“Gray Car” parts cannon and adventure notes (3 Viewers)

[jpneely]

Starting to put together a log/picture library for future me. Maybe one of my screw ups will help someone in the future and that’s a win in my book.

Vehicle is a 2005 with 290k as of 6/4/25. Inherited it from my in-laws when they no longer could use it. It had 220k when we got it. Right after getting her, had to replace radiator, wheel bearings and went ahead and did cv axles back to OEM while everything was torn apart. I’ll keep adding as I remember!

Loaded up in her usual state to haul us the kids and two dogs with all our crap.

 

[jpneely]

5/22 Back to the beginning. Got the car from the inlaws and immediately noticed a little drip of coolant on the bottom of the radiator. Good start.

Parts ordered from Sparks Toyota.
Radiator p/n: 16400-50290
Coolant hose p/n: 16571-50150
Total shipped: $613

Radiator came in quickly and packaged nicely. Was able to use a few YouTube videos to get the idea and dive in without really taking much apart thankfully. Everything went back together with no fuss and just spent the rest of the Afternoon burping the system. Why I didn’t go ahead and replace the lower coolant hose at the same time as the upper, I have no idea.

I had record of the heater t’s being replaced a few years prior so I didn’t worry about those.

Next up was the speakers. They just sounded awful. It’s pretty clear why… ordered new door speakers from crutchfield that included tweeters. I honestly haven’t been very happy with the sound quality from the ones I bought and I don’t have very high standards. I believe I got the Infinity Reference speakers. Not super high end but not the cheapest I could find either. The passenger tweeter failed after less than 2 years so I just unplugged it and honestly couldn’t tell a difference. I re-coned the “sub” in the back since there wasn’t an easy plug and play replacement.

 

[jpneely]

The driver side rear door lock was failing intermittently so I asked our mechanic if he could quote me to replace the actuator. Holy crap that’s not gonna happen. Thanks to mud I found the closest motors that would work and bought 4. Tore open the actuators like monkey fisted teenager and was pretty sure I ruined the housing. Replacement Motor shaft wasn’t flat on one side like OEM one so I go the dremel out and made it match so the gear would slide on from the old motor.

Went against mud’s recommendation and just used gorilla glue instead of epoxy because that’s what I had on hand. Figured it works only last a year and I could go back and do it right after the kids get older and I get better sleep and more patience. (None of those happened) it’s still holding strong a few years later and that’s even after the kids tested it by just spamming the absolute s*** out it until I got back outside and realized what they were doing.

Unsurprisingly I have no pictures from this job. I’m working on that. My old like to the eBay listing is dead but this was their description.

Motors: FC-280PT-22125 10mm brass collar shaft car door lock.

 

[jpneely]

I’m remembering things out of order so here we go. Sometime in early 2022 I heard the the driver side wheel bearing start to go, the aftermarket cv boot was torn and there was a small leak from the inner cv oil seal. Reading up on here basically told me aftermarket blows and won’t last long so I had bit the billet and had the shop replace both CVs and wheel bearings with OEM. Everything’s been good to go for the past 40k miles or so now. Worth it I guess!

Went a couple of years with nothing new to do expert oil changes which was good.

4/23/24 Started to notice the miles to empty would change dramatically randomly after shut down and restarts so I figured the fuel sending unit was starting to fail. Ordered OEM fuel sender, and denso fuel pump kit to replace while I was in there. Fuel filter and idler pulley replaced as well. OEM on both. Cut the fuel filter open and it certainly could have been the original. It looked more like a used coffee filter.

 

[jpneely]

Next up were the shocks and spark plugs. Early 2025.

I knew one shock had failed since it had fluid running down it for a year so went ahead bought OEM shocks again. The rubbers were pretty toast as well but could have been worse. The tip on buying a ratcheting wrench for the rear shocks probably saved hours haha. Road noise was cut way down after replacing and got me looking forward to replacing all the suspension bushings to see how much it helped.

Next up were the spark plugs. I didn’t have any record of them being replaced since 2010 and only 85k miles. I’m on 278k at this point. I was pretty worried about this one. Everything went smoothly and luckily no plugs broke. The coil packs are on my list next due to some cracking. Also found a nice previous repair of the wires running to the coil packs. Damn rodents.

