Razor61

1 hour ago, Malc1 said:

otherwise she looks a nice car

Apart from the rust and bubbling on the rear arch in the pic below.

2 hours ago, BigBoomer said:

One from Glasgow too. Not only the London ULEZ that is having this effect.

I had a look at the MOT history on this car - N97 PPG - and in March 2021 there was a long long list of advisories - 50 in total!! I can't remember seeing a longer more in depth list, most of them are for corrosion or slight corrosion which is to be expected on a 1996 LS400. Next MOT's had no advisories at all, either everything was rectified and every bit of corrosion or slight corrosion was sorted or it was a very dedicated MOT tester in March 2021🙂

2 hours ago, BigBoomer said:

On eBay there is a Mk3 in Edinburgh with only 67k miles on it Malc. 😈
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404466927820

saw that while browsing this morning, I'll be up Edinburgh way in a couple of weeks and plan to have a look at the car if it's still for sale.

The ‘bouncy’ thing has more or less gone with tyres at 35psi, replacing the front shocks with OEM should eliminate it altogether. They have been ordered and are a far easier job to replace than the rears.
I have to say though that with KYB shocks all round the handling was excellent.
With softer OEM rear shocks the handling isn’t as good but I’d rather have the comfort. I will miss the improved handling, it really did handle well with KYB shocks all round and was like fitting ‘sport’ shocks.

Ordered 2 x new OEM rear shocks, received this week and fitted them both this morning.
From start to finish it took 3 hours.
I compared the OEM shocks to the KYB shocks, OEM are softer and not just a bit softer. I did a video of the 2 shocks which is below, OEM on the left and KYB on the right. I did spray paint the shiny metal bit before I fitted them to stop it rusting.
Few things I noticed, the OEM shocks are far better quality. Thicker and the bushings are bigger and better. The section where the spring seats has a thicker/different coating of paint which is a bit like rubberised paint. Pic below of the 2 x bushings as a comparison. The KYB bushes are showing signs of wear and they were only fitted in April. You get what you pay for in the end.
Took the car for a drive and I could instantly tell it was better, the acid test is on Monday morning when I drive down the same stretch of the M1 to Sheffield where I first noticed the oscillating bouncing issue but I’m pretty sure it will be better or gone altogether.
The ‘issue’ seemed to get worse, maybe because it was bugging me but I don’t think so. The more I drove the car the more convinced I was that it wasn’t right. I will be replacing the front shocks as well with OEM as soon as I can so they are all OEM.
With the KYB being ‘harder’ shocks no wonder the handling was a lot better and it was excellent with not much body roll at all, now I know why.
If you want excellent handling then fit KYB shocks but be prepared for the bouncing issue.
I suspect the issue I experienced is the ‘odd’ ride mentioned by Pete and the suspect ride mentioned by Number27 on YouTube on his LS400 with coil overs fitted.
 

25 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

Paul, you did go see the car then ?

Malc

No I didn't, couldn't go to see it yesterday. I can maybe go and see it at the weekend, 200 mile round trip though so will need to think about it.
The air strut thing on the MOT has put me off a bit to be honest, the condition of the car got me interested and I didn't look at the MOT history to start with.
Buying a car without any air strut issues and being prepared for the inevitable issues in the future is one thing, buying a car with existing air strut issues is another thing.
I think £6k is too much for me, even £5k is too much, given the air strut thing and the other stuff.
My head says at £3k it's probably worth a punt, because the condition looks really good, but not likely to get the car at that price.

I hadn't looked at the MOT history for the car until yesterday, it's usually the first thing I do and don't know why I didn't.

Dust covers - track rod end or tie rod ball joint covers - new ties rods approx £100 for both sides delivered from Amayama - no big deal.
New front tyres needed - outer wear maybe caused by tie rods or bottom ball joints or other suspension bits - could turn out to be expensive
Offside front shock absorber reduced damping effect - this could be very expensive and depends on what MOT tester means by 'reduced damping effect'.
So £6k could turn into £10k very quickly.
 

4 hours ago, Malc1 said:

a rubberised protective cover for the unit .  used to be expensive as bespoke for the car but now they produce a universal adjustable type unit covering ..  mine on my Ls400 cost £40 " all-up " a few months back

Malc

So it’s the rubber insulator/concertina protector for the standard shock absorbers in the screen shot below then?
This doesn’t apply to the air suspension shocks/struts for the LS430, the rubber protection is all part of the shock/strut. Or have I got it wrong?

What’s the dust cover thing?

1 hour ago, BigBoomer said:

Or buy 2 of these and fit them. Only £200 for each front air-strut.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175372956143 with a 2 year warranty.
Air suspension is only expensive if you buy OEM parts and pay Main Stealer labour prices.
It's what I will be fitting when any of mine die. Who wants to spend £4k on a car that's worth maybe a little more than that?
The gains over standard struts is worth it to me.

The suspension height looks fine to me, but the pictures are all angled so not easy to see.
 

That is a cracking price for the air struts, that makes a big difference to buying a LS430 or not. Just front struts though, is it the case that the front struts are more common to go bad compared to the rear struts?

