Kidphc's 2000 LC100 attempt to rebuild, maintenance and rebuild/build up. (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Threads
4
Messages
76
Location
Around Washing D.C.
Well after lurking for 8+ years, I finally picked up my own LC. Being poor (but running a shop) I have been relegated to beat up trucks that I can salvage. From my ghetto '98 Expy (knickname Brutus $1800) to myy z71 Burb (bought for $2500 6 years ago, nickname Snowgee) has been giving me undiagnosable (well me and 5 other mechanics can't figure it out) troubles. So out with the old in with the newused. Being poor, wife did save money,
the hunt was on.

****Disclaimer
Warning this is going to be a slow rebuild and upgrade. I mean SLOW, combination of funds and the fact the truck will be a daily driver.

Don't mind the silly wannabee flex pic. I do it for almost all our trucks when it joins the family and leaves.
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Unfortunately, a lot of crying about how the girls are going to miss her. Especially, from the the tween (11yr), the 6yr old and 4yr old are just following their sister. Hampering the dismantle process.
In comes the hundy.

Finally, found one close to what I could afford (not really), thank you Mr. Campbell (a mud member should of gotten his handle), for holding onto her for the past year and barely driving her. You have incomming IH8mud swag. Told my wife it was fate. She laughed, since she said when we need a replacement and saw what I was looking at she said great it's going to be a Silver LC. I had been looking for a grey one, silver is her least liked color. Well we ended up with a silver one after a 2.5hr one way trip, 7hrs in total (95N traffic). : /

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Again the flex thing, is a joke, I do it for almost all our trucks when it joins the family and leaves.

So time to baseline her.
1.) Rust CHECK
2.) Mucho Maintenance CHECK
3.) OMG what was I thinking CHECK

First things first, I need her to pass Maryland Inspection and be drive able for a bit.

So here is the list of what I have started with.
1.) brakes, bit a of rust (not going to show pics, pretty straight forward)
a.)replaced pads (Centric 105 #s) and rotors (Centric GCX series) all the way around. Parking brake was recently rebuilt, with the cables
b.) Driver caliper partially seized, replaced with Cardone reman.
c.) Wheel bearings, a bit of play, replacing with Timken bearings, races and seals
2.) Wiper blades replaced with Trico Neoforms.
3.) Shocks all replaced with KYB shocks.
4.) Front Sway Bar Bushings and links replaced with Moog components.

Now for the painful stuff.

1.)Front differential supports
a.) Driver side replaced with OE from Toyota]
b.) Passenger side the diff cover has to be replaced.
Well the dealer told me there are 4 availably nationally 8 are in transit so its going to be a week or two. Can't wait that long I need to get past inspection and this will be a fail item.

Remedy
*** Disclaimer: don't do this yourself unless you have the eye. The eye to level things without tools almost perfectly. Many shops can't do this. Fortunately, I have a El Salvadorian mechanic employee. They have the "EYE". They can match bolts up pitch, length, thread by eyeballing it. I hunt for a bolt takes me 3 hours to find it in the bolt pile. They can do it less then 10 minutes. Out of the 3 El Salvadorian mechanics we have hired 2 have had the EYE.

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The dealer had mistakenly sent me the rear one as well. The #3 denotes that the part is only available as part of an assembly.


So in comes Omar, my mechanic with the phrase I hate the most "esperate" which means "wait" in english. To me as a boss usually means "F**** Y**, I am going to do it my way. Unfortunately, 50% of the time results in it me losing money. NOT THIS TIME!!!!!! WOOT!!!


The bushing in need or replacement.
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The brand new OEM Rear support.

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The NEW OEM rear support went into a vice and Omar patiently with a hand sledge hammer released the new bushing out. We were left with a new bushing and this now piece of scrap.

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The offending torn bushing in the differential front housing was removed. Using pry bars and a chisel to deform the soft steel.

