My IS300h thread

[Jayw13702]

Finally got round to changing the gearbox oil yesterday.

Not a difficult job, however trying to get the car in the air and level without a workshop ramp made it a little challenging.

Using a combination of ramps, trolley jacks and axle stands i managed to get the car in the air. I had measured the distance between the top of the wheel arch and the floor when on the floor, the front wheel arch sits lower than the rear so I need to keep that difference when the car was in the air. Finally got there, not quite level, ended up with a difference of 3 cms between front and back with the back being higher.

 

I had put the car more over to the left of the garage as nearly all my work was on the right hand side of the car (drivers side in the uk).

Protecting the gearbox is a plastic cover, this is held in with 4x10mm headed screws and 2x10mm headed nuts that are on the rear of the cover. In order to remove the plastic cover there is a metal A bracket in the way that is held on with 4x14mm headed bolts, one on each chassis leg marked in red

 

and two on the central front jack mount, these need to be undone. There is also a plastic 13mm nut that holds the bracket in place on that central jack mount, do not undo this.

 

Once these 4x14 mm bolts are undone the metal bracket will move around so as the plastic shield can be removed. On the plastic shield there are a series of expanding clips, don’t remove them, these hold on the soundproofing.

Once the cover is removed there is access to the refill and sump plugs, remember never undo the sump plug before checking the refill plug will undo. They are both 14mm headed.

Lexus say the gearbox capacity is 3.8L. Experience of doing Prius gearboxes has taught me that you will never remove that all the fluid though, this is because there is a cooler built into the radiator and so some of the transmission oil will be in the rad and in the cooler pipes. Also with the way I had set the Lexus up because of my height difference front to back I knew that I would drain even less. 

I managed to drain just over 2.3L though. Using a hand pump I then put the same quantity back into the gearbox 

 

Once I had the fluid in it was a case of putting it all back together.

Total time to do was about 2 hours, with the majority of that being getting the car in to the air. As I have said earlier next time I will rent a ramp for a few hours and do it that way, it would be so much simpler.

 

Can I feel the difference? No, but I know its been done and if it prolongs the life of the outbox then it was worth the work involved.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Jayw13702
moving pictures around

[route66]

Thanks for the detailed write up!

What was the colour of the old oil like?

Edited September 2, 2019 by route66
No quoting of thread

[Jayw13702]

Thanks for the detailed write up!
What was the colour of the old oil like?

Very brown/red, pretty typical of a car that has done that mileage


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[rich1068]

Good stuff Jason. Funnily enough, changing the gearbox oil is on my list for the 9-5. Though the preferred method for those that have more time on their hands than me appears to be a partial flush ie drain, fill, run, drain, fill, run etc. Roughly £120 worth of gearbox oil. Probably why I haven't done it yet. 

The 9-5 also has a gearbox oil dipstick which is a new one on me but does make filling easier.

[Jayw13702]

Good stuff Jason. Funnily enough, changing the gearbox oil is on my list for the 9-5. Though the preferred method for those that have more time on their hands than me appears to be a partial flush ie drain, fill, run, drain, fill, run etc. Roughly £120 worth of gearbox oil. Probably why I haven't done it yet. 
The 9-5 also has a gearbox oil dipstick which is a new one on me but does make filling easier.

I had a 9-3 with the 6 speed GM auto box in it, the process was the same for that, you had to do 3 maybe 4 changes in quick succession in order to have cleaner oil in it.
Funnily enough I found 3 litres of the GM oil in my garage when I was getting the oils together for the diff oil change


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[Jayw13702]

Added a bit of bling today.......

I was given these a while back, however I have a feeling they are for a CT200 as the throttle pedal is too small.

The other 3 were quite easy to fit, however I’m on the hunt for a ali throttle pedal from something like an Fsport




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[rich1068]

10 brake mod if ever I saw one 

[Jayw13702]

10 brake mod if ever I saw one 

I was hoping for 50 [emoji6]


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[rich1068]

You'd need to put a K&N in too for 50.

