SC430 Engine Bay Cleanup

After doing some suspensions components on a Saturday, the alignment was completely off so I didn't drive it. Since the car was at the shop anyway and I since I couldn't get an alignment till Monday I thought it would be best to clean out the engine bay.

The engine bay and under carriage never looked like it was ever touched. I know there is a slight oil leak which I believe is coming from the valve cover gaskets. Cleaning the engine bay would help me locate the leak better. It looks like the leak has been existing for awhile now, there was oil buildup everywhere it seemed. 

On inspection I found a leak coming from the oil feed line from the power steering reservoir and the power steering pump. So swapped that out before I started on the cleanup. 

I used the following tools:

- Purple Power 1 Gallon 

- Long bristle brush

- Red scuff pad

- Grey Scuff pad

- Pressure Washer

I had the car on a lift when doing this because I wanted to tackle the bottom of the car too, there was oil build up there as well, possibly trickling down from the valve cover gaskets over time. Make sure the car is not cool to the touch, when purple power is sprayed on to a warm engine it dries up almost instantly leaving a residue behind. You don't want that, you want it to penetrate the grease etc by letting it sit there and agitating it a little to help it through. A warm engine is not going to allow you to do that.

With the engine cooled down and on the lift, I took all the covers off. Engine cover, air box and intake piping. Before I forgot to, I went ahead and removed the MAF off the piping and there is a vacuum solenoid on the piping that I took off too. All the loose connectors and vacuum lines I took off I wrapped in plastic and taped it up. Also taped up the throttle body to prevent water from getting in. On the underside of the car I took all the covers off as well. 

With everything prepped I sprayed the engine down with purple power, I did the underside first, sprayed on, let it sit for about 10 minutes and agitated it with the brush to help loosen the grease up. With the pressure washer I sprayed everything off, I could see a huge difference already. All the oil build up was washed away. I did the same to the engine bay from up top. The pressure washer definitely helps to knock away the loosened build up from all the nicks and crannies. 

I let it drip dry for a bit while I addressed all the covers too. I didn't let the purple stuff sit on for a long time on the plastics. Sprayed it on, agitated it with the brush and immediately rinsed it off. There wasn't that much build up on the plastics except for the bottom tray. Looked like new once finished. Some areas in the bay needed a little more attention so sprayed those areas down again and worked the brush and pressure washed it a little bit more.

When I looked under the car again, all the build up is gone but then I saw a thin layer of dust that was baked on for some reason on the parts. The pic below shows the dust on the inside of the dust shield, lower control arm etc and it gives off a greyish appearance. The caster arm and the tie rods look fresh because they were just replaced yesterday.

Sprayed a little more purple power on there and scrubbed it with a red pad and grey pad. Red pad where metal was not smooth, like the lower control arm and grey pad where it was like the dust shield. Did the scrub down to most of the underside really, sub frame, oil pan, transmission pan, steering rack, sway bars, inner fender well liners etc. I did the underside rinsed it off with the pressure washer, did the left fender liners front and back, rinsed off and proceeded to do the same on the right fender liners. Scrubbing it down made a big difference, the baked on layers of dust etc broke down and the suspension pieces are all black again. Even the fender liner is black and not greyish anymore.

I used compressed air to blow out all the water from the engine bay, especially from all the connectors. With the MAF out I used some MAF cleaner to clean that out as well before assembly.

I sprayed on some conditioner for the hoses onto a rag and wiped the hoses and fender well down but I'll end up putting on a water based protectant on the engine covers etc once I finish all the maintenance and a final rinse in the engine bay. 

-AJ Abraham

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SC430 Suspension Overhaul

My SC430 is a 2002, 13 years old and when I got it I had already planned on doing suspensions maintenance. On my 2nd Gen GS after lowering the car and putting wheels I spent a lot of time chasing down the source of an annoying vibration I had between 65 and 70mph. I changed each suspension component at a time to see what would help it and with each component I changed it got better and better till it was no more. Huge thanks to the members of Club Lexus back in the day that reported similar issues and helped narrow my issue down. The SC430 shares a lot of the GS suspension components and so everything I did on the GS I wanted to do on the SC, but not in increments. Wanted it all said and done at the same time, and since a lot of them are interlinked it made more sense to do it at the same time.

These are the components I've changed:

Moog inner tie rods EV800543 x 2

Moog Outer tie rod Left ES80585

Moog Outer tie rod Right ES80584

Moog Ball joint Left K500102

Moog Ball joint Right K500101

Figs steering rack bushing

Figs #2 caster arm bushing.

