99 LX - not exactly a build thread - keeping up with her progress

[AJBSC]

I’m new here, and just bought a cheap 99 LX 470. In our efforts to get rid of some debts and not get out teeth kicked out by daycare I will be daily driving it. Don’t see a spot of rust anywhere on it but going to need a little work in the front end with 286k on it. Scooped it up for $6300 so have some room to work with on that. Mostly a searcher of old threads and lurker so I doubt you’ll see a ton of posts by me but I’ll be around here learning up.

 

[100d ua]

Welcome!

 

[nem3sis]

Welcome aboard!

 

[jLB]

We added a “cheap” ~250k mile 99 LX to our stable ~2.5 years ago.

What have you done to your 100 Series this week?

forum.ih8mud.com

Ours was intended to be a spare “around town beater”, for when one of our other vehicles was in the shop, but because of timing, it became more of a father/son pandemic project. Even with two other newer, lower mile 100 series in the driveway, I still love driving the old beater LX. Against all logic, it seems to have become our default road trip vehicle.

From my experience, I’d earmark about what you paid for the vehicle, to refurbish the vehicle into a “drive it anywhere” DD.

Depending on what the previous owner(s) have done, I’d look at topics like these, before looking at wheels/tires/armor:

Factory service manuals.
Setting up Techstream.
Installing a Scangauge (or equivalent).
Timing belt replacement.
Heater T’s.
CV axles & drive flanges.
Suspension bushings.
Front diff bushings.
Steering rack bushings.
Tie rod ends.
Ball joints.
Cooling system service.
Fluid replacement.
Brake system inspection.
AHC maintenance (or replacement).
Stereo replacement, w/ backup cam.
Loncky steering wheel cover.
Shift knob replacement.
Replacement leather (or canvas seat covers).
3rd brake light repair/reseal/replacement.
Door lock actuators.
Clearing sunroof drains.
Disable “auto away” steering wheel.
Master keys (do you have at least 2?)
YotaMD key shell.
BenCC’s 3d prints.
Is the spare a 23 year old original?
Do you have any spare/wheel security keys?

Good luck, and I hope that you have as much fun with your 99 LX as we have with ours.

 

[Couvi]

Welcome, nice find.

 

[FJFOOL]

Welcome, have fun with it !

 

[AJBSC]

We added a “cheap” ~250k mile 99 LX to our stable ~2.5 years ago.

What have you done to your 100 Series this week?

forum.ih8mud.com

Ours was intended to be a spare “around town beater”, for when one of our other vehicles was in the shop, but because of timing, it became more of a father/son pandemic project. Even with two other newer, lower mile 100 series in the driveway, I still love driving the old beater LX. Against all logic, it seems to have become our default road trip vehicle.

From my experience, I’d earmark about what you paid for the vehicle, to refurbish the vehicle into a “drive it anywhere” DD.

Depending on what the previous owner(s) have done, I’d look at topics like these, before looking at wheels/tires/armor:

Factory service manuals.
Setting up Techstream.
Installing a Scangauge (or equivalent).
Timing belt replacement.
Heater T’s.
CV axles & drive flanges.
Suspension bushings.
Front diff bushings.
Steering rack bushings.
Tie rod ends.
Ball joints.
Cooling system service.
Fluid replacement.
Brake system inspection.
AHC maintenance (or replacement).
Stereo replacement, w/ backup cam.
Loncky steering wheel cover.
Shift knob replacement.
Replacement leather (or canvas seat covers).
3rd brake light repair/reseal/replacement.
Door lock actuators.
Clearing sunroof drains.
Disable “auto away” steering wheel.
Master keys (do you have at least 2?)
YotaMD key shell.
BenCC’s 3d prints.
Is the spare a 23 year old original?
Do you have any spare/wheel security keys?

Good luck, and I hope that you have as much fun with your 99 LX as we have with ours.

Thanks for the comprehensive response!

Currently have a leaking CV boot, so it’s going straight in the shop to have that and the rest of the front end gone through first thing.

The power tilt and telescoping wheel isn’t working. It’s stuck in a pretty good, comfortable place so I plan to just leave it there. That’ll be the last thing on the list to fix.

Tires will have to happen after front end work and alignment is done. Have a mismatched set and some dry rot on a few of them.

It was cheap because there are no service records and it has 286k. But without records you can still see it wasn’t neglected. It’s straight and very clean. And for instance, the headlight housings are crystal clear and look new. But t-belt, water pump, and heater t’s seem to be rhe 3 most important that I read about and will be next following the front end and changing all fluids.