22 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

Looks a peach from the photos.

Dust covers, tracking need to be checked. Also offside front shock absorbers ........ would this be connected to the air suspension? That could be expensive?

Does something not look right on the pictures with the suspension height?
I'm not very familiar with checking the air suspension, apart from checking if the suspension goes up and down.
Lot's of discussion about the air suspension and cost of around £4k for all 4 air suspension struts, 4 x normal/standard struts would cost around £1k anyway so it's £3k extra compared to normal/standard struts/shock absorbers.

As this is all about the LS430, what you think of this one for sale on Facebook?
I'm very tempted to have a look on my way home to Lancashire from Middlesbrough tomorrow.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/977410556943337/

50 minutes ago, jonthetourist said:

Much as he likes the 400, he says they are starting to see age-related issues now, particularly with electrics.

Yep, especially the brake/stop lights🤣

1 hour ago, Malc1 said:

might it be a tad simpler to just remove the dead bulbs and pop along to the Factor with bulbs in hand to replace 🙃

Malc

I’ve replaced all the bulbs with new ones that ‘should’ be in there. If the wrong bulb/s are in the car to start with, and it is entirely possible as illustrated with my car, when you take them to the motor factors for a replacement you will get the same bulbs which are not correct.
The point of my last post was to clarify what the configuration of the lights are, wiring/type of bulb fittings etc, and what type of bulbs ‘should’ be in the car so people can purchase the correct bulbs regardless of what bulbs are in the car.
It wasn’t an attempt to create a fancy/complicated/smarty pants way of bulb failure fault finding.

To add some clarity regarding which bulbs are required (single/dual) for the rear outer lights, and hopefully help other people, I’ve spent some time on my car with new bulbs and what I’ve found is below.
 

Outer Cluster wiring:
Top lights - 3 wires - wired/configured for dual filament bulb with dual filament fittings
Middle indicator lights - 2 wires - wired/configured for single filament bulb with single filament fittings
Bottom lights - 3 wires - wired/configured for dual filament bulb with dual filament fittings.
A light/bulb failure is detected by voltage differences in the Light Failure Module and not by a 3rd wire to the light bulb fitting, anyway there would be a 3rd wire to the indicators as well, which there isn’t.

The top and bottom lights need a dual filament 21/5w bulb and the middle indicator lights need a single filament 21w bulb.
Top lights use the 5w filament part of the bulb for the tail lights - 21w filament part is not used
Bottom lights use the 21w filament part of the bulb for the stop lights - 5w filament part is not used.
A single filament bulb does not fit into a dual filament holder. It can be forced in as it was on my car for one of the brake lights, causing one of the issues I had, but should not be used even though only one filament of the dual filament bulb is actually used.

The light clusters are wired etc for dual filament stop/tail in the top and bottom lights but not enabled on the car. They are separated, as described above, top for tail lights and bottom for stop lights. You still need to fit dual filament bulbs top and bottom even though not all the filaments are used.

53 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

So about a £squid bought a couple of the appropriate bulbs  ! 
Well done 👍 

Malc 

Thanks and yes, a few quid on bulbs when I order them tomorrow. Not sure about the cluster light fittings themselves so will swop them over.
I spent the last few days printing off circuit diagrams and trying to work out what could be the cause. A classic case of thinking it’s something complicated when in reality it’s not, can’t see the wood for the trees. I really should know better but when it’s yourself in the ‘situation’, logic and clear thinking sometimes goes out the window depending on what has happened.
I had established yesterday that 12 volts was being supplied to the stop lights, the grounding/earth was ok because the tail lights worked. In hindsight the cause was obvious yesterday but the penny didn’t drop until this afternoon.
And just imagine if I had got an auto electrician or Lexus to have a look, what a chump I would have looked🤣

2 hours ago, Supafly said:

It's still bright so the pictures aren't as clear as I would like.  The top pic is with the brake lights on and the bottom is sidelights on.

 

For clarity, the brakes are both lower outer and middle high.

Sidelights are upper outers.

Nice one, thank you for taking the time to do it👍

All in all it’s been a proper ‘cluster’ fluck🤣

Well……………..fitted the spare light clusters and all ok so it was the bulbs after all.
However, I checked the bulbs in the clusters in the car. One was indeed blown, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t blown when I checked last week but can’t be 100%. The other was a stop/tail bulb, didn’t fit properly in the light bulb fitting and didn’t work to begin with but was ok after a bit of tweaking.
I swopped both the bulbs from the spare light cluster and all is good now but the bulb socket on one side isn’t 100% so will order a complete set of bulbs and fit them to be sure.
After all that, it was just coincidence that the issue appeared just after I worked on the steering mechanism to grease it. I really couldn’t see how I had done anything or disturbed anything and it turned out I was right, no consolation but that’s life.
I could guess at what happened but I don’t care, it’s sorted now and I can relax.

Coincidence and thinking I had a bigger issue than I actually had caused all this.
At least I know how the lighting circuits work now and prompted me to buy a Power Probe which will be handy in future.
By the way, if the boot light bulb has blown or is disconnected the parking brake light will come on. That means the parking brake light ‘on’ can mean at least - parking brake still on - rear bulb gone - brake fluid low - boot light bulb gone or disconnected.

