ambermarine

You would probably be better off getting a engine from Paul Frost the 430 breaker he will have a couple in stock I should think. The breakdown and rebuild of one of these engines is not a thing to be taken on by any back st garage and specialists charge premium rates.

Stuart The coating is probably put on when the manufacturer packs them to prove origin and no previous use, if it comes off with little effort the other reason will be corrosion prevention on the contact surface that hits the carbon segments in the distributor cap. Denso is 50% owned by Toyota and supplies other car manufacturers,so this will be a genuine OEM.

I posted an article about three months ago regarding the corrosion of the exhaust flange( cat to pipe) and past experience with my Mark 1 and prevention on the Mark 4 with Rust-oleum hard hat 750 degree centigrade spray paint Well since the application I have done a thousand miles and 500 of that was 5 hours non stop mainly motorway driving. As can be seen in the photos the paint that as been sprayed on the surrounding areas of the mild steel flange is starting to peel off,whereas the paint that was applied with a brush on the flange itself is still intact and there is still a unbroken paint surface there. The rest of the winter as yet to pass and I will monitor the condition of the paint on the flange area with an up to date report when there is any change. I have posted some pics of the condition of the Mark 1 flanges and subsequent weld botch that were done in 2012 when the car was 22 years old with 180k on the clock.

Thanks for that update but my audience's are convinced I make it the longest or so one or two at the end do.

Hope you enjoy those fabulous harmonies and guitar riffs by Joe Walsh on Hotel California

By the time I finish that one the audience as fallen asleep or gone home ,it is the longest single song on record.

Funny how we like the same bands and artists as well as the same cars my favourite Kareoke numbers are eagles songs .

I saw the car as a means of transport and only bought what the business needed not what I needed,I did pay 19k for the first LS400 I owned but I did keep it 15 years and pound for pound it was a sound investment .I bought the mark 4 for a fraction of the first car but that was 14 years older and with less miles than the first one so the maths can be awry . I would be tempted if I needed to impress clients but those days are long gone and a reliable issue free classic is more of a need now.

Did mine on the new mark 4, 6 years ago when I bought it and it is still working.Varnish is not suitable it as to be poly based As to be worth a try as against £70 for a new one.

Simon There is a simple fix for the water bottle sensor; remove sensor float from the bottle and leave it in the airing cupboard for a week to dry it out . Paint the float with clear lacquer taking care to not to put too much on and it still slides freely on the stem. Refit and you are good to go

In all the time I have owned LS400s ( 25 years )I have never had the alarm go off ,last week I left my phone in the drivers centre console arm rest whilst at my daughters house in Devon. I was alerted to the alarm by a neighbour and assumed their kids had knocked the car whilst playing checked it over and returned to the house ,several minutes later the alarm went off again. This time I looked in the top of the armrest and there was my phone ,a dated samsung galaxy switched on ,I say switched on because I only use mobile phones as a emergency devise or when on long journeys south to keep in touch in transit. I removed the phone and checked for messages and downloads of which there had been two, both around the time the alarm had gone off. The rest of the day was alarm free with the phone away from the car. I am not saying this is always the cause of phantom alarm soundings but I am convinced this event was caused by the phone.

Stu The term is magnatron and there is a safety rider attached to this project.There are very high voltages feeding the magnatron even when the Microwave is disconnected from the mains supply. Up to 5000 volts can be around due to the machines use of capacitors and these capacitors can kill you should you touch the circuits on the voltage control board. If you mess around with the interior of a microwave oven check out all the safety videos that are on the web before opening it up,and do so at your own risk.

Malc I was referring to my Classic mini engine, I have not applied this trick to my LS but I cannot see what harm it would do as the magnets on the transmission are located at the base of the sump, it would create a wider field for the crap to form on .

I use this method with a 12 volt electric oil pump I was the European agent for twenty years ago . It was branded the Qwik -drain and was specifically designed for marine diesel engines around 50hp-80hp which did not have a sump plug and were installed in yachts ,prior to this product being thought up by a guy in Idaho the only way to extract used oil was with a hand pump. I know from my own boats this was a laborious and messy task. Unfortunately chandlers are notoriously greedy people and they marked up the product by too great a margin for it to attract enough sales to justify importing and distributing the product . It survived for a while in the states but succumbed when the producers gave the products exclusive sales rights to a national chandler who subsequently went topsy. Lessons to be learned , there are a multitude of producers in the market now.

