My IS300

[Murriel]

Hi,

My name’s Adrian, I’ve been a Lexus owner for quite some time now, and having owned a few models I’m happy that In this day and age there’s still an online forum to be part of. Remembers me about the time when I had a Citroen Bx and joined the forums to fix the lhm leak.
At the moment I’m driving a 8n8 IS300 Sportcross and I’ll probably use this space as a personal journal with all the things I’ve done and will be doing to it. 
Bought it at 133379miles in February and already put 13k miles on it  

I’m excited I’ve joined the forum and looking forward to spend time here

Cheers ✌️

[scudney]

Hello Adrian and welcome to the LOC,hoping you find the forum educational and informative 👍 

[DF-300 Sport]

Welcome Adrian, lovely car, condition and colour. Although not many were sold in the UK (714), there are still 395 on the road, amazing build quality and reliability....I've only seen 1 other...where are they all hiding? 🤔. Here's my 2005 Sportcross......

[Murriel]

On 8/19/2021 at 6:31 AM, DF-300 Sport said:

Welcome Adrian, lovely car, condition and colour. Although not many were sold in the UK (714), there are still 395 on the road, amazing build quality and reliability....I've only seen 1 other...where are they all hiding? 🤔. Here's my 2005 Sportcross......

Indeed not many. Even fewer left on the road, most of them being broken into parts. Me personally, i never saw another one on the road, apart for the ones i bought lol

[Murriel]

Few things have happend lately:

I managed to find a replacement for my missus Peugeot in the form of a 2004 IS200 LE auto. In pretty good condition overall considering it hasn't been driven much lately. Came with almost a full year mot, recent cambelt change, a fancy double-din touchscreen radio with Bluetooth connection, good condition full black leather interior and ice cold air conditioning. It also came with rear cills needing attention (not bothered about it at the moment, can wait till i have more time), shaking steering under braking (partially got rid of it after i've changed the discs, i'll change the calipers with the ones from my IS300 as know they're in good condition), questionable alignment (which got better after i've put another set of wheels with 225/45/17), and some suspension noises coming from the front. So i proceeded to change the lower ball joints, anti roll bar enlinks, oil+filter, air filter+cabin filter, thermostat+coolant to have them all fresh.

 

[Murriel]

Taking advantage of the nice weather I finally managed to install the LS400 callipers and discs I had lying around for quite some time 

While I was at it, changed both lower ball joints, inner+outer track rods and anti roll bar endlinks to finally have a proper alignment since lowering the car on coilovers. 

Waiting for the oil to drain, I thought it’s a good time to clean the rear arches for any dirt trapped in there and inspect the areas. A bit of surface rust which I’ll get back to it once the I’ll have more time to dedicate but for now I’ve used the old oil to pour some into the cills for a bit of short term protection

I had to make a trip to London for a few days, so made a stop in Chesham at Wheels In Motion for the alignment, car is behaving the way it should now. 

Couldn’t stay away from marketplace and picked up some goodies, a set of Hotchkis anti roll bar which will improve the overall stability of the car, and a auto box as a spare. 

Now at this point I should’ve stopped browsing the marketplace, but needing a few interior bits to make mine perfect, I went on it again and bought another IS300 Sportcross 😬 

It’s in ok condition overall, a bit rough at the rear cills where it had some repairs previously and it needs a good clean underneath as it’s full of mud. I’ve purchased it with the idea of being a donor car but know I’m not so sure, having an lpg kit installed I kinda fancy daily-ing it.
Oh well, food for thought. 
 

[DF-300 Sport]

Excellent work Adrian, will be as good as new soon😎👍

[Murriel]

5 hours ago, DF-300 Sport said:

Excellent work Adrian, will be as good as new soon😎👍

Thank you, I’m happy I have a good base to work on. Makes life so much easier 

[scudney]

Lol,you are a brave man,was going to keep my IS200 sport when I bought my IS250 f sport,however couldn't justify road tax etc to keep it 😒

[Murriel]

2 hours ago, scudney said:

Lol,you are a brave man,was going to keep my IS200 sport when I bought my IS250 f sport,however couldn't justify road tax etc to keep it 😒

I know what you mean, I sold the ls400 for the same reason. Been regretting it ever since. I should’ve just sorned it 

[Murriel]

 Been a while since my last post, I miss the nice days to work in the car. Not good with the glaswegian weather. 
 Right, a lot of things happened; blue sportcross took a hit on the nose 

Result?! Embarrassment. Plus on the outside, crumbled wing/cracked bumper/broken headlight/ bonnet corner slightly bent. On the inside, the panel beneath the airbox/part of inner arch/where the headlight sits, bent. 
 I was in Plymouth at the time so I did a quick fix to get me home and left it in storage till I had time for a nose job

In the meantime I was taking advantage of the LPG’d sportcross I previously acquired. Safe to say i was enjoying the 0.65p/L and all of a sudden daily driving a 3.0 straight 6 engine of the ‘90 wasn’t that bad for the wallet at all. 350 mls average on a full tank for a price between 40-45£, not bad at all

Although it would’ve been the cheapest to run, my thoughts were with the blue one, so I decided to sell it and use some money to start the repairs. 
 Started to take it apart and separate the damaged panel from the body by drilling the spot welds

 

A replacement panel was purchased and with the help of a 40£ welder off eBay, I’ve weld it back in the car then seam sealed and painted over. I am very pleased of the result but in a hurry to finish it I didn’t take any photos, so you’ll have to believe me until I have a chance to prove it 

 

Due to the colour code of the paint, replacement panels are hard to get, especially the wing which also differs from the is200 one due to having different mounts for the headlight. So for now an LE wing has to do, along with a colour coded sedan bumper 

 

 

Managed to find time and instal the thicker anti-roll bars. The difference is substantially improved, even though the suspension was upgraded to a coilover system before that  

Next was the engine, it was due a cam cover gasket change and having one in the boot already, curtesy of the previous owner, I proceeded to change it and stop the oil seeping that makes a mess everywhere

Working between rain drops, I didn’t had time to properly clean the space between the intake and exhaust cover, so I’ll do that when I’m gonna change the spark plugs 

 One of the gaskets didn’t match, for some reason they were both the same length, which is wrong, so had to leave everything unbolted and wait for a next day delivery of a OEM set of gaskets.

Happy that turned out to be an easy job as I was a bit nervous doing it for the first time and how clean the engine seems to be on the inside, sign of regular oil changes, went ahead to work on the same job on my missus is200.
 So took the cam cover off to see what I can only describe as pure murder. 
Worth mentioning that I already done an oil+filter change after purchasing the car

 

This is a low-ish mileage car that had “regular maintenance”. 

 With 2 cars immobilised on the drive and only 2 cans of brake cleaner, I’ve cleaned the cover the best I could and with the new gasket on, bolted it back to the engine. 
 The next day the gasket for the Sportcross arrived and after putting everything back together I went to buy oil for 2 changes and 2 cans of engine flush. I’ve now done the second oil+filter change after flushing the engine two times, and in about 1000mls I’ll be doing another oil change and taking the cam cover off to see how things present themselves.
 

Stay tuned ✌️ 

[DF-300 Sport]

Jeez lots going on and very surprised by the state of the cam cover😱.......might do the same just to check🤔......mine has 89k miles so hopefully all will be ok🤞

[Murriel]

4 hours ago, DF-300 Sport said:

Jeez lots going on and very surprised by the state of the cam cover😱.......might do the same just to check🤔......mine has 89k miles so hopefully all will be ok🤞

Yes it’s unbelievable, at some point I will remove the sump and have a look there. I have seen some horror photos where the oil pickup was covered in hardened oil