Razor61

Hi Howard, I’ve just re done my wheels, I did do them months ago but they were just as bad. I’ve now applied the C5 stuff. I did the just front wheels a few weeks ago and the dirt and brake dust comes off a hell of a lot easier but was still on the wheels in the hard to get to places and a pain to clean off. Autofinesse Iron Out with a brush to agitate did the trick though so the combination of wheels cleaned and coated with C5 then using Iron Out or something similar after works really well for my wheels. I only started using the Gtechniq stuff after I had a new M140i ceramic coated with their stuff and just stuck with it.

Good advice thanks, I’ve got Tigerseal, Sikaflex 221 and aluminium mesh and the plan was to stick the mesh on in pieces if needed, gluing just on the edges to start with, then when cured cover with whatever is the best. I’ll get some epoxy resin as well, I don’t fancy use glass fibre to honest.

Finally got to the bit I was dreading, the wheel arch with the glass fibre which looked more like straw😳 pics after the ‘straw’ was removed😪 Looks worse than it actually is, that’s what I’m telling myself anyway! But once cleaned up and treated, I think I’ll be able to sort it out with aluminium mesh, adhesive/joint filler stuff and some time to make sure it’s all sealed and looks pretty. Maybe some glass fibre as well, not decided the best way forward yet.

Here you go, I’ve ordered some more anyway. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F323160849691 https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F174217768859

🤣 I haven't found them yet, I ordered 50 x of the cill cover clips and a 500 piece box of all different Toyota clips. I can't find either of them, I did ask my other half and the look I got wasn't pleasant!!! I'll have another look today in the house. I haven't looked properly in the house yet, I'll wait until my other half in back in work at Sainsbury's and do it then...........

Looks like you are on a similar journey to me but for different reasons and in different areas on the car. Do you have the alloy wheel cap/trim thingy’s? On the original pictures of the car they are not there. I have 2 spare sets so if you need a set..........

Work today, rear bumper removed which took me a couple of hours. There are 2 x nuts holding the rear bumper on (plus all the others in the boot) which are in the arch, plenty of patience needed to get them off without snapping the bolts. Plenty of Plus Gas, undo until it stops, wind back in and repeat until they come off. This took the most time. Degreased the bodywork underneath once bumper is off and washed. Scraped all the rust off that I could from the bottom of the arches, cleaned and rust treated. I’ve got the stuff I need to repair the holes into the boot and the other side. Aluminium mesh, body adhesive/sealant and a glass fibre kit if needed. Pics below.

No problem, I’ve tried to find the clips I bought but I can’t find them anywhere! I need to turn the garage and the house upside down to find them but I may have left them at work. I don’t think I have though, I may have thrown them away somehow and will be a bit miffed if I have. They weren’t expensive but at the moment I may not be able to get some more. Anyway some more pics below.

Yep, what I’m doing on the car isn’t the most important thing in the world. Following government advice is though, which I am doing. But I need to occupy myself doing something and doing stuff on the car is my way of occupying myself. My wife works at Sainsbury’s so is out of the house a lot of the time, customers in retail can be difficult in normal circumstances but at the moment it’s pretty frustrating for staff in supermarkets. And that is putting it very very mildly, people can be so moronic and stupid which beggars belief!

See link below for part numbers. https://lexus-general.epc-data.com/ls400/

Well, as I’m working from home for the next 3 weeks for the most part I decided to do some stuff on the LS400. Things that I had planned to do anyway at some point and now I have the time. I had planned to remove the cill covers and have a look at any damage and rust, mainly the rear arch issue I have. I did this today and below are some photos of what was underneath before I did anything apart from the bottom of the off side rear arch which I removed all the gunk and rust. Pretty good condition I have to say and was pleasantly surprised. I also removed the off side wheel to investigate the rear bottom arch rust problem which wasn’t as bad as I thought. Near side may be worse when I remove the fibreglass patching. Anyway I’ve wire brushed and rust treated anything I could find on the cill seams etc and will post after pics tomorrow. I have bought some plastic clips to fix the covers back on, all the plastic clips broke apart from 2 or 3. I knew about this so bought a bag full of them. Not tried them yet though so I hope they are right ones!

