going out in the tranny. I believe there is four of them to replace under there. I love the color of exterior.

Good luck on the build thread.

 

I thought about the solenoids and if that is the case it's all of them or a common bad ground or something since I'm having an issue with every gear except maybe first. It would be cheaper to replace the tranny with another used one than replace all of the solenoids. Although I have not had it slip at all when warm and the magnets were very clean when I dropped the pan, I am considering a valve body upgrade but I think they reuse yours solenoids, I would probably grab another valve body off of someone or from a junk yard anyway because I can't afford to have my car down for long.

I love the midnight blue pearl? too, that was one of the things that helped sell me on the car, you don't see many of them, I will eventually get around to repainting etc, but that will probably be last. I'm not a fan of the wheels either but they will work for now, I need to catch up on the maintenance items before I start big on the cosmetics.

 

Nice car, nice wheels. What brand of wheels?

 

Midnight Indigo Pearl (MIP 8J5) = Sexy
Congrats