DruLS

Well I spent the past 24 hours looking for my keys to test my repair. Finally found them thank god. The epoxy didn't work, broke off right away. Instead I just taped up the arm for the height sensor to the ARB so it's in a high position. The struts inflated right away so thankfully no damage to them.

It's already smothered in JB Weld. I'm just going to replace the arm. They're not too expensive from the US. I'm just hoping I can reuse the height sensors. I think they're about £350 a piece.

That's what I was planning on doing. I've had a situation before where I've had the car jacked up off all fours, and when lowered it just bottomed out until the compressor filled the bags back up. Had that with both cars so must just be a quirk these cars have. I wonder if there's a correct procedure to jack these up. I know some cars with air ride have it.

Car is already jacked up so it's not sitting on the bags.

Also not sure why both sides went down. The mount on the other side was on it's way out but was still connected. This JB weld thing is just a proof of concept. If it holds up once it's set then I know it was just the disconnected sensor. If I can confirm that, that's when I'll start ordering parts.

As far as I can tell, the mounting points on the lateral arm had just corroded away meaning the sensor became disconnected. The other side is still on there but is corroding away. I've just put some JB weld on there for now which should hopefully hold. Rock Auto seem to stock these parts pretty cheap so I'm going to order replacement parts from them.

It's snapped off here at the control arm. So looks like I'll need to replace that. I'm going to JB weld it into place for now, just to confirm that's the only issue. Of course that can't be a permanent fix.

Just had a look under the car and it appears the height sensor has come off it's mounting. That would explain the issue. Thank God it's not a bad strut.

Sounds like good news, if it is indeed that. I'm a bit busy today, and it's kind of cold. But it's much warmer later in the week so I'll get it up in the air and see what I can see.

I thought that but if it was the compressor wouldn't the front end have dropped as well?

Going to get it up in the air today and see if I can figure out what's wrong with it.

Those are the ones from Rock Auto right? How are you finding them? I'm not too worried about replacing struts. Never worked on air suspension but replaced shock/springs many times. A lot of people on LS430 FB groups seem to think it's a broken sensor anyway so let's hope it's that.

Just what I need. Wouldn't it be unusual for both to fail at the same time though? I did post this on a FB group and I'm having a mix of people telling me it's the struts and others saying it could be a height sensor.

Hi everyone, Some bad news I'm afraid. While taking a drive today I noticed the ride quality suddenly became very stiff and bouncy. Imagine super cheap coilovers. I was bouncing around in my seat so I knew something wasn't right. I pulled into my destination and saw that the rear end on both sides it very low. Almost as if the struts are not holding air at all. The fronts appear to be fine. At first I was worried that the struts may have gone bad. However this happened on both sides at the same time, and the car only has 100k on it which seems low for a strut failure. Here's a picture to give you an idea of what it looks like: As you can see the rear end is completely bottomed out. No warning lights came on. I also did a full scan with TechSteam and saw no codes relating to suspension. Do any of you have any idea of where I can start looking? I'm hoping it's just something simple like a failed air line. Does anybody know if both rear struts are fed by one line? That would explain the issue I guess. I'm going to get it up in the air soon to see if I can see anything wrong but I've never worked on the suspension on one of these. If anybody can provide any tips or if you have an idea of what may have caused this I'd really appreciate your input. Many thanks

It'll take some elbow grease but at least it won't be too harsh on the paint. If that doesn't work (I'm assuming this is water based paint?) - if so you could try using acetone (or nail polish remover which is just a weaker acetone). Just make sure to wash it off immediately as it will start to eat into paint, but in my experience contact over short periods of times doesn't do any damage.

