Will have to look into this.


Man, when it rains it pours. I have 2 lugs that have backed out and are gone, seemingly overnight, I do hand tighten first, then use a battery powered impact, but follow up with a torque wrench set at 90ft lbs. on the ground, torqued all 20. Not sure if it's a coincidence or something else going on I drove back home last night, about an hour and a half at different speeds and the car felt fine, this morning leaving I felt excessive vibration over 50mph, like the entire car was shaking from 40mph on. Both missing ones are on the same wheel, passenger rear wheel. If I remember correctly America's Tire was the last one to put their hands on them, but I did see the guy torque all 20 as well..... Either way I'll have to buy some more lugs now. Will probably go directly to the stealership after work and put them on. I think I've also lost a balancing clip from the driver side, so I'll just take it back to the tire shop and have them rebalance the wheels. Wheels are still OEM with OEM sizing for 16s.

 

Bruh... If the dude that works at America's tire is on here, you a ****ing dumbass... I found the reason why I lost lugs... They didn't back out. They snapped off, I had aftermarket wheels on with hub centric rings, when I took it in, they dismounted the wheel and genious mounted the oem wheel on top of it. The rotor is rusted and the rings are black... Coulda killed me, or my spouse and I as we've been traveling further... Maybe its just time to get tires and mount them myself. Now I'll have to replace all 5 studs since the stress on these studs is probably a when they'll go not an if.

 

Damn. Yeah those tire shops don't usually have the brightest minds working there lol. I check their work after getting a new set of tires

 

Yeah, unfortunately, it's starting to become a mission just to get all studs at 1 location. I got 3 studs so far at 3 different stores, waiting on 2 studs and waiting on 3 lug nuts, I'm considering getting 5 more lugs, depending on how long these lugs are. Since I have 5 short lugs from a Camry and I'm not sure how I feel about them still.

 

Interestingly the 1996 SC400 I currently have is behaving similarly to yours. If I find out what is making it behave the way it is I'll do my best to share it here. I took the ECU apart already but it 'appears' to be OK...but I bought a capacitor rebuild kit anyway. Not sure if it's the ECU though as one of the symptoms is no communication with the ECU (it's an OBD2 ECU). Granted, that is one of the symptoms of a bad ECU that requires rebuilding...so I'm trying to at least rule that out.

 

I've switched to straight Shell gas from random stations, that strong smell of sulfur is mostly gone now. That idle issue is hit and miss with the weather. I'm still daily driving it at the moment. I can probably go out on a limb and say it's not my ECU.

I'm considering a stand alone. I was advised to acquire a new ECU but priced out it's about the same price for a stand alone, plus side the upgrade potential down the road makes its a better option. Will consider other upgrades as well.

 

My speedo is off, between 25mph between 0- 25 and off by 10-12 mph above 30mph... Holds cruise control and shifts properly. So I've been hunting the yards for spare instrument clusters in case I need to replace mine, or need spare pieces... Found a couple SC4s at a local yard and snagged Idlers, clusters and AC units. Picked up a 94 and a 93 cluster, the 94 looks like its gauges were already replaced. My 93 is a later version, may be compatible with some 94 parts. If not then I'll offload it on ebay. No mods have been completed besides the ones already mentioned previously.
Assuming I've broken welds due to the love taps to jump start the tach...

 

Adding an image.. Speed and this lighting going out and off seems to be connected, as well as my TRAC light starting to come on and off. Below the 50mph its dim day and night.

 

My water pump died today. My heater was cold and when I popped the hood, reservoir was empty. Since it's been raining, I never noticed the coolant on the drip pan. I did see red, but thought it was probably ATF from the power steering. I added some regular water and it started to leak out the bottom of the engine, or water pump area.
Question. If a metal gasket comes with the kit, is it necessary to add high temp sealent??

 

Well, got caught with my pants down. Just ordered a stack of stuff from rockauto, thought I had stuff ready, but it turned out to be all the wrong stuff, tough luck for me since I ordered this over 2 years ago, when I was told it was leaking coolant, but not noticeable through the resevoir, it never moved. Timing belt is fraying after just over 10 years and 40k miles.
Eitherway adding a tune up to the timing belt with Bosch cap and rotors, denso wires, iridium plugs as well as new valve cover gaskets, valve seals, crankshaft seals and timing cover gaskets, since it's leaking from all over.
May decide to lower it on Tein Coilovers while it's on stands and relocate the harness.

 

Good luck with the tune up and timing belt! The ol' V8 will surely love you for it.

 

Got snagged up, I guess... I started on the easy side of the valve covers, the driver side, out of the 10 bolts on the valve cover only 3 were tight. The rest were hand tight. I did break the clip to the 1st cylinder fuel injector while trying to unclip it...
gasket wasn't hard to remove, nor the FIPG. There were only 2 corners towards the front of the engine with a little bit of FIPG.

Took me 2 hours just to pull this bad boy out. I have a flex head ratchet from Kobalt, coulda used my miniature kit from gearwrench to do the driver side. Will employ them on the otherside.

 

I forgot to update this thread, but with the 1996 SC400 I was caring for it turned out to absolutely be the ECU. I bought a remanufactured ECU online for around $250 and it completely solved the issue of the engine shutting off. I have since sold the car through my dealership but it was running very well after I performed the ECU swap. Analysis of the original ECU was not altogether straightforward to find what 'leaking capacitors' looked like btw, but there were some very minor discolorations on the circuit board which may have been the culprits.

 

After life happens and losing half my coworkers, I'm finally ***** deep in this timing belt change... I got snagged at the hydraulic unit at the moment, will remove the battery and tray tomorrow while inbetween scattered rain showers. Hopefully I'll have it running by the end of the month, worst case Feb. My transmission seal let go and I have a massive fluid stain under the car... will also drop the oil pan and reseal that as well since its also leaking....

 

After a few months, I've made forward progress... pulled hydro pump with fam shroud attached, after it drained for over a month it still leaked a quarter quart.... thing is pretty heavy... now working on the crankshaft bolt and pulley, hopefully out by tomorrow...