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Omar then took the new bushing aligned her up, took about 5 tries, sorry no photos of the process, since it was kind requiring us both. Then he said "OK". Mind you the cup looked about the same as the old removed bushing, because of all the in and out prying. We instered the top bushing and lower bushing. He thenproceed to align the nose of the bushing using a transmission jack stand and started hand threading the bolt. Once about 90% of the bolt was in, out came the impact gun.

End result.
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You can see some of the distortion in the flange. Before anyone says anything. the bushings for the front passenger and rear passenger front differential supports are identical. From the cup size to the step size, diameter and step distance. Not the proudest moment, it turned out be cheaper. Rear support cost about $165 from the dealer with my shop discount, the cover would of cost $280+.

Onto dusting the frame out.
3 hours later OMG... the gravel and dirt and rust.

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That is 6" inches of dust, rust flakes and crap that came from the frame being blown out at 150PSI and a Snapon blow gun. Only part of it too.


Just a preview of what I need to work with. The frame R&R is going to have to wait.
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I will need to pickup supplies. Plan on picking up a bead blaster, glass beads, bunch of tarps, black spray paint. Rust Reformer to spray on after the cleaning. Inside of the frames I will attempt to clean with a pipe snake (with drill attachment) and small length of chain. Final coat will be PB Blaster's rust protectant and maybe a coat of Eastwoods Internal rust frame coating with a coat of R234 on the larger sections. Stay tuned.
 
Nothing to really do with the LC100. I'll do this one time on the forum.

My vanity ham callsign, comes from an old school teacher I had. He ran the amateur radio club at my junior highschool. After I finally got my ticket some 20+ years later I was trying to contact him. Turns out he passed away on 9/11 at the Pentagon. The day after he became the commander at a local VFO. I found that his callsign was left dormant for 13 plus years. Tried to contact his son to see if was ok to apply, with no luck. Applied and got the callsign 7 days later. He was an amazing man. Teacher, father, Vietnam veteran, Persian Gulf veteran and Army reservist. Would most likely of added Afghanistan and Iraq if he had survived the initial attack.

Convo: I had with him.
Why did you enlist during Vietnam? To due my duty and try to save one other from having to go. Figured I would get drafted anyways so just enlisted.

How did you learn to fly Helis. Army taught me, I just scored well compared to others on the entrance test. Just got lucky.

William R. 'Bill' Ruth - W3HRD - https://www.qcwa.org/w3hrd-19537-sk.htm

We remember.

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Update.

1. Redid interior lights with LEDs. Had to do the dash lights, MD requires all lights to work. Now I know the socket and wiring for the light bulb in the glove box are M.I.A.

2. Took the truck home for the weekend to shake it down. Was going take her for inspection today. Sigh, battery light came on a trip to dinner. Torque App was show about 12.2 volts, by the time I got to the shop it was 11.4 and dropping.

So my mechanic and I looked at the alternator, which we were planning on swapping anyways. We both said F'it, lets do what we were going to do anyays.

a. Radiator (because the pipes had mud and stones. Usually from corrosion.)
b. Condenser
c. Timing belt/water pump, with all the fixings cam, crankshaft seals, tensioner, idler pulleys, thermostat and gasket.
Looking at the condition of the coolant pipes, going to do a power flush.
d. Ac compressor
e. Alternator
f. Belt and pulleys

3. Put some Amazon poor man waterproof seat covers. Luxury liners for all 3 rows, they covered the most of the interior, on the boat from China so give or take a month.
** I'm a mechanic so, everything I touch becomes black. Not a good thing with a tan interior.
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My god original condenser... Entire row of fins missing on the other side. You can see that the fins broke apart in the middle and formed a ridge when we laid it down. Very few spots can you see through it, clogged with dirt and debris.

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This is going to be good.
I am not going to document everything step by step. Too many really awesome DIY/how to on Ih8mud. So need to duplicate work. May come back to put in links so anyone going through this tread runs into the same problem they can find it easier. But will have to wait till later.
 
Not Sure if you can see it but. Part of the clunking is coming from the axle flanges and axles. 2 new axles and axle flanges. Still have clunking from the front/rear pinion gears and transfer case. Guess I am going to have to live with the noise. Yes, the drive shafts are greased ujoints and all. You can physically see the the whole driveshaft spin and stop movement at the pinion flange. So its in the diffs. Still tight by hand.