Thanks to everyone for their input, it’s appreciated and all this may help someone else.

5 hours ago, Supafly said:

I might have missed it, but have you checked for continuity across the bulb itself, or alternatively take it out and use two lengths of wire across the battery terminals to verify they both work?

 

Edit

Just re-read the thread and saw that you've confirmed that the bulbs are ok.

Mmmmh, I'm really doubting myself now........................I did check last week (I think) but it wasn't ideal dodging the showers so I will check again. I hope I've been a proper numpty and in the end it IS just the bulbs!!
I have a spare set of rear outer clusters, these were on the car when I bought it and all working. I swopped them because the lenses were cracked. Rather than taking the bulbs out of the existing clusters and checking them, I'll plug in the spare set and see what happens🤞
After thinking about it more, I think I only have 1 x issue which is 2 x stop lights out, one bulb either side in the outer clusters, when I thought I had 4 x stop lights out and 2 x tail lights
I thought the side lights and brake lights were on the boot lid as well and I figured all four bulbs cannot have gone at once plus 2 x tail lights but that is not the case I think, as said in the previous post on the boot lid there are 2 x single filament bulbs either side. I will check tonight but they must be for the fog lights, forgot about them, and reversing lights which both work.

1 hour ago, Supafly said:

I think the inner boot lid lights don't work on our UK cars.  I'll see if I can get a picture for you from my car this afternoon to confirm.

That would be great thanks
So that would mean the stop lights are only on the outer cluster and not on the boot lid lights.
That would make sense because iirc on the boot lid there are 2 x single filament bulbs either side, 1 x for tail light and 1 x for the reversing light

42 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

it's possibly just ancient wiring that's sadly piecemeal, in situ, fracturing slightly ......... and buggering about with it randomly just might be aggravating the fragility ..... suggest you try to find a competent AutoElectrician that understands what he's doing ....  believe me, many just don't and won't want to touch an aged car.

Lexus Main Dealer might have the same level of incompetence but considerably more expensive too

Good Luck

Malc

Possible Malc and highly likely, I'll check again today round the areas I was working on.
I've already found a local Auto Electrician in case I need them, going to do more looking and diags i.e. checking the rear light clusters when disconnected with 12volts (using a power probe which will arrive tomorrow) to make absolutely sure all the bulbs light up.
Power probes allow you apply 12volts to stuff easily and safely, something I was meaning to buy but never got round to it.

Just realised I have the USA electrical diagram so the pin outs for the Light Failure Module are different and therefore the wiring is different, must be cos they don't match the car.
Has anyone got the UK Electrical Diagram by any chance and can send me the stop light circuit diagram please?

Checked all round under the dash and I can’t see where I could have done anything untoward.
Boot linings out to get at all the wiring.
Checked thoroughly what does and doesn’t work.

Indicators - all ok
Fog lights - all ok - boot lid cluster? Can’t remember but they work.
Reverse lights on the boot lid clusters - all ok
Outer tail lights - ok

Inner boot lid tail lights - not ok
Inner boot lid stop lights - not ok - if there are any and maybe the stop lights are just on the outer cluster - I can’t remember.
Outer cluster stop lights - not ok

So on with checking voltages etc.
4 pin connector to each outer light cluster and disconnected to the light cluster - I have 12 volts on one pin on both outer light clusters when the brake pedal is depressed and 12 volts on another pin with the side lights switched on. The other pin will be the indicator, I didn’t check but will do tomorrow.
Same with the clusters connected and there is ground/earth. There is resistance to earth of 220 ohms iirc with the Light Failure Module connected on the 12volt pins but this goes iirc with the module disconnected. I did a lot of testing and should have wrote it all down but I’ll do that tomorrow.
I was mainly looking at the 12 volt supply to the light clusters and bulbs and there is 12 volts but the bulbs don’t illuminate. And yes I have checked the bulbs for continuity.
I’m a bit puzzled now cos I expected no 12 volts supply to the stop lights but there is.
The plan now is:
Tomorrow redo all the testing I did today and document it all exactly.
Plug in the laptop with Techstream and run a diags test and see what it says, I don’t expect much. Laptop was at work over the weekend so couldn’t do it. I have it back today but wanted to do some basic testing first.
Wednesday a used Light Failure Module should arrive, will fit it and see if that cures it.
If not then it will be time for an auto electrician or take it to Lexus for some diags.
If anyone has any advice or thoughts or suggestions based on what I’ve done and checked then please let me know, it would be appreciated.

12 minutes ago, Supafly said:

Too much of a coincidence that they stopped working after you were working on it....

Yep, that was my initial thought but I only removed the lower covers - steering column cowling - the air/vent ducting and disconnected the aircon air sensor thing and rubber hose.
I've had all that off before except for the air/vent ducting and there isn't any wiring in the way that I had to move, unplug or disturb really.
I'll see what I find after work today, it could have been just coincidence but my gut/instinct tells me it's not..................