[Jayw13702]

Just passed 140,000 miles and generally still going strong, however I have noticed that the rear calipers were sticking. This Is common with Toyota and it seems Lexus suffer the same fate, the slider pins seize and the outer pad is then constantly in contact with the disc.

£70 later a set of secondhand calipers were winging their way to me, the donor vehicle......



So they arrived, a low mileage set but still I ordered a new set of slider pins, boots and bolts and set about stripping them down

After a quick wire wheel session

All fitted back together and with a coat of silver paint


So fitted them today, decided at the same time to do a brake fluid change as well, pretty simple really.
Using a syringe I drained the brake fluid reservoir fully and then topped it back up with the new fluid, then it was a case of doing one side at a time and pulling enough fluid through to ensure you have flushed the system of old fluid, pretty easy as you can see a colour difference.

Because the Lexus uses a brake booster pump bleeding is a little different from normal, it’s still a two person job but there’s no pumping of the brake required.
Press the start button twice so the ignition is on but ready is not showing on the dash.
Have the assistant push the break pedal, this will fire up the brake pump.
With their foot on the break undo the bleed nipple (8mm) and each all the bubbles come out of the drain tube.
Once there are no more bubbles then that side is bled.

Repeat on the other side and then do the same for the front calipers

So now there’s a nice shiny set of calipers on the rear

From there it was it’s 140,000 mile service and also I decided to change the anti-freeze as it’s never been done and I wondered if over time and mileage it would lose its efficiency.

No pics for this sadly but it was dead easy, drop the under tray (10mm bolts) on the radiator is a bright yellow tap, turn that and drain the fluid (making sure you have a bucket underneath)

Once it’s all drained refill the system, once there was enough guild in the system I fired the car up and put it into maintenance mode so the engine would warm up and I could reduce any chance of air locks.
1. With foot off the brake pedal, tap the power switch twice to put it into Ignition On mode. (If you see a green READY light come on, you've actually done it with your foot depressing the brake pedal)
2. Leave the shift lever in the P position, and then fully depress and release the accelerator pedal fully twice.
3. Move the shift lever to the N position (need to press the shift lock button to allow the lever to shift out of P), and then fully depress and release the accelerator pedal fully twice.
4. Move the shift lever back to the P position, and then fully depress and release the accelerator pedal fully twice. At this point the display will say something like " Maintenance Mode"
5. Then depress the brake pedal and press the power button to start the engine. It will also tell you TRC is off

Do all of this inside 60 seconds.
DO NOT ATTEMP TO DRIVE THE CAR IN THIS MODE. In order to get out of maintenance mode just switch the engine off and restart and it will be back to normal

Once done it was out for a test run and then as it was a nice day I decide to clean the engine bay and give the car a wash, this summer it will need a machine polish as there are some pretty heavy marks on the car now sadly




I have recently pulled the seats out and given them a good clean as well as the interior carpet, I’ll post up some pics on that later


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[rich1068]

Best maintained mini cab in the country. Got to be.

[Jayw13702]

I’ve been a bit busier than I had though lately, it was only when I looked over my pics on my phone I could remember what I had done....

After 18 months of being a taxi the seats and carpets were looking a bit grubby, so out they came for a fabric wash, leather clean and leather feed.

Getting the seats out is very simple, 4x13mm bolts hold the seat frames to the floor, one 17mm bolt holds the seatbelts to the seat and then 3 connectors under the seat (mine doesn’t have electric adjustments or heated pads)

Once the seat has been detached from everything remove the headrest, tilt the seat forward and it can then be removed from the car easily.
I cleaned mine on the bench as i wanted to clean all the carpets as well.


Grubby, the leather looking a bit aged and generally unloved.

After cleaning the fabric with a vax cleaner, the leather with hot water and saddle soap and then treating the leather with gliptone leather conditioner......



The difference isn’t easy to see on photos, I did a 50/50 on the leather, cleaned and treated on the left


Once the fronts were done I did the rears in-situ and the carpet, the waste water was disgusting, a very dark brown.

