bargain bucket big boy bruiser cruiser - Lexus GS300
Discussion
Window tint on order!
I've gone for legal 70% LVT for the front windows
And a suitably shady 30% on the rear... I refrained from the 1% chrome limo spec... Haha.
Should arrive before the end of the week, ready for fitting on Friday or over the weekend!
I feel like a disappointment for not going full murderer spec on this car, matt black wrap, matt black wheels and 1% black window tint all over....
I've gone for legal 70% LVT for the front windows
And a suitably shady 30% on the rear... I refrained from the 1% chrome limo spec... Haha.
Should arrive before the end of the week, ready for fitting on Friday or over the weekend!
I feel like a disappointment for not going full murderer spec on this car, matt black wrap, matt black wheels and 1% black window tint all over....
Edited by Ambleton on Tuesday 30th August 21:32
Another thing that was annoying me about the Lexus was the grill. In general it was okay, but it just looked a bit tired, no surprise after 18 years!
So I gave it a bit of a refresh!
Straight off the car!
After a clean, and scour, time to mask up...
After one or two light coats..
All the black on...
After a couple of coats of matt lacquer...
And fitted!
So I gave it a bit of a refresh!
Straight off the car!
After a clean, and scour, time to mask up...
After one or two light coats..
All the black on...
After a couple of coats of matt lacquer...
And fitted!
Ambleton said:
I found a little push button on the end of the stalk. I gave it a little push and the washers fired into life.
WHY ARENT ALL CAR CONTROLS THE SAME! On my other cars when you pull the wiper stalk towards you, it washes and wipes. On the plus side I know there's a new pump on there, and a spare that is almost certainly working. On the downside I spent an hour and a half messing around when I could have been doing something else.
Lesson learned RTFM!
Ha ha, picked up a 1990 LS400 for £800 last year, on the drive home I decided the washer wasn't working. Spent a lot of time listening if the washer motor was working before finding it wasn't a pull wash too, not quite as bad right enough!WHY ARENT ALL CAR CONTROLS THE SAME! On my other cars when you pull the wiper stalk towards you, it washes and wipes. On the plus side I know there's a new pump on there, and a spare that is almost certainly working. On the downside I spent an hour and a half messing around when I could have been doing something else.
Lesson learned RTFM!
Only had it for 5 months but they fairly get under your skin as barges. Definitely planning to get back in another Lexus some day. Traded it in for £800 too, had paid about £70 to refurb a wheel and however much oil, a filter and an air filter was.
carinaman said:
Thanks for the update. I'm not sure I'd have got that actuator apart and back together again.
MPG doesn't sound too bad either.
The actuator housing was a bit of a ball ache to be honest. The trick is to keep your patience, cutting a little deeper on each pass of the Stanley blade. MPG doesn't sound too bad either.
The temptation is to localise your efforts to one area, then once you're through, bosh in a big flat head screwdriver and open it up like a tin'o'beans.
Problem with this is the housing material is actually very brittle and will break easily, scattering the mechanism bits to the wind.
Once id done the first one, the second was much easier.
Ambleton said:
Window tint on order!
I've gone for legal 70% LVT for the front windows
And a suitably shady 30% on the rear...
Will this not put you under the 70%/75% required for the front windows? There will be some factory tint in the window anyway which will act in concert with the 70% LVT.I've gone for legal 70% LVT for the front windows
And a suitably shady 30% on the rear...
You might be right... I'll see what its like when it turns up...
If it "looks okay" I might hedge my bets. I'm not not going to put any film on the windscreen, just the side windows. Still unsure in the rear screen whether to tint or not... I'll review when I'm doing it. Again, ebay specials, so not the end of the world if it looks crap and I end up binning it all anyway. Think the total spend was something like £17....
If it "looks okay" I might hedge my bets. I'm not not going to put any film on the windscreen, just the side windows. Still unsure in the rear screen whether to tint or not... I'll review when I'm doing it. Again, ebay specials, so not the end of the world if it looks crap and I end up binning it all anyway. Think the total spend was something like £17....
EJH said:
maybe a whiff of golf club gangsta
What's your point? shalmaneser said:
What a lovely big bus!
Excellent bit on hands-on work going on too!
Cheers! There's something deeply satisfying about returning something to its once former glory. In general its very good, but with a little effort, and very little outlay, can be made excellent!Excellent bit on hands-on work going on too!
I dread to think of the cost of this was new in 1998.
Edited by Ambleton on Thursday 1st September 22:46
Well the window tint arrived this morning and I had a go at fitting it tonight. As far as window tinting goes you have 3 options.
1) pay someone else to do it
2) don't do it
3) try and do it yourself, swear at it a lot, end up throwing 95% of it away, and ending up with a tolerable finish.
