ambermarine

the 97-2000 ls400 had 16 inch wheels for a reason the suspension and drive train was designed for them any other size makes a mockery of the original calculations for using that size of wheel. My advice is get those 17 inch wheels off which I beleave are off a ls430 that as a totally different suspension to the LS400.

When I resided in Argyll in the noughties there was a shortage of salt Nationwide in one particularly bad winter and the argyll & Bute used a chemical formula on the roads and it wrecked my Mark 1 so much so It rotted out the rear suspension and the cills.

The subframe is the worst as are those pipes which need checking out for replacement where plastic shrouds meet or cover the sills and floor remove them as there is likely rust under them.The wire brush will take off scale but you must use a rust inhibitor before aplying any protective coats.

Yes my 98 LS400 23 years without a advisory bearing in mind the first three years of its life are exempt although it as only done 54k .

The issue you have is the duplicity of ownership you know how wonderful these cars are and you have now got two .Trying to convince someone who is not converted is likened to being a missionary in darkest Africa in the 18th century,the would be buyers are wary and trying to get gifts from you and threaten you with spears if you do not comply they do not trust you because they are not yet converts so you have to take a missionary position which can be a very unpleasant experience .I suggest you put it up on ebay with a reserve that way you will not only save yourself a unpleasent experience but find a bottom end price to expect.

Here is the part number and tutorial for replacement, www.lexls.com/tutorials/steering/pspumprebuild.html

The workshop manuals are available on Ebay USA ,you can also purchase online manuals per subject ie engine /transmission on a hourly or daily basis from Mitchell Automanuals usa there are other sites for that so best option is just to download specifically what you need .the Book Manual published by Lexus is probably your preffered choice but expensive.

There is another site which as more to offer than the rest and that is "Yoshiparts.com". Looking at the job you did on the citreon you will have no problems working on the Lexus.

The car is a Lexus and in this regard is bulletproof both the engine and transmission ,being in Spain there should not be much corrosion so for a few hundred euros you have a project. The trans fluid maybe low and the suspension is fixable and there is a library of advice both on the UK and USA Lexus owners sites . All the known historical faults are on record so are their fixes you will not be dissapointed with the car when you start work on it because you will soon see the quality in these cars.

Reading some of the contributions on the forum it amazes me how we now take for granted the years we own these masterpeices.I have owned two for a total of 30 years and counting. I think the most I owned any of my previous cars was two years apart from the cars mentioned in a earlier post I had company cars for 22 years but non of them more than two years. the improvement in those bog standard BMC and Ford models over that time was snail pace and so was the quality ,I can remember being given a escort popular, brand new and already rusting in the engine bay and you could see the rust everywhere because the engine was only taking up a quarter of the space in there. I used two tins of wd40 on a trip from Manchester to Head office in Bristol on a wet rainy motorway stopping every few miles to keep the ignition leads dry from what was a non protection open to the elements space. I can remember having a brand new Montego estate in the October they were first produced and the front drivers door did not close properly,went back to the dealership Lookers and they ground off the edge with a grinder stuck some paint on and sent it back to us and you think present day dealershis are bad. We as a family went all the way to Rimini in Italy on a Cosmos grand tour in that car ,during the journey home the front windows fell out of thier slides and we had to tape them up. Nostalgia for our classic cars is more about the era than the car because we tend to only remember the good times. Because the LS400 does not give you any pain nostalgia is not part of the experience the car becomes part of your normal everyday being.

The price of the latest Lexus LS is approx 2.5 x what my 98 ls400 cost 26 years ago so I do not think the price is unjustified.The inflation will contribute most of that increase and techno improvements costs( R&D) will add a fair bit .The depreciation will not be as considerable as in the age of the LS400 because there are less being made so a smaller used buyers market. I was fortunate to get my car for less than 4k when it was 12 years old with 20k on the clock I believe it is worth a bit more than that now and I could afford a brand new all up LS but I do not see the point in that as I everything I need in the one I own. Cars are part of our lives and I have owned some real classics frog eyed sprite, sunbeam rapier ,Hillman californian, minivan, triumph herald, and a austin a40 farina the first hatchback. If I still owned those they would be worth a fortune but life dictates what we keep and what was happening at the time and those cars I mentioned were just modes of transport at the price I could just about afford they were not bought for any other reason and to that end nothing as changed I have now found the right car at the right price to keep.

Well Frazer it looks like Lexus have stamped down on my supplier ,I bought the whole timing belt + tensioner and waterpump replacement from them 4 years ago at a total cost of £175 including shipping Burj Auto DWC -LLC in Dubai they still supply Toyota parts but the Lexus name as been removed from the manfacturers list if you put in a lexus part number it will state it is out of stock in their parts reference box. They were too good to be true I suppose thinking about it I should have bought a boat load off spares at the time but again we think conservativly when we have to buy something not speculatevly.

There are a couple of blogs on u-tube regarding the replacement aftermarket arms and the results in general are very poor some lasted less than nine months before the bushings virtually collapsed.

When mine was done a couple of years a go I sourced my parts in the middle east they came in genuine Lexus parts at half the price of Lexus UK and that was with the shipping and taxes. there are several sites based in the UAE just google that area . As for getting a competent mechanic that can be a bit tricky.

Save yourself a few quid on the sensor just solder a piece of wire on to the two terminal ends,therefore reinstating the circuit.