Colin M

It is difficult to make welded repairs to the inner arch partly because of limited access but also because the metal may well be too thin and/or too rusty to weld. It is OK to cut metal sections to cover any holes by sticking/riveting them in place or using self-tapping screws. The holes I had were quite small so I used Petropatch to cover them (see earlier post). If they had been larger, I would have cut some metal to cover them. Repairs like this are fine in the wheel arches because they are not structural but this should not be done on the sills/cills. These areas are structural and only welding repairs should be done here, preferably with the rusty section cut out and new metal welded in. If you just weld a patch over the rust, the area will continue to rust from the inside.

If it is the same as the Mk3, it is just to one side of the steering column - on the right of the column I think from memory. The fuse box has a white square plastic cover on it. It is hard to see without kneeling down outside the car with the door open and looking upwards. Good luck in finding it!

Pleased to hear everything is sorted now, albeit with a lighter wallet!!

I bought some Lexus replacements a couple of months ago and they cost £21.24. Not cheap but I have been very pleased with them and no regrets buying them. Very smooth and silent in operation.

If you do not want to go down the main dealer route, I can recommend a Varta Type 068 70Ah battery from Tayna Ltd (www.tayna.co.uk), who have a wide range of batteries at cheaper prices than I have seen elsewhere. I bought one of these batteries at the beginning of 2013 for my 1996 LS400 and have recently bought the same one for my 1997 LS400. The one I bought recently was £65.50, which included delivery. It comes with a 4 year warranty and is a perfect fit in the battery tray. The cars have always started without any problem, whatever the weather.

Thanks for the update, Jon. Pleased to see that there was a partially positive outcome.

Sorry to hear the bad news about the UCA, Malc. I am expecting one (or both) of my UCAs to need replacing in the not too far distant future - my two cars are a similar age and mileage to yours and the full service history on each gives no indication of the UCAs having been replaced. Could be expensive when the time comes ... but money well spent if it keeps these great cars on the road.

OK, fingers crossed for a positive outcome!!

I have had rust just inside the rear arches on both sides on both my LS400s. The worst areas were on the front section of the rear arches about half way up. When I removed the rust here there were holes that needed to be repaired. I used Petropatch, which is used to repair holes in petrol tanks, to repair the holes. It is easy to work with and can be used on rusty metal. Once I had repaired the holes and removed as much rust as I could, I gave the area a couple of coats of Bonda Rust Primer (not easy to get hold of but really good in my experience and I have been using it for over 25 years now). This was followed by a coat of black Hammerite, the following day. A few days later, I put on a thin (4-5mm thickness) coat of Hammerite Underbody Seal, which I left for about a week so that it hardened up as much as it was going to do. It always seems to remain a bit tacky. Finally, I put another coat of black Hammerite on, so the tacky feel disappears and there is a shiny surface which makes it easier to remove any mud etc. Once I had done the above repair work, I then got hold of a pair of LS400 front wing liners which I adapted to fit inside the rear arches. The rear arches are now well protected and I am not anticipating having to do any further work there. If anyone is interested in fitting front wing liners in the rear arches, I did do a post and write up on the Forum on how to do this.

OK, Jon, I hope John at Panick Keys can do something for you. I will be interested to know the outcome. Cheers Colin

Jon There may be a way round this. I had a similar problem of Lexus being unable to programme a key for my 1996 LS400 but the dealer put me in touch with a guy called John of Panick Keys who was based in Wolverhampton. He managed to programme a key off the key I had which I thought was a master key but which turned out not to be. The dealer used him when they had problems with keys that they could not solve and he was very good. His contact details are in a post I put on this Forum on 19 September 2014. You should be able to easily find this if you do a search on the Forum for Colin M. This turns up posts I have made and that particular post Is on the second page. Hope this helps. Regards Colin

I think it is on the right hand side of the steering column as you look in the footwell. You have to get low down to see it - probably easiest kneeling down outside the car to see where it is. It has a square white cover which pulls off from the bottom and there is a diagram on the inside of the cover indicating what the fuses are.

I use 5w-30 semi-synthetic, Millers Trident, in both my LS400s (mileages of 164,000 and 215,000) and they run fine on this. It is around £18-19 on eBay with free delivery.

I have had the same problem on the offside rear door on one on my cars. I put some masking tape on the chrome strip and on the paintwork below, then used a thin needle file to remove as much rust under the trim as I could. I finished off with a squirt of rustproofing fluid from an aerosol can with a thin tube attached to it (like the ones you get with cans of WD40). If the rust is not just under the chrome strip but has spread to the top of the paintwork on the outer skin of the door, as it had on mine, it is best to remove the rust here, use a rust killing primer and then touch this in with topcoat before using the aerosol.

Really sorry to hear this but most importantly you are OK. There will be another good car out there somewhere for you and I hope you are able to find one soon.

Yes, I have used Lexus Wolverhampton too and have found them to be very good.

Any rust on the brake pipes is unlikely to have got much worse over the course of a year, so it may come out as an advisory again rather than a fail. I had an advisory on rust on the rear brake pipes on my 1997 LS400 when I bought it with a short MOT and had a look at the pipes before taking it for its next MOT. There was some light surface rust on them, which I rubbed down with sandpaper. I gave the pipes a coat of Hammerite paint and the car passed the MOT without any problem. I hope it proves a good car for you, Jonathan, if you buy it.

