SC430 - headlight mods.

A lot of projects have been on the back burner due to life but I think this one takes the cake for me. I was going through my garage and I came across my 06 and up headlights that I had bought back in 2015! 

They were used so needed some TLC so I started on refurbishing the headlights. There seemed to be a little oxidization on the outside of the lens and a little on the inside too right in front of the projector. Probably why I put it on the back burner, it was more work than I wanted to take on at the time. I tried to find a replacement lens but failed to find one. In order to fix this my thought process was I actually needed to take the lens apart and sand the oxidization off and clear the inside and outside of the lens. Since the lense had to come off anyway I figured it would be a good time to customize the inside and change the fresnel lens to a clear lens too. I didn't want anything crazy, just a clean looking headlight. So in the oven it went and got the lenses seperated.

Above picture shows the oxidization of the lens on the inside. This was only on the passenger side headlight but I went ahead and did both lenses.

Sanding and clearing the inside of the headlights with 2k clear brought these back to life. I didn't want to do the outside yet because I wanted to finish the rest of the headlight and put it all back together and then do the outside.

Got my TSX clear lenses in so installed that as well.

With that situated I debated on what else to do to the internals. I already knew I wanted to get rid of the chrome in the bezel because it was too bright for the car IMO. I found a shade of grey with good flop in it, not too dark and not too light that I thought would look good and had it painted.

I wanted to add a little more detail into the headlights and I noticed the ridges on the bezel in front of the high beams and wanted to accentuate those. Also wanted to try a DRL strip that I could possibly use.

Measurement of the ridge on the bezel.

Tried a LED strip on the bezel just to get a visual.

Scrapped the LED strip idea because I thought it would stand out too much in the headlight.

I had some reflective vinyl from another project and thought I could use that in those ridges. Used the measurements of the ridges to draw up strip to get cut on the vinyl cutter.

Tried a couple of different ideas and this is what I ended up liking. Notice the black in the ridges and around the low beam portion with the logo on it. 

This is the same headlight with light shining on it.

Was pretty happy with the subtlety of it so went ahead and resealed the headlight. When resealing headlights I didn't want to take the chance of just using the old butyl. I got a roll of the Morimoto butyl and used it to reseal the headlights. Off to the body shop again, sanded and cleared the outside of the lenses with 2k clear. 

The final product.

Now I just need to figure out what I want to do with my front bumper and then put these on!

-AJ Abraham

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LS460 - Engine Maintenance & Mishaps

So my plan when getting the car as I do with all cars is to change out all degrading, wear and tear parts so that it is reliable and I don't have worry about things for awhile after it is done. With 155000 miles on the motor I figured it was time to change a couple of parts. 

Belt Tensioner - Dayco (89380)

Idler pulley - Dayco (89537)

Serpentine Belt - Bando (6PK2100)

Water Pump - Aisin (WPT187)

Thermostat - Aisin (THT005)

Coolant recovery tank cap - Gates (31541)

Radiator - Denso (2219223)

Gates Lower radiator hose (23477)

Gates Upper Radiator Hose (23478)

Idler pulley upper- Dayco (89537)

Idler pulley lower - Dayco 89580

Toyota Super Long Life Coolant - 00272SLLC2 x 3

Toyota Valve Cover gaskets - Right - 11213-38030

Toyota Valve Cover gaskets - Left   - 11214-38020

Toyota Spark Plug Gasket (11193-38020) x 8

Toyota Throttle Body Gasket (22271-50050)

NGK Plugs DFH6B-11A

K&N Air Filter 33-2381 x 2

Amsoil Performance improver  APICN (x2)

Amsoil Signature Series 0W-20 oil x 10 qts

Fuel pump spacer gasket (23224-38010 x 2)

Fuel pump insulator (23915-46011 x 2)

O-Ring (90301-A0029 x 4)

Pulsation damper gasket (23279-74010 x 4)

GASKET, CAMSHAFT BEARING CAP OIL HOLE, LH (11159-0P010) X 2

GASKET, CAMSHAFT BEARING CAP OIL HOLE (11159-0S010) X 2

GASKET, CAMSHAFT BEARING CAP OIL HOLE (90430-A0001) X 2

Above was my parts list. The idea was to change the radiator, water pump, pulleys, belts tensioners, all the gaskets involved with valve cover, throttle body, basically anything that I was removing which was a wear and tear item got replaced with new parts and all the old parts got cleaned in the process. The valve cover gasket had a slight leak to it and the fuel pump gasket had a pretty decent amount of oil seepage that I could see, so new valve cover gaskets, fuel pump spacer gasket, insulators, o-rings and spark plug gaskets were in the to do list.