Good luck with all the work and you deserve some applause for doing it 👏 I replaced the front discs and pads with genuine Lexus stuff and didn’t think the price was too bad to be honest, I priced them up with Lexus Parts Direct first and then called local Lexus dealership with the price and they matched it. Local dealership weren’t exactly pleased about it but any way you can save a bit helps. Approx £180 for front discs and pads, £210 ish for rear discs and pads iirc.

Good point from the chauffeur, I’ve always thought that cleaning and polishing the glass makes the whole car look good /better. I spend/have spent a lot of time on the paintwork so the glass shouldn’t be left out. I’ve always cleaned the glass and used a glass polish but recently I’ve started to clay bar the glass to remove contaminants, if the paintwork has contaminants then the glass will as well. I can testify to this because I’ve clay barred the glass on my son in laws car today. There was quite a bit of crap that came off and after putting some glass polish on, it looked top notch. Sounds really ott but it’s true😀

yep, it’s an aesthetic thing but grotty wheels can spoil the whole look of a car especially if the rest of the car looks great. Just my opinion of course 😉 I bought a second hand set of wheels last week, I like to have another set of wheels so I can take the wheels to have a new a set of tyres fitted then swop them over. They are in reasonable condition and I plan to have them refurbished at Lepsons, used them in the past and they do an A1 job, and have new tyres fitted at the the same time ready to just fit them when the time comes which will be in the next 6 months. I sent pictures of the wheels to Lepsons and they said one of them is corroded, which I knew and is no surprise for Lexus alloys, so they cannot guarantee the finish will last as long as they expect. Corrosion will come back at some point, maybe 2-3 years or a bit longer but it will come back they said. I’ll send my spare wheel instead so the set will be good and keep the corroded one as a spare. Regarding centre caps, I’ve ended up with 3 x sets. 1 x set on the car and 2 x sets from buying the spare set of wheels plus a job lot of spare parts. I bought the job lots of spares just for the genuine antenna. Antenna worked but the telescopic bit was seized a bit and didn’t extend fully so swopped it for an new replacement I bought a few weeks ago. Works perfect now and it’s a genuine unit so fits spot on, the one I had was a generic one which didn’t fit great at all. The original telescopic bit is soaking in release fluid to see if I can free it up, if it does it will go back in.

Alloys are not easy to keep clean and ‘like new’ in general. Lexus alloy wheels suffer from corrosion more than most and I was fortunate to get a recently refurbished set with my car which I thoroughly cleaned with Farecla G3 to remove any trace of tar and anything else. I then coated them with Gtechniq C5 wheel armour, all set now I thought and just need to clean them properly when washing the car using a wheel brush etc. After a few months it became apparent that just cleaning them as described above was not enough. I have used Iron-X in the past and it was good stuff but I used a bottle of Auto Finnesse Iron Out on my alloys today to try it. This stuff worked brilliantly and brought the wheels back to ‘as new’, like they were when I first fettled them with G3 etc a few moths ago. For anyone that doesn’t know how this type of stuff works, you spray it on, leave it for a while, agitate it if needed and the colour changes to purple on contact with contaminants, iron etc.hence the name. I used this stuff yesterday on my son in laws car paintwork ( on his suggestion ) before clay barring, to highlight and remove as many contaminants as possible, it worked great. Clay barring after was a breeze so I thought I’d wash my car, spray this stuff on one of the front wings (whole car had been clay barred and buffed months ago) to see if it highlighted anything I’d missed and also spray on the alloys wheels. The wing didn’t highlight anything but the alloys did, which I fully expected. I agitated the stuff on the alloys with a small brush and rinsed off. The results were pretty amazing really as shown below.