The axles and flanges on the driver side were missing about 1/2 the width of the teeth.
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Timing belt, water pump, camshaft seals, crankshaft seals, timing tensioner, thermostat, idler pulley, main belt tensioner pulley, alternator, AC compressor, serpentine belt, upper and lower radiator hoses, and heater t's all done.

Car is being warmed up.

I will go over the AC recharge it may help people.

For this I usually use a cheap Harbor (china) Freight AC manifold. I avoid the low side only gauges like a plaque, you know Amazon/Advance Auto etc freon recharge kits.

Why?...

Here is a pressure chart I use as reference. Note the low pressure values then the high pressure values at different temperatures? When you get you blood pressure checked do you or your doctor only look at the Diastolic values (the lower values)? Nope, you can only get an idea of what is going on by look at both values. If you see the needle bouncing on one side that usually means a blockage a leak on that side, pretty large leak if the needle is dancing.

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First I pulled vacuum for about 15-20 minutes. This pulls all the moisture from the system. Just hook up the gauge lead out to the vacuum pump and open low side on the manifold, close the high side and plug in/turn on vacuum pump. I then let it sit with all the leads disconnected for about 20-30 minutes to verify leaks. Vacuum will tell you if there is a leak faster then waiting for the pressure to drop off. She sat at -28 PSI so I was happy.

Ours is ancient but keeps ticking, they don't make them like this anymore. You can hear the pump start to gurgle, that is the sound I listen for to tell me we are done.

The 2000 LC100 calls for 1050g +_50g or about 37 ounces. So I just ended up putting 2-12 once cans of Chemfor freon and 1 can of freon with UV dye. Open the can on the lead, crack the low side manifold slowly, NOT ALL THE WAY OPEN. You do not want the freon rushing in, the gauge will/can freeze up the can tap can will freeze up and worse you could blow out a seals with a rapid pressure change. Be patient this can take a while as the compressor is going to short cycle, and you need the suction on the low side. TRY AND LET THE SYSTEM RUN FOR A FEW MINUTES TO LET THE SYSTEM STABILIZE. Especially, if you are doing it by pressure values and not weight.

Pressures came out a little low, but I don't like overloading freon, on cooler days. So it will have to wait for a complete top off next summer when it is closer to 100 degrees, right now it is floating at 80 degrees.

Verified compressor clutch engaged, visually and by gauges.
Verified condenser fan was working visually.

These gauges are Amazon specials. They have R12 taps for these, so a little funky to play with.
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When the system is topped off properly, usually the condenser fan is on highspeed mode, on some cars it sounds like a jet fan.

I like to see about 30 degree differential from outside with recirculate on at the center vent. (sorry for the blurry pic, camera refused to stay focused)
My actual target is usually between 50-55. WOOT 46-47 on the driver center vent.

50 on driver door vent.
55 on rear driver vent
57 on cargo area middle vent.

Very happy.
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I've never measured my 100's vents but I did measure my Avalon's vents, after about 20 minutes I got 40. Ambient temp that day was in the mid to high 90's if I remember right.
 
I've never measured my 100's vents but I did measure my Avalon's vents, after about 20 minutes I got 40. Ambient temp that day was in the mid to high 90's if I remember right.
That is awesome. I love the old car because on really humid days the r12 would generate snow flakes out of the vents.
 
Sigh.. Driving in alternator at idle in drive had Torque app angrly flashing 12.5-124 volts. Sometimes the ECU would catch itself and bounce back up to 13.2v. Running at 2k RPM it was 14.0v. Idle at park it was floating at 13.8v (roughly where it should be). Going to have to do some research.


Double sigh, Backing out of the driveway the VSC and VSC/Off lights shined at me.

C1207 P/R circuit, VSC Circuit short or open
C1340 Open or short in center differential circuit.

Only two things in common on both the circuit.
1. ABS, BA,Trac, VSC ECU
2. The gauge cluster.