It started off well, removed the radiator support, fans, radiator, water pump etc etc and everything went fairly smoothly, in an hour or so most parts were off. I did spray most of the bolts etc with PB Blaster and all the plastic clips and connectors with WD40 the night before so that it would make things easier to remove and plastic connectors and clips less susceptible to  breaking. These plastic pieces especially are over 12 years old at this point so anything helps.

When it came time to remove the tensioner, the center bolt was seized on there. I tried soaking it etc but it wouldn't budge. I did manage to get the bolt off eventually except and chunk came out with it. Where the bolt is mounted to the timing chain cover stress cracks formed I guess during the process of un-seizing the bolt and by the time I got the bolt out everything had cracked and the cast aluminum cover broke off.

I've checked everywhere for another instance of this happening but I think this is an isolated incident caused more due to user error and lack of experience than anything else.

Well, no point crying over spilt milk so was trying to research what can be done to fix the issue. After some reading there were two options, first was change the timing chain cover or second see if the piece could be welded in. The welding I thought would work because there is no oil pressure behind the cover and also from images of the cover I saw the chain and other parts were a ways away from possible harm due to the heat cause by welding. I thought it was worth a try as opposed to taking off the timing chain cover which would involve removing everything else around it to get to it. Called a buddy of mine to see if that was something that was doable. He said it was worth a try too, so he came the next day with a welder etc to try to fix my mess up. I tried to clean along the cracks etc as best as I could with with a wire brush, and lightly sanded the area and cleaned it off with brake cleaner etc. Well long story short it was not working as planned and we ended up not being able to weld. The oil behind the cover could be to blame for not being able to get any good welds. So we tried and it didn't work. Thanks Danny! Since this was not going to be a weekend project anymore I just had it towed to the shop and asked Danny to fix it.

So in order to change the timing chain cover the alternator, compressor, valve covers, basically everything attached to the cover which is a lot of things, all needed to be removed.

I was traveling out of the country while this was getting done but Danny kept me updated on the progress. With the timing chain cover removed, he sent me a video of the timing chains which had some slack in it. 

Video showing slack

Maybe it was the heat during welding, maybe it just stretched over time. Either way didn't want to just put the cover back on with that being an issue later. Labor to put the chains on while everything is apart anyway is far less than if it needed to be done again later. So another list of parts were ordered

Timing Chaiin Cover Sub-Assy with Oil pump - 11310-38070

Timing Chain Cover Gasket 11328-38030 (X2)

Chain Sub-Assy 13506-38030 (x2)

Chain Sub-Assy, NO.2 13507-31020 (x2)

RH - Damper, Chain Vibration, NO.1 - 13561-38040

LH - Damper, Chain Vibration, NO.1 - 13561-38050

RH - Tensioner Assy, Chain, NO.1 - 13540-0S010

LH - Tensioner Assy, Chain, NO.1 - 13540-0S022

LH - Tensioner Assy, Chain, NO.1 - 13560-0S011

Tensioner Assy, Chain, NO.2 - 13550-0S011

RH - Slipper, Chain Tensioner - 13559-0S030

LH - Slipper, Chain Tensioner - 13559-0S040

Oil pump gasket 15193-0S010

Oil filter housing O-ring - 96722-24030

Front main seal - 90301-A0005

Cam Timing Control Motor O-ring 90301-92004 (x 2)

Timing chain cover O-ring  90301-35006

Water inlet gasket 16325-38020

Water outlet gasket 16341-38030 (x2)

Water inlet housing O-ring 96761-35035 (x2)

The valve covers and other parts were put in the CUDA to get cleaned while they were out.

Everything related to the timing chain was changed. When everything was getting put back together all the other gaskets etc were put in too. 

The new radiator went in as well and with everything put back together she is purring like a kitten with no oil leaks. 

I know it might be excessive but the car is in otherwise good condition and I want to keep it for a long time without any major headaches.Knowing everything was done gives me peace of mind. I want to thank Danny for fixing everything for me the way I would like and dealing with my OCD-Ness. Also Jeremy for letting me use his shop where I tinker with my cars!

-AJ Abraham

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LS460 - Smart Tap Indicator's Install

So most euro cars from the early 2000's and almost all new cars has this cool feature, you half tap or soft tap the left or right indicator and it flashes for a series of 3 to 5 flashes and automatically switches off. This in essence doesn't require you to engage the left or right indicator and then disengage it when merging etc. I know it's a trivial feature but I really liked it and well my car didn't have it.

After a little research etc I found a company called Diode Dynamics that makes a flasher relay that does that! This flasher relay also would fix the hyper blinking if you changed your turn signals etc to led's as well. Follow the link and read about everything it can do. I primarily just wanted the 'Smart Tap' feature, the others are a bonus in my eyes and I can think of a couple of mods that it will help me out in.