 

[Texsun84]

Those headlight housings are clear bc they’re made out of glass. Welcome to the LX club, great looking truck!

 

[AJBSC]

Those headlight housings are clear bc they’re made out of glass. Welcome to the LX club, great looking truck!

Interesting. The ones I looked at on the 07 a couple days ago were as foggy as any headlight is ever seen

 

[CruisinNoob]

Welcome. She's pretty. You might want to set the parking brake and crawl underneath to check for rust.

 

[jLB]

Those headlight housings are clear bc they’re made out of glass.

The ones I looked at on the 07 a couple days ago were as foggy as any headlight is ever seen

@Texsun84 is correct, early model LX have the glass lens headlights, while the late model LX have plastic lens headlights.

(I don’t recall the exact cutoff year, but if I had to guess, 98-02 = glass, 03-07 = plastic.)

 

[AJBSC]

Welcome. She's pretty. You might want to set the parking brake and crawl underneath to check for rust.

She’s clean rust wise. First thing I checked for. This one has spent its whole life in Atlanta and Charleston, with a lot of miles from sales traveling.

 

[Tentsontop]

Nice. I'm a big fan of white vehicles and I would prefer mine were the same color as yours or some version of grey/silver, but green is growing on me especially, when I see it in the woods. The first thing I checked was the radiator/fluid and then looked for rust. Not a fan of rust. I'm in a similar boat as I didn't intend to buy a 470, but this deal/condition combo changed all that. I admire JLB's willingness to take on the care and maintenance of not one, but three 100s. My last cruiser was a neat 40, but I've had 5 80s in the past and my favorites were my two 450s. I'm happy to come back to the LX side of the house. I'll work on issues like the AHC and steering wheel as needed, but I'll take my time going through JLB's master to do list. Congrats on finding a great deal/LX!

 

[jLB]

Nice. I'm a big fan of white vehicles and I would prefer mine were the same color as yours or some version of grey/silver, but green is growing on me especially, when I see it in the woods. The first thing I checked was the radiator/fluid and then looked for rust. Not a fan of rust. I'm in a similar boat as I didn't intend to buy a 470, but this deal/condition combo changed all that. I admire JLB's willingness to take on the care and maintenance of not one, but three 100s. My last cruiser was a neat 40, but I've had 5 80s in the past and my favorites were my two 450s. I'm happy to come back to the LX side of the house. I'll work on issues like the AHC and steering wheel as needed, but I'll take my time going through JLB's master to do list. Congrats on finding a great deal/LX!

If you keep up with maintenance, it’s really not that big of a deal. After driving LC/LX for ~30 years, it just seems normal.

By no means was that intended to be a master list, @2001LC is much better at those kinds of lists.

 

[AJBSC]

Back from the shop with new CV axles, new steering rack, and valve cover gaskets. Replaced a few other minor items that were incidentals along the way of those major items. Got some new Goodyear Ultraterrains, trimmed the stupid mud flaps, and removed the running boards.

Now have a rubbing type noise somewhere up front when coasting or lightly braking under 30-35. But we’re slowly inching closer to getting her into shape.

 

[nem3sis]

Very nice!

 

[CoOrCruiser]

Looking great!

 

[jpneely]

nice looking Hundy! im not far away on Johns Island. ive probably seen you driving around. our go to shop is lex tech on 17 by dealership row in west Ashley. they've treated us right on all the cars we've brought to them. sounds like you had to do about the same maint that I had to when I inherited mine from the inlaws. CV's, boots, etc. I also needed a new radiator since it sprung a leak at 230k.

 

[AJBSC]

Nice, yes new radiator, timing belt, water pump, all fluid changes are in the next shop outing. Want to try to run it for an oil change interval and space out my next big shop bill. I took it to Ocean Imports on Folly Rd. Looks like they’re new to town in the past handful of years, him his wife and I think 2 other guys is all they have. My office is across the street so I can just drop it off to him and walk. He said he maintains/works on a few other 100s and he had a few 4Runners in there last week as well. Nice guy, probably not the most efficient or speediest service but he was pretty good and didn’t skimp on fixing some minor incidental stuff as part of disassembly to get to the major components.

 

[jpneely]

Right on, being next door to work is definitely a plus. If you have a few hours, doing the radiator yourself isn’t bad at all. And it’ll save some shop hours. Luckily mine was up to date on timing belt so I didn’t have to go through that yet.