WilliamJ

I have tried 2 routes for these - internet supplier and local motor factor. The best was a local motor factor and the upper arms were about £70 each inc VAT (for genuine parts.) The arm is actually a complete wishbone and the ball joint is not a separate part - but £175 is very expensive. They are not difficult to replace. Bill

Rob, I have not tried poly bushes on my Lexus but I have used them on other cars. They are excellent on my race car (rose joint one end and poly bush the inner end on the lower wishbones). This gives a very firm feedback - too firm for comfortable road use. Unless you make the springs stiffer at the same time the polybushes won't make the ride any firmer, they will just transmit more noise and make it feel a bit harsher. I suspect (and have read same on other forums) that the poly bushes transmit too much vibration and noise into the body. I suppose it depends on how stiff the poly bushes are - and I believe they need to have some compliance in them to work properly - and also how much noise you are prepared to put up with. Bill

Couple of things I can't agree with you on - I wouldn't say removing the starter is particularly awkward. It's just that you need the car high enough to get fully underneath and you need to work slightly blind. I would say it is easier than replacing the spark plugs - a good light and a mirror help. It does not take very long as there are only a couple of bolts. If you are a competent DIY mechanic and have a decent jack, axle stands and tool kit then it will take about 25-30 mins to get the starter out from scratch. Your starter must have been different from mine - the contacts in mine were slotted so very adjustable in height. If your contacts have worn thin WD40 is not going to fix them up. It may just help if there is some crud in there which needs loosening, but the contacts commonly wear out. I am not sure how the WD40 will get inside the solenoid though.

Not familiar with the 1st gen GS300 (presume it's that, as you have a distributor) Can't understand the 'only one spark came from the HT coil'. Can you elaborate on this? Have you checked the rotor arm and dizzy cap for tracking or damage? Have you changed the HT leads? Sometimes as the leads get old they become very susceptible to tracking when the air is very moist. A simple way to test this is to run the engine in a dark place and spray a little moisture over the leads - this may be tricky if you can't get the engine started at all! Usually they don't all fail at once so I prefer the rotor / cap idea. Of course, if the coil HT lead (you only have one coil I presume) has started to fail this would potentially prevent it starting. I did once have a one off non-start issue. It failed to run immediately after starting - didn't pick up and coughed and stopped. I tried to start again and it became flooded. I waited a few minutes and tried again. It started and misfired for a few moments with the excess fuel on the plugs and then ran fine. Never recurred. I mention this because if you are trying to start it without spark, yours may flood too. Bill

Well done that's great. You must have discovered that the contacts are adjustable and need to be both parallel to the contact ring and level with each other. Sorry I didn't see your post, I was away for a while. Slightly different to the way my problem appeared but still sounds like it could be the solenoid. I think the fuel pump is not a factor. It is just possible, but not easy, to bypass the starter circuit with the starter in the car.It is better to take the starter out but awkward) as you need to get underneath. But it isn't that hard with the right sockets. You should disconnect the battery first. If it doesn't run every time on the bench strip the solenoid and you will see the copper contacts inside which are horseshoe-shaped. If they are thinned out to the circular inner edge they are worn out. New ones do not cost very much - a few pounds. The ring contact also wears but has a lot more metal on it. As for the Peugeot relays are usually fairly reliable but if the contacts have become pitted it may not be delivering the current to the starter solenoid. The main power to the starter goes direct from the battery. The relay will only be sending a much lower current to power the solenoid winding. If you can get to the small terminal on the relay, if you give it 12 volts with a 20 amp cable, it should operate the starter. If it just clicks then the either the solenoid or the starter is faulty. As suggested above, one other possiblity is a poor engine earth strap connection. Bill

So it WAS the same cause as my old Toyata Camry - amazing. It is a tough job changing a head gasket on a big engine with complex control systems. Did you find the weak pont in the gasket? Be thankful you only had one head and two cams rather than the two heads and two cams on my Camry :winky: Bill

I had the solenoid contact problem with my GS a few months ago. When you stripped the solenoid were the contacts toast? Mine were really worn out. If yours were not then perhaps they were okay. I found that setting the new contacts to the correct height was a little tricky. Did you bench test it before you put it back in the car? You can tell if the starter itself is getting lazy as it doesn't try to jump out of the vise when it spins. They really have some torque when they work properly!!! It may be worth removing it again and running a test on it in the vise. Clamp it tight though. Also test the motor bypassing the solenoid - sparks a bit though. Bill