Anyway, I digress, onto the install:

The flasher module sits behind the cluster on the upper portion of your dashboard as you will see in the pics below. You can go from under neath and contortion yourself into doing it that way but I'm not much of a contortionist so I chose to do it by taking out the cluster etc. To take the cluster out there are two plastic screws you have to remove to remove the trim, and then there are four bolts that hold the cluster in the dash. I chose not to disconnect the cluster but you can do so at your own risk. There was enough slack in the wiring for the cluster to come out and sit on top of the dashboard. 

The picture above is what you will with the cluster out of the way. Now if you look you will see a blue colored plastic cover. This is the flasher relay! 

It is held in by a plastic clip to the frame. Use a panel popper and you can pop it off the frame. I also used a small plastic pry bar to actually wedge between the wiring and the frame so that I can sneak the flasher relay between the wiring harness and the frame and can access the wiring and plug it is connected to as shown in the pics below.

Unplug!

I transferred the clip across to the smart tap flasher and installed it. Install was reverse of disassembly.

-AJ Abraham

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LS460 - Gummy / Sticky Trunk Button Fix!

Picked up an LS460 that had the horrible gummy trunk button issue. Instead of buying a switch and cover I chose to spend only $6 and get just a cover off of ebay and thought I'd just point out a couple of tips and tricks while doing this swap. The trunk buttno fix has been pretty well documented so I'm not going through the process to show you how to remove and install etc just google it and you shall find what you seek.

With the trunk trim removed go ahead and clean the area behind the trim. Mine wasn't too bad and chances are neither will yours but the edges etc are hard to get to and this lets you clean it unobstructed.

The same goes for the back of the trim itself. I cleaned it and because it is plastic I went ahead and just gave it a quick spray down with 303 aerospace or any sort of conditioner on the whole trim and the clips.

 My key access hole was pretty disgusting so I cleaned that and thought it was an appropriate time to spray some silicone grease into the key hole itself.

As you can see my switch cover was pretty melted and it kinda filled in all the cracks and crevices of the switch itself making the switch inoperable. The only way to open the trunk was through the switch inside the car or the keyfob. 

Dismantling the switch is not rocket science it comes apart as in the picture above, again do so at your own risk but it is pretty straight forward. scrape all the rubber off the parts etc. Tip: once you scrape most of the rubber off you can use brake cleaner on a rag to wipe up any residue etc. 

Once all the goo is off putting it back together is reverse of disassembly and viola you have a working switch. I think the switch is like $80 which is really not a bad price. But if you don't have an hour to kill I'd just get a complete switch and swap it out. Good luck...

-AJ Abraham

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SC430 - A/C issues and fix.

It was October and with the weather in the low 60's you wouldn't think I would have a problem with the A/C not working but well you kinda need the A/C to defog your windshield and windows. Also I just wanted it fixed. Matt and Taylor at Insomnia Motorsports was kind enough to check on the system. The compressor was not kicking on which could mean low refrigerant, when it was bypassed the compressor was kicking on. We filled up the system with r134a to spec and the compressor was kicking on, as it was supposed to but was not cooling. The pressures in the lines were too high on both the high and low pressure lines which sort of points to a bad expansion valve. Also with the expansion valve being the cheapest part in the system I opted to change that out first. Ordered a new denso expansion valve and swapped it in. Matt connected the A/C recovery, recycle, and recharge machine and pulled a vacuum for about 30 minutes, and verified that there were no leaks etc and filled it back up with r134a refrigerant. A/C was blowing nice cold air again and was on my way.

The expansion valve sits right about the accelerator pedal. Below is a picture of it with some foam insulation removed. The gap between the aluminum blocks is where the expansion valve sits. Below is the picture of the low pressure line that comes out of the compressor that has the muffler on it that I was going to replace. 

It was a week or two later that I drove the car again and well to my annoyance the A/C was not working again. When I checked the pressure in the lines there was pressure so since I had just replaced the expansion valve the probability of that going bad again that quick I thought was slim. The only other thing I could think about was that the compressor was going out. When the compressor goes out or starts to go out it can pump metal shavings through the system and could get caught up in various parts of the system especially the expansion valve which can prevent the expansion valve from working properly. 

So my train of thought was to automatically change every single component in the A/C system. The system consists of Compressor, Condenser, Dryer, Evaporator, Expansion Valve, O'rings and Mufflers and Lines. The only problem was I was not comfortable in taking the whole dash board out to change the evaporator. The Expansion valve even though it sits behind the dash board I could access it without taking the dash board off. So since I didn't see a drop in pressure I ruled out the possibility of a leak which meant the evaporator did not have a leak as well. On the low pressure line there is a muffler on the line connected to the compressor. I believe this muffler is there to catch any metal shavings that might come from the compressor in case it blows up. Also the dryer would catch these shavings as well. Since the evaporator did not have a leak I chose not to change it. Everything else I could access easily and change. 

