Been busy doing stuff to my 97 LC (1 Viewer)

[dparnas]

Since we bought our 97 LC this past August, I've been having a blast (and spending probably too much), trying to bring our new to us LC up to a level of comfort, reliability and aesthetics that we had been looking for. Thanks to this forum for many solutions/ideas. After lots of the more complex mechanical work that we had done at the Service Outlet in Lafayette California (they've been great), tackling some of the DIY items that were in my skill set and farmed out the others (list below with lots of pictures). Now, everything on the car works, even the antenna. The only exception is the "D" doesn't light up in the instrument cluster, but don't really care about that. Next is to spend a significant amount of time giving the entire car the claybar treatment, and then use my random orbit polisher to give the car a good polish and then sealant and clean up the driver side seatbelt so that it retracts more smoothly.

1. Replacing the front grill, which had been blacked out, with a new one and new Toyota emblem
2. Put in Headlight Experts.com LED low beams for the headlights Low Beam: 9006 LED Headlight Conversion Kit - https://www.headlightexperts.com/low-beam-9006-single-beam-led-technology-kit
3. Did the wobbly driver side mirror fix
4. Lots and lots of paintless dent repair (I'd guess we had roughly 30 dings removed and the original paint still looks amazing)
5. Repair of a big tear on the driver side rear door panel
6. Dying and sealing the steering wheel (the coloring had rubbed off a good portion of the steering wheel but the leather was still in ok shape)
7. Had the wheels stripped and powder coated oem color (they'd also been blacked out by the previous owner)
8. Had a new trailer hitch installed (the old one was rusted out)
9. Had remote locking/unlocking installed
10. Had an Alpine double din head Apple Car Play unit installed with backup camera
11. Installed the 3d printed cup holders
12. Had the front seats and center arm rest reupholstered with seat heaters
13. Had one of the rear seatbelts replaced/repaired

That's a lot I know, but it's been a lot of fun and very satisfying so far to see the result. We took the rig on our first road trip this past weekend up the coast to Sea Ranch. She performed beautifully and those newly upholstered and heated seats were a revelation.

 

[calokie]

nice! what was the remote for the locking doors, factory or aftermarket?

 

[dparnas]

nice! what was the remote for the locking doors, factory or aftermarket?

Thanks. After market. We had to replace the driver side door locking actuator anyway, so wanted something a bit more modern. The brand is Python, model 7145P. Works great.

 

[SoCal80series]

Looks great!

 

[Somebodyelse5]

how do you like that head unit? any issues? seems everything available these days are hit or miss

 

[dparnas]

how do you like that head unit? any issues? seems everything available these days are hit or miss

So far so good. We primarily got it for the Apple Car Play for using Waze on our iPhones, and for the backup camera display. So it's not as if we've really been using all of its features.