If a car pulls to one side when braking, this is usually due to a sticking or 'lazy' piston in the calliper on the opposite side. If it pulls to the left, as it is doing, the left hand front brake calliper is working OK but the right hand one is not functioning properly. I would remove the brake pads from the right hand calliper and see how easy it is to retract the pistons. If there is some stiffness, this is likely to be the problem. If there is, put one pad back in between the piston and disc and leave the other pad out, putting a piece of wood in its place about 10mm thick which you can use as a lever to work the piston backwards and forwards. Get someone to press the brake pedal a couple of times, then lever the piston back with the piece of wood. Repeat several times to see if this frees up this piston. Then put a pad back here, remove the pad from the other side and put the piece of wood in there to use as a lever. Then repeat pressing the pedal and levering the piston back, thus doing the same for the other piston. This might get the two pistons moving freely and prevent the pulling to one side. You can do this yourself without someone else pressing the brake pedal. Just make sure that you leave the piece of wood in and supported when you go to press the pedal, so that it does not fall out. This will make sure that the piston does not come out too far when you press the pedal. If you cannot get the pistons moving freely, the calliper will need rebuilding or replacing.

Mine is under the rear bumper too. It is held horizontally by a strong L shaped bracket screwed into the floor. I have painted the bracket black and it has a black press-on fit plastic square cover over the filler to stop any ingress of dirt or water. You can buy the covers from Tinley Tech. With a black cover and black painted bracket, this makes the filler more or less invisible.

The leak at the bottom of the hose turned out to be due to the end of the power steering cooling pipe breaking off inside the hose. This can be seen if you look at the pipe in the bottom of the photo, which has only one bright metal end and not two as with the pipe in the middle, which is a very good original pipe which Rudy kindly sold to me. The other bright (or perhaps not so bright) broken off end is inside the old hose which can be seen in the photo. I have had a couple of replacement copper pipes bent to shape by my plumber, using Rudy’s pipe as a template. One of these can be seen at the top of the photo (which I will put on my other LS400 this summer) and the other is on the car which had the leak. I have fitted two new hoses, cut about half an inch longer than the originals so there was enough pipe inside the hose to use both the original clamp and a jubilee clip at the end of the hose. This was a ‘belt and braces’ approach to minimise the risk of any leak, as there is no knibbed/lipped section near the end of the pipe which ensures a tight fit with the hose. There are no leaks and this seems to have worked fine. I filled the cooling pipe with fluid through the front hose before connecting the hose to minimise air locks. The pump did ‘howl’ quite a bit when I started the car but keeping the fluid topped up and moving the wheels from side to side repeatedly eventually got rid of any trapped air. All is quiet now. Thanks to all for your help – much appreciated.

Yes, I think it should fit. I do not think there is any difference in respect of body panels on Mk 1 and Mk 2. In terms of the cost of respraying a front wing, it is £150 in my neck of the woods. I had the offside front wing on my wife's Merc 500SL resprayed last year and it was £150, which included a bit of fine finishing on the repair I had done at the bottom of the wing just behind the indicator. The wing is a similar size to the LS400 wing.

Hi Rudy Lovely looking car and really pleased to hear that you have got the door card off to open the door. I had a similar problem on a Merc 190 a few years ago - managed to get the door trim off after removing the door rubber from inside the car but it was not an easy job. Well worth spending the time, effort and money to eliminate the faults - enjoy your new toy! Regards Colin

Hi Malc, Thanks, and I will certainly check out the state of the pipe work further up where it comes into the top end of the rubber hoses. As you say, a piecemeal fix in one section will not be much good if there are pending problems elsewhere. I will give the whole system a good check over. If I find any useful info I will of course post up on the thread so that it is available to all. Thanks again, and all the best Colin

Hi guys Thanks for your quick and helpful replies. I am in the process of trying to source a replacement hose as a first step. I have been looking online and have a few leads to follow up after the weekend. I will then report back on progress (or lack of it ...). I think, as well as a new hose, I will probably replace the steel pipe in front of the radiator with 10mm copper tubing like others have done. Hopefully a new hose and pipework should sort the problem. Thanks a lot. Colin

I have a slight leak at the bottom of the hose where it joins the metal pipework that runs in front of the radiator and then back again. It is the pipe nearest to the radiator – the one on the right in the photo. My first thoughts are to change the hose to see if this stops the leak. I have tried a jubilee clip on the end of the hose to see if this will stop the leak but it does not and actually makes it worse!! Lexus unhelpfully do not do the hoses as a separate item and they come as part of the upper section of pipework (i.e. the pipework that is connected to the top of the hoses). The internal diameter of the hose is 10mm and the external diameter is 17.5mm. As ever, I would appreciate any advice before proceeding further. In particular: 1. Has anyone replaced one of these hose and, if so, where did you get it from? 2. Am I correct in thinking that the hose and the pipework in front of the radiator is on the low pressure return side of the power steering system and not the high pressure delivery side? 3. Does anyone know what level of pressure the pipe needs to be able to withstand? 4. If and when the hose is replaced and there is some fluid loss, is it necessary to bleed air out of the system and, if so, how is this done? Many thanks in anticipation of some help.