Along with the above components the engine mounts and the transmission mounts need to be changed as well which I will do the next time I get a chance. I want to upgrade the sway bars in the near future so will do the sway bar end links then too.

I don't think these components have been changed since the day it left the factory 13 years ago!! Wow was it a bi**h. The tie rod ends were definitely shot, the boot was torn and grease all over the place, the ball joints were shot, boots torn, grease all over the place, the inner tie rod would flop with gravity, the steering rack bushings didn't look bad they were starting to separate at the edge a little from the metal collar and the caster arm bushings didn't look that bad either, slight tears in the bushings but not torn through like on my old GS. Although the bushings looked fine my tires showed inner camber wear just on the inner 1 inch which is usually caused by the caster bushing. I'm really glad I did end up doing everything that I planned on, it definitely needed it. 

I don't get to work on my car on a daily basis so to move things along quicker I got a used set of arms to press out the old bushings and press in the new bushings. Fold in the lip on one side press out the old bushing and press in the Fig's bushing. The pic shows only the press in bushing installed, the metal sleeve has to be greased and put in along with the end caps. I waited till the day of install to grease it and assemble it all together. The metal sleeve can be hand pressed in so no big deal but the grease is really sticky so didn't want it being exposed to other elements. 

When I got the chance to install the rest of my components it was all remove and replace. Still took like 4 hours to do all of it, everything seemed like it was seized on there. the locking nut between the inner and outer tie rod did not want to budge, I took both out attached, took it to a bench vise and was able to remove the outer tie rod end but not the nut in between. I ended up cutting the nut on either sides just to get it off to get the rubber boots off for the new tie rods. The ball joints took an exuberant amount of force to pop. The only thing that went smoothly was the steering rack bushing and the already pre-assembled caster arm.

Comparison of the old and new tie rods:

The ball joints were in the same condition, forgot to take a pick of it before I cussed at it a few times and threw it!

Out with the old:

In with the new:

I took measurements of the length of the tie rods and matched it up to the new ones hoping to get by till I got an alignment on Monday but that definitely didn't work out. Driving the car, it was all over the place so I'm not driving it till I get it aligned and can update then.

Also in hindsight I should have washed the underside and engine bay to get rid of the old oil buildup mainly from the valve cover gasket that I can see, hopefully it's just that. I think I might also have a slight leak from my power steering line where it meets the power steering. I'll probably clean the engine bay and underside before I continue with any other changes, it should better help me pinpoint leaks.

-AJ Abraham

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SC430 Cheap Big Brake Upgrade.

The SC430 shares a lot if the characteristics of the 2nd gen GS as far as suspensions goes. A great relatively cheap upgrade to the GS that I've wanted to do in the past on my 2ng Gen GS was to put the LS400 brakes on. The LS400 brakes are made from aluminium, so they are lighter, they have double the pistons and the best bang for your buck when it comes to brake upgrades. Since I never got around to doing it on the GS and since I'm a hoarder I had some LS400 calipers that have been sitting that would be perfect for the SC. 

I hate doing stuff twice, I'd rather take my time and do it once and do it right. Since these brakes have been sitting and almost 15 years old I figured it was a good time to rebuild it and give it a little freshening up. Fairly easy to do, a rebuild kit for about $25 to $30 and a little bit of time definitely puts my mind at ease. 

Use air pressure to pop pistons out, you don't have to split the brakes apart but I did just to clean it up better. Replaced all the seals, o rings, boot covers, locks, lubed everything up and pressed the pistons back in. 

I think I spent more time cleaning it, than rebuilding it. In retrospect I should have media blasted the outside (do not media blast or try to brush where the pistons sit), it would've been faster. 

Prepped, masked and etch primed it and now ready for some color.

-AJ Abraham

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SC430 Power Steering flush

Been driving the SC for a couple of days now and I've noticed the power steering is a little sticky when turning right. The oil in it of course was a dirty brown so a flush was in order.

This is the process I used and I'm in no way shape or form liable for anything that happens by following this process.

1 - Put the car on jack stands/jacks in the front so the tires are not touching the ground. Had access to a manual vacuum pump so used that to drain the power steering fluid out of the reservoir.

Once the reservoir was empty I dumped about 8oz of the Seafoam Trans tune in the reservoir. This gets the liquid level up to the cool min mark. The reservoir as you can see is filthy on the inside so much so that you cannot see the fluid level in it.

2 - With the trans tune in the reservoir switch the key to the ACC position (don't start the car). Turn the wheel lock to lock (left to right) about 10 to 15 times just to make sure if any air got into the system bleeds out. Air in the system will definitely mess up your power steering pump.