GSSPORT Couple of suggestions for you:- With the engine idling, does the noise increase if you turn the air con on? Decrease with it off? Try taking off the serpentine belt - is the noise still there? If not then it may be one of the ancillaries (water pump, steering pump, air con, alternator). By the way, the water pump is on the right hand side of the engine (if you are facing forwards), low down at the front of the block. If the noise is still there without the serpentine belt then it could be a number of things:- A sticking valve......if you mean valve in the cyinder head, I doubt it. It could be a large valve clearance. Valve clearances tend to stay pretty static unless it has been overheated or run low on oil. It is not a five minute job to check these! It could be a broken valve spring but you would get some misfiring to go with it. It could be something in the bottom end of the engine but these engines are very strong - so that is unlikely. Again with the engine idling and making the noise, does the noise reduce if you engage drive? If it does and the noise also increases with the air con running, it possible it could be the torque converter drive plate breaking. If the noise goes away entirely when the serpentine belt is removed then check the four ancillaries and check the serpentine belt tensioner. I have a 99 GS 300 sport and I chased a noise like this a couple of months ago. The noise was really hard to pinpoint even using a stethoscope. It sounded like top front at first and gradually got louder and moved rearwards over a couple of weeks. I was told it was cams - no it wasn't. I was told it was timing belt tensioner - nope. I was told it was the VVTI mechanism. I got fixated on that and eventually stripped it apart (yes, I know it says you cannot but that is a big lie) and it was perfect. I tested the oil supply pressure to the VVTI and the electronic control of said supply, nope. So I realised it probably wasn't that. I checked the knock sensor as it sounded like detonation for a while but it was fine. I checked a few other things as well Eventually I found a man who knew nothing about Lexus cars and he came up with the torque converter drive plate suggestion and he was spot on. Good luck. Bill

I have had similar problems and applied all the same solutions. It still knocks from time to time - aaaargh! I have read on another site that the rear arb is a suspect but my knocks sound like front end to me. Bigger sound system needed?

It was NOT a noisy top end!!! Turned out it was the torque converter drive plate (flex plate). The noise got gradually worse and the source appeared to move rearwards. The plate was replaced last week - new plate £170 plus labour £350 plus vat (not Lexus). There was a crack almost all the way round just outside the crank bolt holes. Still seems wrong that it should rattle like a top end or bottom end or piston but it did. Hope this helps someone else to diagnose their rattle and knock.

If you haven't already solved it.....You could try inspecting the bottom ball joint. You need to lever it up while the car is on the ground. There should be no movement at all. I hit a deep hole a year ago and after a bit of squeaking over a couple of days the ball joint fell apart and the car fell on to its wheel. Luckily I was doing about 20mph and it just locked the wheel and stopped. Wrecked the wing, the tyre and the abs wire. I have never known of a ball joint falling apart on any car so it was a bit of a surprise.

I can second that about Ultimax pads. I tried them a while ago and they worked very well. I had used OEM (ok but expensive) and Apex from local Motor Factor (okay at 30 but utterly useless from high speed).

Anyone..........? Maybe I'll have to give in and go to the dealer, which would be a shame (and very expensive). Is there any information out there about how to test the solenoid or the oil control valve, if I could elimante those then it would point towards the VVTi gear assembly perhaps? Any advice welcome.

Mk 1 GS 300 is every 60k or every 6 years, whichever is soonest. Not sure on Mk 2. A quick phone call to any Lexus dealer would be quickest way to find out if you don't have an owners manual. I have just changed mine (that crank pulley was pig to undo) and it had done 95,000 miles. It was in perfect condition - could have gone a lot longer. The tensioner pulley was fine . Small amount of play but smooth running)

You seem determined to fix it, great attitude! Oil pressure on its own is unlikely to cause such oil leaks. The seals that you are replacing don't get oil pump pressure but they do get crank case pressure and it sounds like that to me. I don't know what pressure the relief valve is set to but I am pretty sure that during normal driving, with a warm engine, the pressure relief valve will not be asked to to operate very often. Probably only if you rev it hard. If you are able to measure it you should get about 50 to 60psi at 3000 rpm (gauges vary a bit) and 25 to 30 at idle. I had a Toyota that developed high crankcase compression due to a failing head gasket. The cylinder pressure was blowing into the crankcase via an oil drainage passageway. This didn't cause the engine to leak oil but it built up oil in the crankcase ventilation system and was dumped into the intake on overrun - masses of blue smoke out the exhaust!!! It doesn't sound as though that's happening to you but there's more than one way of getting high crankcase pressure. If you have a blocked PCV valve this could cause pressure to build in the crankcase. There is one fitted into the top left hand cam cover near the rear (mine is Mk2) I don't know if there's another. See if it's flowing air (they usually rattle if they are free). You have no evidence of bad rings from exhaust smoke or oil use and your compression pressures are within spec. (Compression test gauges are also a bit variable) All the seals tend to go hard with age - when I did the full top end overhaul on my Toyota (Camry 3.0l V6) I replaced one exhaust valve because it was burned where that head gasket had been leaking, all the others were in top condition - the stems had no measurable wear at 140,000 miles - I took them to an engineering shop for checking and they were amazed. One thing I didn't do was replace the water pump - big mistake! The bearing packed up 50,000 miles later and shredded the cam belt. Bill