Stu The mention of the magnets put me in mind of a trick I did on my Jiffy classic mini engine sump ,bearing in mind the sump contains the oil that lubricates both engine and gearbox. I took apart a magnatron from a defunct microwave oven and this as two very powerful magnets on the gun I just let one go onto the base of the sump and there was no way it was coming off . It was powerful enough to magnetize the whole area around it attracting anything metallic that was within the engine,it worked a treat because when we stripped the engine during a rebuild the bottom of the sump had metal filings from the geardrives all over it and the metal sump had become magnetized were the magnet had been located.

Herbs The service schedule relates to a fluid change which is not the same as a flush it also shows the amount of fluid the transmission sump holds and to all intents and purposes is the quantity drained and replaced,My Mark 4 as 40k on it and the fluid is very much a pink red colour and does smell as new so I doubt the changing of all the fluid would be required at this mileage.

The service schedule for the Ls 400 Mark 4 says change transmission fluid at 33k ,I assume this is draining out 2litres at the plug in the sump which is all it holds, the rest of the near 10 liters within the system and torque converter can only be changed with the take some out put some in method which leaves the system with a percentage of used fluid . I can only assume from that this is the way Lexus see the gradual renewal over time as the best way to service the gearbox, so intervals of 33k would give the fluid a very long life. I took out the fluid with the put some in take some out method in my Mark 1 after 160k as it was going a bit brown prior to that it had never been touched and the transmission was fine.

Mark Interesting and at the same time contradictory to my initial thoughts that this squab is universal ,there is a difference in the side contours on the squab in the photograph and the pan it sits in is handed which leads me to think it may be the same part number for both squabs but with the handed requirement as per use in the car.

Having done further research I have discovered it is possible to purchase a new cushion in the desired trim colour from www.jp-carparts.com the car that comes up for the part no 71071-50340-A1 is a right hand bottom seat cushion for a 2006 Celsior that means it is for a drivers side as the Celsior is a right hand drive vehicle and was not for sale in the US. The only thing is the complete item is $2000 the schematic drawing shows a squab only under a seperate part no but I cannot get a price to show for that number .there is a inquiry facility on the site interface so make an inquiry as to what the possibility of getting the squab on its own is. This also means that the part complete from the USA site referred to earlier should also fit your car as the same part number comes into play ,I suppose the cushion itself because it does not carry any hardware is universal to passenger and driver.

The site where new seat parts in the USA www.lexuspartsnow.com can be bought quote around $1300 for the seat base cushion complete, this may help as giving an indicative price guideline but is useless in every other respect as they wont work on the drivers side in the UK. part no 71071-50340-A1

The reason the hupolsterers will not touch it ,the foam is moulded and they cannot achieve the contours required by ordinary slab foam application . The original design and ergonomics are the basis of that moulding . It is unlikely you will get the foam from OEM as it is sold in a complete item" as in the seat". Your only path is to find a breaker with a decent seat .

Martin Would the same questions arise on a LS400 or a LS430 regardless of the battery I think this is a workhorse that as been worked through its life already and is likely to throw up issues in the not to distant future. My advice is steer clear.

In my today post on the 460 upgrade this is identical to the mark1 I owned in every sense including the colour I even bought an identical model to strip for parts this colour was the most popular of the Mark 1

Just to add a reinforcement of the Ls400 favourable comparison with the 460, When I was looking to replace my then 20 year old Mark 1 400 because of rust in the usual places I seriously considered a 460 and 430 but I could'nt pull myself away from the perfection of the 400 and at the time I bought the mark4 (six years ago) there was little or no feedback on the 460 on the forum. I did a extensive research over a two month period and eventually came down on the 400 and being very lucky picked up the best example of the mark 4 at the time and probably still is. That is now history and if anyone had told me when I started my driving career fifty three years ago and had thirty different cars in that time and driven over a million miles I would end up keeping the same model of car for 25 years I would have laughed at them. But that is testimony to how near to perfect the Ls400 is ,you cannot find better.

Graham The roof liner as to come down giving access to the fasteners on the moonroof frame ,I dropped the liner on a mark1 Lexus ls400 way back when stripping the car for parts and learned by approach. The fastenings for grab handles and light fittings have to be loosened so the garnishes can be unclipped also the dome light surround ,sunvisor screws the door pillars and windshield pillars need unclipping you may not have to completely remove the liner from the roof the access is possible through the glass space area that is already there after the liner is dropped from the front. The reason for loosening the edges is so you don't crease the lining when dropping it down. I suggest you contact Paul as his assistant who will remove the sunroof from the donor car will know the best way to do the job.