I started with the 30% on the rear door windows. Actually, this wasn't too bad and I got the hang of this pretty well.
After id successfully done the rear door windows, I got a bit cockey and thought id try my luck qt the rear windscreen...
The angle of the rear screen is surprisingly shallow and I ended up sticking the film to itself and everything apart from the window. I threw that one away and had another go using a slightly different tactic. The outcome of this was exactly the same as the first attempt. So I threw that away too (~3.5m if tint film) and gave up. Now I'm going to go down to the pub... Anyway, the rear doors are done and look good in my opinion.
I welcome the comments of hate and chav tat - bring it on you miserable bunch of f
kers!
1) pay someone else to do it
2) don't do it
3) try and do it yourself, swear at it a lot, end up throwing 95% of it away, and ending up with a tolerable finish.
I started with the 30% on the rear door windows. Actually, this wasn't too bad and I got the hang of this pretty well.
After id successfully done the rear door windows, I got a bit cockey and thought id try my luck qt the rear windscreen...
The angle of the rear screen is surprisingly shallow and I ended up sticking the film to itself and everything apart from the window. I threw that one away and had another go using a slightly different tactic. The outcome of this was exactly the same as the first attempt. So I threw that away too (~3.5m if tint film) and gave up. Now I'm going to go down to the pub... Anyway, the rear doors are done and look good in my opinion.
I welcome the comments of hate and chav tat - bring it on you miserable bunch of f
kers!Well I've just ordered a pair of clear side repeaters for the wings as the orange ones are a bit "in your face".
These were standard on a lot of Toyotas including the Carolla, Supra, Rav4 etc, and also a standard fitment on the Lexus RX 4x4 of the later era... the first gen ones had the side repeaters on the bumper.
Hopefully will make an improvement to the looks.
These were standard on a lot of Toyotas including the Carolla, Supra, Rav4 etc, and also a standard fitment on the Lexus RX 4x4 of the later era... the first gen ones had the side repeaters on the bumper.
Hopefully will make an improvement to the looks.
I hereby hand in my PH membership card...
I don't like admitting to this, but the Lexus is currently at the local garage for the following works:
Cambelt
Primary tensioner
Auxiliary belt
Water pump
Wheel balancing
Tracking
Full service
The cambelt was only changed 35k miles ago, in 2004, which makes the cambelt 12 years old, 6 years beyond its recommended interval!
The cost of all these works is almost exactly the same cost of the vehicle, but to be honest, its well worth it in my opinion. The garage are taking their sweet time about it too and have made up various excuses.
In the mean time I have been using the C2 to travel the 57miles each way to work every day. Its a fun little car, but its like being in a washing machine on full spin and gets pretty tiring....
Over the course of the week, ive averaged 39.2mpg in the C2, which is pretty shocking really as the Lexus gets 31.6mpg and is almost twice the engine capacity, 50% more cylinders and almost twice as heavy!!
Whilst ive had the Citroen, the garage has given my wife a Smart ForTwo (mk1) to use. The engine is pretty awful, the gearbox is a very slow 6spd sequential, but it is hilarious to drive! And quite fun really, in an odd sort of way!
I don't like admitting to this, but the Lexus is currently at the local garage for the following works:
Cambelt
Primary tensioner
Auxiliary belt
Water pump
Wheel balancing
Tracking
Full service
The cambelt was only changed 35k miles ago, in 2004, which makes the cambelt 12 years old, 6 years beyond its recommended interval!
The cost of all these works is almost exactly the same cost of the vehicle, but to be honest, its well worth it in my opinion. The garage are taking their sweet time about it too and have made up various excuses.
In the mean time I have been using the C2 to travel the 57miles each way to work every day. Its a fun little car, but its like being in a washing machine on full spin and gets pretty tiring....
Over the course of the week, ive averaged 39.2mpg in the C2, which is pretty shocking really as the Lexus gets 31.6mpg and is almost twice the engine capacity, 50% more cylinders and almost twice as heavy!!
Whilst ive had the Citroen, the garage has given my wife a Smart ForTwo (mk1) to use. The engine is pretty awful, the gearbox is a very slow 6spd sequential, but it is hilarious to drive! And quite fun really, in an odd sort of way!
With the lexus now my daily hack and commuter vehicle shes covering nearly 600 per week. It soon makes it grotty in this weather!
The other thing that I thought would be quite handy was some reversing sensors. I've never had a problem reversing cars, but the Lexus is a big old bus, and frankly I have no idea where the back is. Ive found myself kissing a few other bumpers very lightly whilst reversing, so I ordered a £10 ebay special kit....
Job one was to just have a look and see how tricky the job was. Issue number one, you take power from the reversing light. In the lexus you cant access the bulbs from inside the boot, you have to remove the entire light cluster....