Neither one go through the same junction boxes minus the instrument panel.

Then I noticed the Park light out. Read up on the c1207 code a bit and guess what known issue when not using OEM dashboard lights. So swapped a bunch of bulbs. Reconnected partially (keep word. in miind, I didn't install the lower or upper screws.).

Half the lights didn't come on. So I ended up pushing the instrument panel up and voila all the lights came. So I secured the upper and lower dashboard. Still half the lights didn't come on, screwed the connector screws for the panel bit more then I thought I should have.

Summary: Long story short, combination of bulbs and not tightening the connector for the instrument panel cause f'en lights not to come on, as well as diff lock .and VSC codes.
 
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Welp, for todays adventure, the voltage at idle in drive. Which was dropping down to 12.3.-11.8v. Nope it wasn't triggering the battery light so no real idea when that light comes on.

The LC has a new battery (duracell which has a DEKA core) and alternator (Denso reman 80a). It shows a nicely and lovely 13.6v-14.0 at idle in neutral or in park.

From a multimeter on the battery leads and looking at torque app connected to OBD I was seeing only a 0.2v difference at times. Had Omar "my mechanic stumped".

So a bit of soul searching. Lets look at the idle speed. It would drop down to about 650 rpms or so when in drive. The ECU/regulator would attempt to catch the alternator and it would bounce up then the voltage creep down would begin over again. It was fine when driving down the street.

With no idle speed correction available via and Idle control motor (programming) or screw, I decided to adjust the throttle cable (looks to be original). Got the idle closer to 712-750rpm in drive. Which is actually a bit high in park at about 780-820 rpm, with the lights on and AC at full blast.

I can deal with a little higher the spec'ed RPMs if the alternator is putting out closer to the values I expect.

Idle speed by Alldata is 700+- 50 rpm.

Guess another thing to add to do to the list, cleaning the throttle body and MAF a bit. Maybe a idle control valve replacement.
 
This weekend picked up a set up 18" tundra rims the guy I bought the truck had. He said they were free as soon as long I got them out of his garage. So another 4+ hour road trip.

This moring slapped them on to take a look. The tires on it are 32", so I get to see what she will look . So ripped off the floor boards, the brackets were almost rusted all the way through.

Omar ,my mechanic as soon as he put them on was like you need spacers. I said nope. At least the truck looks more like a truck and less like a minivan now. Not sure if I like the look, personally, I like the more tires then rims. You know the balloon look.

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Welp, been a while since an update.

HIR bulbs installed. Well worth the money, a very good bang for the buck mod, I will have to see how long they will last. Really got spoiled by the Morimoto HIDs I had in the Suburban. They were in a DEPO projector, funny that the cut off line was actually nice, minus the terrible hotspots in places I didn't want them in. Nope never got flashed and walking towards/driving the truck I never saw glare.

I got a Massive metal ditch light bracket for the driver side. Use as an antenna bracket, since I have ordered the passenger side and some cheap Amazon cube lights. The bracket was to install my Larsen 2/70 B. Didn't do the wiring since the center console is going to be a task upon it self. Plus BenCC said it was a 5 week lead time for the overhead console mount for my FTM400. So I am in no big rush.

Also got Trail Tailor Driver side rear hatch mount. This is to mount the 10m/11m antenna. Of course during the trial fit the coax got stuck between the mount and the hatch and promptly displayed it's insides. So new Fire ring and coax on the way. The Anytone AT6666 which I use for 10m SSB, 11m(CB) AM/SSB work will be mounted to the top of the dash. I however will have to create a dash pod, so this should be fun.

Both mounts are nicely made. Nice think steel. Very happy with the quality. I did however, have gripes with both.
  1. The Massive metal antenna bracket I had to grind out the NMO hole since it was exactly 3/4", the Larsen NMO threads would not go in.
  2. The Trail Tailor Mount, cants the antenna forward so it kinda follows the body lines. Don't really like that too much. Not sure if I will cut it up and weld it back up to get it to sit straight. His welds are so much prettier then mine.
  3. