Supafly

A beautiful outcome, the car looks amazing. Thank you for sharing your project with us 🙂

When it's warm and cuts out, is there still fuel pressure in the system? Does it fire right up when cold or does it need to crank for a while first?

I'm fortunate to only have slight hazing, which I'll be addressing soon. This was 100% the bulbs, I wasn't aware that they 'fade' but it was very noticeable when driving, when looking at the lights from outside they didn't seem dim or anything like that. When driving in the dark you could tell that there wasn't any actual output. Really hard to describe, they're switched on and stood in front of the car looking at them nothing seems amiss, headlights look bright, but when in the car it was as though they'd lost about 50% of the light output, the road and shrubs etc weren't well lit. To the point I had to slow down to make safe progress. With new bulbs it was instantly noticeable how much more light they produced, and how bad the old bulbs had become.

I didn't know that this happened and found out with my LS400. On the way back through the new forest I was struggling to see as well as I usually could and over the next few weeks one of the lights started to develop a slight purple tinge. I bit the bullet and bought two phillips hid bulbs at almost £100! (the most I've ever paid for bulbs). The difference was amazing and clearly showed how my previous bulbs had degraded to becoming almost useless. When I bought the car the lights were great and I noticed the degradation came about very quickly over the course of a month.

Everything I've read about poly on LS's have all commented on more NVH. For some it was fine and a welcome improvement (usually combined with coilovers etc), for others it took away from the levels of comfort they were used to, and they either did switch to oem or wanted to. I haven't read once that it was the same as oem.

I've seen with my own eyes, more LS430's with the rear on the floor than the front. Not exactly an expert opinion with a large sample size but considering how few of these there are and how many I've seen (6 or 7) that are sitting incorrectly it's significant to me. I think I read a while ago that you can get oem parts to retrofit traditional coil spring suspension from the early production years.

When I bought my car the seller told me that new front (aftermarket) pads had just been fitted, they lasted less than 15 000 miles. The genuine lexus pads I installed have lasted over 40 000 miles and the braking is noticeably better than the old aftermarket pads. I couldn't make out the brand when I removed them. The lexus pads do have a very low grumble from the front when braking gently at very low speeds, I've read a few comments that owners have noticed the same on newer lexus pads. Maybe a manufacturer/pad composition change?

Thank you for the update, happy to see that the issue is resolved for you 🙂 I'll have to triple check mine...

I've done this in the past many times, the last one was a misfire when warm on my bmw e30. I changed gaskets, seals, afm, tps etc trying to chase. Turns out it was a dodgy set of NGK plugs that I had just recently fitted. I consistently ignored them because I knew they were new, and didn't think that they could be faulty. I only solved the issue after checking everything else then finding that Bosch plugs were oem in the manual, once I switched to a new set of Bosch plugs the problem was fixed. Ever since then I'll throw time and money at the basics then go into deeper fault finding. Really happy for you that it was a simple fix in the end. Leaves more time for all the other things life throws at us! 🙂

I had one fail a while ago. I was surprised to find how dirty the lenses were for the number plate lights. I took them apart and cleaned them, it made a big difference to how bright the illumination was.

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.

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.

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. Power probe was going to be my suggestion too, I'm the same, I have them on watch lists but haven't bought on yet. I've been able to get by with a multi meter for now. I think I should get one ordered too just in case.

Watching this with interest, I did the same a while ago but I get squealing from the rear when gently braking in reverse. Have lived with it but if there's anything obvious to check I'll have a look when I get round to doing other work on the car. I think mine is mainly OSR. I reused the shims and thought that might be the cause. The pads have a chamfer on both edges so doubt it's that.

Too much of a coincidence that they stopped working after you were working on it.... However, it's happened to me many a time where I think it's the basics/obvious but then turns out to be something entirely different. I think your logical approach should have the mystery solved quickly... fingers crossed of course! 🙂