After that it was just back to typical OCI things. That is until a few days ago driving down Main Street enjoying some nice weather with the windows down and realized I had an obnoxious suspension squeak in the front. Damnit. Guess it’s time to get to those new bushings and ball joints sooner rather than Later. Grease in the ball joints boots didn’t help, and of course spraying lube on the bushings did nothing but figured I’d try.

Parts ordered and now just to wait until I can get the kids shipped off to Grammy and paw paws house for a weekend so I can knock it out.

New UCAs, LCA bushings and 555 ballpoint from patch, new bushings for sway bar and hoping I won’t have to touch the power steering.

Edit: also need to knock out oil dipstick oring on the oil pan too. Think I’ve got a leak coming from there too. Hopefully while I’ve got the front end torn apart it’ll make it easier to clean up the area.

Part No.: 96721-19010 RING, O

 

[excessive]

great work! its a shame how much those coil packs cost, but you gotta have reliable spark! I grab a few every time I'm at the local pick-n-pull, i've managed to build a complete set of them for pennies on the dollar. They are found in so many Toyota vehicles, they're very easy to find

 

[jpneely]

great work! its a shame how much those coil packs cost, but you gotta have reliable spark! I grab a few every time I'm at the local pick-n-pull, i've managed to build a complete set of them for pennies on the dollar. They are found in so many Toyota vehicles, they're very easy to find

Fairly interchangeable? I’ve never thought to cross reference for different Toyotas. I also haven’t been to a pick-n-pull in 15 years probably. Maybe I’ll have to start going. I sure could use some replacement broken door panel clips lol.

 

[jpneely]

Also ordered OEM brake pads and anti squeal shims since I’ve been enjoying the windows being down i was able to hear the beginnings of brake squeal. I just need to stop rolling down the windows and I shouldn’t be able to hear any more problems lol.

Part No.: 04465-60230 PAD KIT, DISC BRAKE Part No.: 04945-60010 SHIM KIT, ANTI SQUEAK ​

 

[excessive]

oh and hi from West Ashley by the way

 

[jpneely]

oh and hi from West Ashley by the way

Oh nice! I’m over on johns. I’ll have to keep a look out for you.

 

[jpneely]

Hit up smokemont campground this past weekend. In true me fashion, I got almost no pictures. It was a last minute trip so campsite choices were slim. We were going to have to site hop each night. This was our second first trip tent camping with the kids ( first ended with a broken arm as soon as we got finished setting up camp). We’re easing back into the camping and backpacking we used to do but now with a bunch of extra stuff.

It was a perfect night. Cooled off right at dusk and it only took the kids 2 hours to actually fall asleep once we got in the tent. Wife wanted to see the fireflies and I’m glad she got to check it off the list. It’s sad thinking about it though. The “large number” of them are just what was everywhere back when I was a kid.

The next morning around noon we packed up and headed to the ranger station to see if any sites happened to have more than one night open. There was but we had to move campgrounds which was fine. We drove over to Deep Creek Campground which looked like it was a huge tubing Mecca. We set up camp and went to walk Clingmans Dome in search of cooler weather and a hike the kids wouldn’t complain about too much. Super cool lookout if you’ve never been.

Got back to our campsite late to find that our tent had been taken over by fire ants. Between that and extra tired kids, we decided to just pack it up and try again next month. Luckily the in-laws were only an hour and a half away so we got to crash there and at least do the rest of the camping stuff minus sleeping in tents. Taught the girls how to use flint steel and steel wool to start fires and that kept them both busy for hours.

My front end started squeaking embarrassingly bad during this trip. Narrowed it down To the upper ball joint passenger side, so I had to go out and buy a baby grease gun and a needle attachment to get grease through the dry rotted and torn boots. Went ahead and did all of them then bit the bullet and ordered UCAs, LCA ball joints and bushings and sway bar bushings. Kicking myself for not ordering engine, tranny, And diff bushings to just get all of the rubber up front done.