It took about 3 hours to do the lot, it look a lot newer and smells so much nicer now as well, it’s strange how you get used to it being slightly grubby, but when it’s cleaned you instantly feel and see the difference.



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[Jayw13702]

It’s the simple jobs that give the biggest satisfaction sometimes.

Over the last few months the bonnet catch has been a bit iffy, it won’t close without really slamming the bonnet on it and when opening it doesn’t “pop” when the handle is pulled. I put it down in part to the 145,000 miles the Lexus has now covered.

Tonight I decided to remove and inspect it, not a difficult job.

First remove the black plastic trim that sits along the front panel, there are about 10 self expanding clips that need popping out. Remove the plastic panel and this revealed the bonnet catch mechanism.

The catch is held on by 3x10 mm bolts and the plastic dirt shield is held in place with 2 self expanding clips. In adoption there is also the bonnet warning switch wiring loon that is held on the dirt shield as well.

With the catch off the car it was clear to see why it was so gummed up....white grease and general road crud had caused the pivots to almost seize.



After about half an hour in the parts washer and a good going over with a stiff brush most of the debris was cleared off the latch, the micro switch that signals the warning light was taken off and cleaned up, all the pivots were oiled and freed up and the return springs were cleaned, oiled and reseated.

Reassembled back on the car, all cleaned and tested, it all works like it did when I first bought the car now, that’s a win [emoji106]



Last weekend I replaced the EGR cooler and egr, I’ll do a write up that shortly when I can finally look at the pictures without
A) breaking out in a sweat
B) having nightmares about the job

It was a total pain in the backside, but a job that needed doing.


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[ThomasD94]

Great car, love reading about it.
How many miles are you on now Jason?

[Jayw13702]

Great car, love reading about it.
How many miles are you on now Jason?

Thanks, it’s now sat at 148,000 miles, just had is service and is now being machine polished in order to get a lot of the little scratched out of the paintwork


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[ThomasD94]

20 hours ago, Jayw13702 said:

Thanks, it’s now sat at 148,000 miles, just had is service and is now being machine polished in order to get a lot of the little scratched out of the paintwork


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Wow that is impressive!

[ThomasD94]

20 hours ago, Jayw13702 said:

Thanks, it’s now sat at 148,000 miles, just had is service and is now being machine polished in order to get a lot of the little scratched out of the paintwork


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My mum has a black 2019 IS 300h and it is awesome, soo many gadgets!!
I actually have a video on it if you would like to see her car?

 

[Alexis1jz]

Great thread, keep the great updates coming 👍

[Jayw13702]

Time to do a bit of paint correction on the car and with lockdown it seemed like a good time to do it.

After prewashing with Bilt hamber snowfoam.
Wash with meguires gold class shampoo.
Decontamination with Bilt hamber Korrosol.
Finally clay with Bilt hamber medium finish clay.
After all of that the paint was finally ready for me to start machine polishing.

I didn’t realise how hard Lexus paint actually is, or how badly my car was scratched



There are lots of swirls all over the paintwork and some pretty bad scratches


First job was to mask up the panel, I didn’t want to get compound on any associated panels.



I was using a rotary machine with medium cutting pads and a fine polishing pad
Compound used was scholl S20 black.

After 2 passes, one with each of the pads I ended up with this kind of finish



It’s not perfect but it has a lot fewer marks and it is so much smoother.

I did have a few videos but I can’t seem to load them

With the paint looking good I put a coat of Auto Finesse glaze followed by dodo juice purple velvet wax.

Tomorrow I’ll do the other side


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[Jayw13702]

plodding on with the polishing, im in no hurry so end up doing a panel a day.