The only components I wouldn't be changing would be the evaporator and the lines. To clean the evaporator and the lines of any possible shavings I was going to flush the system. Flushing air-conditioning systems is extremely important when repairs are carried out or if a compressor is damaged. The flushing process removes impurities and harmful substances from the air-conditioning circuit. You should not or cannot flush compressors, expansion valves, or filter dryers and mufflers. Use adapters to bridge these components during the flushing process. Once the flushing process is complete, the valves and filters must be replaced. In this method, the air-conditioning system is cleaned with a special flushing liquid (in combination with compressed air).

Below is a picture of the block on the firewall where the lines go into.

I wanted to flush each component separately as much as I could. Flush lines individually and the evaporator individually. The expansion valve is located write behind the firewall under the dash board so without creating a mess inside the car I thought I could remove the lines going into the firewall, leave the expansion valve in place and flush the evaporator out. This would have been great if the expansion valve was on the engine side of the fire wall. Looking at the expansion valve you can see why you cannot really flush through the expansion valve. To provide an easy flow of flush through the system I decided I could take the expansion valve apart. There is a hex screw at the bottom you can remove and you can remove a spring and valve that sits in it. Once that is out I drilled the stem out and made the passages bigger so that it matched size of the lines going in and out of the expansion valve. Put the hex screw back in place and install it back in the car after a thorough cleaning with brake cleaner and forced air. No point adding metal shavings into the system.

Once the modified expansion valve was in place I removed all the components, compressor, condenser, dryer and muffler and flushed the evaporator out. Filled up the flush machine with the cleaner and sprayed it in pulses till the cleaner started coming out from the other port on the firewall. I let the cleaner sit there for about 20 minutes and then used compressed air till all the cleaning liquid flushed out. Then I kept going for another 15 minutes of just compressed air flowing through the evaporator. I capped both the ports shut and continued to flush the lines while I let the cleaner dwell etc. I did that process 4 times and the last time around instead of 15 minutes I did 30 minutes of compressed air just flowing through the system. Make sure you air the system out with the compressed air to ensure all the flush is out of the system. The ideal way is to use nitrogen but I didn't have that. After each line etc is cleaned I capped them off.

The cleaning process I think is what takes the longest amount of time. The removal of all the components are pretty straight forward, well documented and not really time consuming. With all the old parts out I proceeded to reinstall all the new components making sure the lines were capped out so no foreign debris is introduced into the system.

All the new components:

Out with the old:

When replacing the compressor I drained all the PAG 46 oil out of the old compressor and since all the components was new and the lines were flushed out there is no oil in the system. The system calls for 4oz of PAG 46 oil. My thought process was to distribute the oil through the system, put about 3oz of PAG 46 oil in the compressor and 0.5 oz in the evaporator through the lines and 0.5 oz in the condenser. When filling the compressor with oil turn the clutch so that the oil can get distributed into the compressor. I didn't think the compressor could hold 4oz of oil but it took it. I used a syringe to measure the oil so I could be as accurate as I could. 

With everything oiled and cleaned I installed all the new components. Connected all the lines etc with new nitrile  o'rings.

With all the new components replaced and connected I wanted to make sure there are no leaks etc. You can do a vacuum test and make sure there are no leaks under vacuum, however, the AC system runs in excess of 180psi and sometimes under vacuum it might not show leaks but under pressure it can have leaks. The best way to check for leaks under pressure is to actually pressurize the system. To pressurize the system I used Nitrogen. A buddy of mine does HVAC systems for homes etc and that's what he uses to pressurize systems and check for leaks. Thanks Sam. He pressurized the system for me with Nitrogen and verified that the pressure holds even after an hour. 

After verifying that the system has no leaks under pressure I vacuumed the system as well to make sure that there are no leaks under vacuum and vacuum helps get rid of any moisture or other solvents that might still be present in the system. Might be excessive but better safe than sorry.

I let the vacuum run for over an hour and even after three hours the vacuum held with no change in the pressures. 

At this point it is ready to fill with refrigerant. The SC430 AC system calls for between 21 to 23 ounces of  R134a refrigerant. I got the system hooked up to a HVAC refill and recovery machine and had the system refilled. The AC in the car is back to being ice cold, not that I'll be using it anytime soon, but the satisfaction of knowing it is working and hopefully done right keeps my mind at ease. 

-AJ Abraham

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