Oh no, have you tried using a clay bar? Hopefully that will work and you won't have to resort to something a bit more harsh. Or just finish the job and respray the entire car using the same paint 😂

It's on today's list, I did the front yesterday. I'm trying to space out my chores 🤣

So I came outside yesterday to find both tyres completely flat again, even on the one where I provided a replacement wheel I know to be good. So I had to have somebody come out for a third time to take a look. It appears there was corrosion as suspected, especially on the one we didn't replace. It appeared no effort was taken to try and remove it on any of the other visits. The paint was pealing and flaking right off, there's no way a tyre would have made a good seal on that surface. The guy that came today actually took photos to report it to the other guy's manager as obviously this wasn't acceptable. I was using tyresonthedrive.com. I've used them for years and never before had any issue like this with them, I recommend them to everyone. Instead of trying to clean it up I just handed him over another spare rim I had which was much cleaner. He cleaned them both up and added some sealant. The replacement does have a slight buckle but nothing that can't be evened out with some weights. Hopefully when I go outside tomorrow I'll find they're still holding air. I don't fancy buying a new set of wheels at the moment. If I do buy a new set of wheels they won't be Lexus. I've had nothing but trouble with these wheels and I've had 3 sets of them. Two of the tyre fitters I spoke to told me Lexus wheels were not great. Surprising seeing how everything else on the car is so well made. In other news, I've had to get in touch with the company that built my exhaust for my last LS. I have it and want to fit it to my new one, but I can't use stock gaskets because they cut off the original flange on the cats and welded new ones on. I guess they did this so it would fit the flanges they have for the exhaust side, rather then trying to make ones that match up to the cats or use the old rusty flanges from the original exhaust. Also took advantage of the weather and treated it to some snow foam. I cleaned up the manky floor mats with the jet washer too. They came up looking much better then before. Hopefully they won't take too long to dry out. Tomorrow I think I'll finish off cleaning it, and wire up my dashcam and GROM-USB3 which I've been putting off for too long.

So just me then 😆 I didn't have the strength left to dance! I'm sure all the neighbours wondered what on earth I was doing smacking my own car with a sledgehammer though. Probably thought I went made under lockdown conditions haha.

Tyres are now all fixed. One of them actually had a crack in it which was causing it to leak. The other just had dirt around the valve that needed cleaning. Luckily I had an old set of wheels from my last LS so we just replaced the cracked one with one of those. It seems these Lexus wheels have a problem with cracking. I had a wheel on my last one get cracks along every spoke.

I'm going to be sore tomorrow, even with a massive sledge hammer it took some beating. Looking much better now. You can see how much rust is on the back of these. I'm guessing I loosened up the other one because that came off with a few whacks with the hammer. But the passenger side took a good 5 or 10 minutes if smacking it, and this was no small sledge hammer. On another note, when I bought the car I noticed two of the tyres were leaking. Pretty annoying as I have to top them up for each journey. Thinking it was a puncture I treated the car to a nice set of Goodyear Eagle F1s but unfortunately it's still doing it. I sprayed them with soapy water and it looks like they're leaking from the rim. Do you think this could just be corrosion that can be cleaned up or am I looking at a new set of wheels? I was going to change out the ATF but I couldn't get the fill plug loose. It's a 24mm bolt but there's not enough room to get a socket in there. I bought an offset spanner like this, but it just slips off the bolt: Does anybody know where I can get a similar spanner that's a 6 point instead of a 12 or whatever this one is? Another thing I've always wondered, any idea why the car goes all gangsta lean after it's been lifted off the ground for a while? My old one did it too. Are my struts leaking or is this just something they do? (It never does it on the ground, even when left parked).

Well thank you very much 😀Yesterday was my last day of working due to redundancy, and with the lockdown I have to keep myself busy somehow otherwise I'll go stir crazy!

Haven't been able to listen to music in the car as the rear sub was blown. Ordered a new surround replacement kit from the US. Bad news is, once I removed the sub I tried to stereo to see how it sounds and it's still distorted. Looks like the drivers side speaker has the same issue also. I've ordered another repair kit but it has to come from the US so they'll be a wait on that.

I actually ordered some PB Blaster already. Usually only sold in the US but I found a UK seller, should be here tomorrow. It's supposed to eat through the rust. Never tried it so lets see if it works. Either way I've ordered a 14lb sledge hammer and a brace disc puller - that's going to be my last resort as it was quite expensive. Hopefully I can hammer it out and return the puller. Doubt I'll ever need it again.

Yep. One stripped the threads out, the other broke a piece of the disc off. You can see that on the left hand side of the disc.