Today its the back door, the lower part was in a really bad way, lots of scrapes from branches and bushes, a throwback to a time when I used to do a very rural taxi run. As I no longer do it im hoping that the paint will last a little longer before getting damaged

 

You can see the back edge of the back door in this pic from a previous post

 

 

sorry about the huge sized vid but it gives you an idea how bad it is and the improvement we made from the front door to the rear door

The other thing that's always bothered me is there is a mark on the centre pillar trim, so whilst I can I got rid of that as well....

The first picture shows the damage, the second and third are the result after a few passes with the polisher

There still loads to do, once I have done all of this I will then start on the interior, in the meantime its MOT time tomorrow 😟 fingers crossed it should pass

 

 

 

[Jayw13702]

Put the car in for mot and I was shocked when it failed!!![emoji15]

 

When we replaced the calipers we put new copper washers on the banjo bolts, one of these was faulty and as we did it up it fractured and allowed a very small leak to appear, only losing a few millilitres but enough to make that whole area around the hose and caliper wet.

Back home and with a new washer on there the leak was cured, whilst I was there I noticed just how dirty the inner arch/rear suspension was, so out came the pressure washer and the bottle of bilt hamber Korrosol.

 

 

The Korrosol is an excellent fallout remover, it reacts with metallic particles and turns dark red, however it does have a very pungent smell to it

 

 

And also the reverse side of the wheels as well

 

 

The black that was left on the wheels was either old stick from previous balance weights and also where the paint has lifted. My biggest gripe with Toyota/Lexus is the totally poor paint finish on their wheels, every Toyota/Lexus I have owned has had shoddy wheel finishes

 

 

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[Jayw13702]

Bit more detailing work today on the taxi...... today the rear lights.

Given that the rest of the car now looks so much better and has about 90% of the scratches removed I stated looking at the lights and could see they were dull and had a lot of swirls on them.
They were stripped off the car as it was a lot easier to deal with them on the bench



This one had a couple of deep scratches on it that always caught my eye





With some scholl s30 black a finishing pad and a polishing pad



The scratch has been removed





And a 50/50, the polished one on the left



It’s one of these small differences that no one else may notice, but I know they are done now


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[RgrWynne]

Hi Jason, I think your reports are amazing and very entertaining to read, well done. As you are using you IS for taxi work it reminded me of my recent holiday in Australia. I was in a taxi in Sydney, it was a Toyota Camry and had 750,000 Kms on the odometer which I saw. There were no rattles or squeaks and driver was also the owner and said apart from normal servicing he changed the engine oil every two weeks. It was a hybrid, and although I can’t remember now the fuel economy was amazing, driving around Sydney.

You therefore have some catching up to do, Cheers, Roger

[Maxz]

On 7/29/2018 at 10:39 PM, Jayw13702 said:

Final job recently, one that I didn't have time for at the 60K service was the diff oil change.

The hardest part here was getting the car high enough that I can get underneath and also level so I get the right amount of oil in the diff.

You will need a 10mm Allen key for both the fill and drain plugs.

2 litres of diff oil and two metal o ring washers for the plugs

I also have a hand pump to put the oil in the diff, its a lot easier than messing with bottles and filling spouts.

I always undo the filling plug first, no point in draining the diff if I can't get the filler open.

both the filler and the drain and on the right hand side of the diff (viewing from the back of the car)

the one circled in black is the drain, in yellow is the filler

don't forget to clean the magnetic trap at the end of the drain plug

 

put the drain plug back in, fill the diff up until the oil is flowing out of the fill hole and then reinsert the fill plug.

 

its not a hard job to do, just awkward because you are working upside down and dealing with slightly smelly oils.

 

the next big job will be the transmission oil change or the EGR cooler......be back soon

Great thread here on servicing. Quick question on the above, when you mention the metal o rings, did you replace them and if so which part numbers/specifications? 

Thanks

[Jayw13702]

Great thread here on servicing. Quick question on the above, when you mention the metal o rings, did you replace them and if so which part numbers/specifications? 
Thanks

I did replace the o rings, I bought them from my local dealer, I can’t remember the part numbers but I do remember they had to order them as “they had never sold any of those before” [emoji15]


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