3 - Once that is done go ahead and crank the car up. Every 5 minutes or so turn the wheel from lock to lock at a medium pace (just don't do it fast) about 10 times (left 10 and right 10). I left the car running for about 30 minutes and did this every 5 minutes.What you are doing here at this point is letting the trans tune break down any build up etc in the steering rack as it circulates through the power steering.

4 - Switch the ignition off and you are going to proceed with flushing the system. I wanted to take the reservoir out and clean it because it was dirty. If you don't want to do this you can proceed to step 5 .

Vacuum the oil out of the reservoir again and pull the two lines that are connected to the reservoir off. Oil is definitely going to still come out because you won't be able to get all the oil out of the reservoir. The smaller of the two lines is the return line and sits towards the front of the car and the bigger line sits behind it in relation with the reservoir.

I tried, thinner break cleaner etc and it wouldn't just wash out so I made a make shift pad to get in the reservoir and clean the sides. I used an air nozzle, wrapped a shop rag and taped it. don't wrap it too much otherwise it's not going to fit through the hole in the reservoir.

You can see the sides here getting cleaner. Keep rinsing it out with kerosene or brake cleaner.

I couldn't get to the edged properly so I bent up a small brush to the angles I wanted to get to the edges. Rinse rinse and rinse in between just to make sure you get all the debris out. Once it's clean enough, or in my case where I didn't see anymore difference, go ahead and connect the bigger line back and on the 3/8" line connect the 3/8" barb fitting and clear line.

5 - Of the two lines on the reservoir the 3/8" smaller line is toward the front of the car and a bigger 1/2" I believe behind it. This 3/8" line is the return line (for those that are not cleaning reservoir, those who are, already know this). 

Pull the 3/8" line off and put in the 3/8" barb fitting and the clear 3/8" line (again for those that are not cleaning reservoir, those who are should have already done this).

Let this line rest in a oil drain pan or any container that will hold about 3 to 4 qts of oil.

6- The port where the return line goes I blocked off with some ear plugs. The orange you see in the port pictured below is the ear plug.

7 - Fill the reservoir up with ATF or power steering fluid (I put in Amsoil ATF). The reservoir can be filled above the max line at this point. With the key turned to ACC (do not switch the car on) go ahead and turn the steering wheel lock to lock 3 or 4 times keeping an eye on the reservoir. Keep checking fluid level in the reservoir and don't let it go below minimum. When you are turning the steering wheel the fluid is getting dumped out from the return line through the clear hose you connected into the oil drain pan or container you chose. Keep topping the fluid in the reservoir till you see fresh red ATF coming out of the clear line. At this point try to drain out enough fluid till it gets to the min cold line.

8- Remove the ear plug, disconnect the barb fitting from the return line and connect the return line back to the reservoir. It's going to get messy so have a rag under the reservoir to get some of the oil. I vacuumed the oil out of the reservoir and it still made a mess.

9 - Make sure all your lines are secure etc and fill the reservoir to between the min and max cold line.

10 - Time to bleed the power steering line again. With the key in the ACC position turn the wheel lock to lock (left to right) about 15 to 20 times just to make sure air, if any bleeds out. Also turn the wheel at a medium pace. Again air in the system will definitely mess up your power steering pump. 

11 - At this point you should be done, you shouldn't see any air bubbles gurgling in the reservoir and should be good to go. Get the car off of jack stands/jacks and if the car is at operating temperature you can fill fluid up to the max hot line. 

My steering is noticeably smoother and doesn't have that stickiness anymore. 

-AJ Abraham

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SC430 ecru interior rejuvenation.

Picked up an SC430 with a dingy interior among other small issues and this was the first step to cleaning up the interior. 

This is the process I used:

1 - Clean seats with Lexol diluted in warm water with a grey scotch pad (just to see if cleaning can take anything off)

2 - I sanded the seats with 320 grit sand paper, the sanding is to help the product adhere to the seats better. It also smoothed the leather out but also takes off a layer of 'paint'? I say paint because sanding dust was the color of the seats. The ecru interior is said to have a coating on top of the leather which gives it the color and it isn't a true dye. The sanding might have just been evidence to that.

3 - vacuumed dust off

4 - wipe down with 90% alcohol and grey scotch pad. This really made me think it is paint because it had the same effect of paint, it started removing or thinning the paint and the grey pad was turning white.

5 - wipe down with clean cloth

6 - quick wipe down with a clean microfiber and alcohol.

7 - Mask

8 - Spray the SEM 15003

Results are awesome and I couldn't be happier. As far as longevity I cannot say, but others who have used the same product have reported no issues over time. If I notice anything I will update.

BEFORE:

 

AFTER:

-AJ Abraham

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