This LS430 looks nice https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lexus-LS430-2002-Premium-Package/223939309126?hash=item3423d2ae46:g:PfoAAOSw8wheY~Ef

I originally started looking at the LS430 which was the model that fired my interest. But after researching and looking, I decided that the LS400 was the one for me for the same reason, classic looks etc. If you decide on the LS400 then buying a 'good' one could be a challenge, to reiterate the very sound advice from 'Cotswold Pete' - give the rear arches a good poke with screwdriver, this is a weak rust point. I can 100% testify to this with my car and didn't know this could be an issue when I was looking for one. I did a post about my buying experience, link below, which may help you in your search for a LS400 - if that's what you decide.

Another product is 'Gummi Pflege Rubber Care Stick' which does the same thing and it's supposed to help stop the doors freezing shut in winter. I've used it for a long time.

Mine seems to be the opposite, when passengers are in the rear I notice it more but that's probably because the radio is very low or completely off. But, as you say, for a 24 year old car it's not bad at all really but it is annoying...........................I'll find the culprit eventually! this is also true, I knew this but still did it and the ECU was pristine anyway so went back in.

Yep, the cabin is a lot quieter now and it's as quiet as I expect it to be (if that makes sense). I'll listen out for the slight drone. I also have an annoying rattle which I can't pin down, it may be coming from the glove box area. I dismantled the lower and upper glove boxes to remove the ECU. Maybe I didn't fix things back in properly, I don't remember hearing the rattle before I removed them but there were other noises at the time that I was concentrating on i.e. front suspension clunking etc. I'll be changing the ECU at some point so will leave the gloves boxes off and see if it goes. I've also read that the sunroof deflector can cause a rattle so will have a look. When I open the sunroof far enough for the deflector to pop up the noise seems to go but there is wind noise because the sunroof is open and I may not be able to hear it then anyway. The weird thing is the rattle seems to come from different areas depending on where you are sat and where your head is positioned. I'll get to the bottom of it at some point though..................probably by accident doing something else!!

Ever since I bought my 96 LS400 last year there has been an annoying wind/road noise from the near side rear passenger area, just like the window is opened slightly. The window was fully closed so I was a bit baffled and was thinking maybe there is a hole in the wheel arch or something but I checked this and couldn't find anything. Possibly the weather strip/s on the door was causing it but I also checked this and couldn't see anything wrong. But...........................I found what was causing the issue. Bear with this because it will make sense at the end🙂 On Monday I took my mum and dad to visit my cousin, my mum was in the back of the car in the near side seat (the area with the wind/road noise). When I arrived back home I opened the rear passenger door for my mum to get put as it was pretty windy etc. While I had the door open I noticed that the rubber weather strip that runs around the top 'rail' for both doors (not the door rubber seal) had a gap of about 2 inches at the bottom rh side like the strip had moved forward. Once my mum was out the car I opened both passenger side doors and moved/slid the rubber weather strip back towards the rear to where it should be and it covered the gap. At the end of the rubber weather strip there is piece of rubber that keeps the strip in place but this had detached a bit. B4 and after pictures are below. Next morning I drove to work and the 'annoying wind/road noise from the near side rear passenger area' had gone. If it starts moving again I'll put a small blob of CT1 or something to hold it in place. I am so glad it has solved the issue because it was really really niggling me!! Obviously I hadn't noticed before, even when I washed the car along with the door jams etc. This maybe a complete one off issue on my car but just thought I'd post it in case someone else has a similar issue. B4 After

I found this which may help https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-4th-gen-2007-2017/506217-instructions-for-the-jmcraney-wind-noise-fix.html

I owe you an apology then😬 so I apologise and yes it was a bit of a strop! I did have the battery disconnected for a few weeks when I did the suspension work last year, it was unintentional ( I left the boot open somehow) and that didn’t make any difference.

Well I am sure about my ‘96 LS, it’s made a difference. I’ll keep anything like this to myself in future I think......

Shell V Power octane rating............see link below. https://support.shell.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115002792532-What-is-Octane-