As soon as I ascertained which cables I was after (in this case red with blue stripe and black with white stripe) then it could go back together and I could splice it in within the boot...
Next up I had a look underneath. The rear crash bar was right where I planned to fit the sensors, so I had to put them as high as I could on the bumper before the crease to avoid a clash. Whilst down there I looked for the closest penetration into the trunk. Suprisingly, the closest accesible one was the one in the wheel well, so I chose to use it...I marked out where the centres should be and drilled pilot holes...
Then the full size holes...
A little more poking with a normal large drill made cavities in the polystyrene for the sensor body and wiring...
All in place!
Next job was to route and wrap the cables into a bunch...
Through the grommet ant route under some trim to a void where I was fitting the box...
Splice in the power cable...
At this point I connected it all up to check if it worked! It did so I ran the speaker cable under the boot carpet and in behind under one of the rear seats, tucking the cable under various trim until I got to the front seat. I have placed the speaker underneath the drivers seat, which seems to work well.
I now need to take her down to the local car wash place. In the summer, I'd happily wash her myself, but for a fiver, my local hand car wash can do it for me, while I sit in the car with classic fm on....
The other thing that I thought would be quite handy was some reversing sensors. I've never had a problem reversing cars, but the Lexus is a big old bus, and frankly I have no idea where the back is. Ive found myself kissing a few other bumpers very lightly whilst reversing, so I ordered a £10 ebay special kit....
Job one was to just have a look and see how tricky the job was. Issue number one, you take power from the reversing light. In the lexus you cant access the bulbs from inside the boot, you have to remove the entire light cluster....
As soon as I ascertained which cables I was after (in this case red with blue stripe and black with white stripe) then it could go back together and I could splice it in within the boot...
Next up I had a look underneath. The rear crash bar was right where I planned to fit the sensors, so I had to put them as high as I could on the bumper before the crease to avoid a clash. Whilst down there I looked for the closest penetration into the trunk. Suprisingly, the closest accesible one was the one in the wheel well, so I chose to use it...I marked out where the centres should be and drilled pilot holes...
Then the full size holes...
A little more poking with a normal large drill made cavities in the polystyrene for the sensor body and wiring...
All in place!
Next job was to route and wrap the cables into a bunch...
Through the grommet ant route under some trim to a void where I was fitting the box...
Splice in the power cable...
At this point I connected it all up to check if it worked! It did so I ran the speaker cable under the boot carpet and in behind under one of the rear seats, tucking the cable under various trim until I got to the front seat. I have placed the speaker underneath the drivers seat, which seems to work well.
I now need to take her down to the local car wash place. In the summer, I'd happily wash her myself, but for a fiver, my local hand car wash can do it for me, while I sit in the car with classic fm on....
Well I managed to bin the lexus yesterday on the way home from work. It suffered only minor damage, but enough not to make it economical to think about a repair. I was accelerating out of a village up to NSL around a long sweeping bend and the back unexpectedly just went in a huge fashion and I speared off into a farmers field. I had enough momentum to clear a ditch at the side of the road and punch a hole clean through the hedge and barbed wire fence into the field.
Having evaluated everything I was incredibly lucky and must have hit the sweet spot. Any faster and I'd have caused more damage to the car, possibly firing the airbags. Any slower and I could've gone into the ditch or stuck in the hedge, and if I'd hit the ditch sideways I would almost have certainly rolled it!
After locating and speaking with the farmer, who didn't seem to care at all apart from wether it was the field with sheep in (it wasnt) I threw everything that had fallen off in the boot, used a couple of zip ties to secure the plastic under tray, opened up the gate and drove home!
The lexus looks like it just bumped into a hedge, but if you look at the hedge you think a juggernaut hit it at 100mph plus!
As I was evaluating the scene and taking photos, I saw a bmw and a merc do almost exactly the same thing! Just walking up and down the road you could feel it was very greasy and slimy under foot.
Having evaluated everything I was incredibly lucky and must have hit the sweet spot. Any faster and I'd have caused more damage to the car, possibly firing the airbags. Any slower and I could've gone into the ditch or stuck in the hedge, and if I'd hit the ditch sideways I would almost have certainly rolled it!
After locating and speaking with the farmer, who didn't seem to care at all apart from wether it was the field with sheep in (it wasnt) I threw everything that had fallen off in the boot, used a couple of zip ties to secure the plastic under tray, opened up the gate and drove home!
The lexus looks like it just bumped into a hedge, but if you look at the hedge you think a juggernaut hit it at 100mph plus!
As I was evaluating the scene and taking photos, I saw a bmw and a merc do almost exactly the same thing! Just walking up and down the road you could feel it was very greasy and slimy under foot.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff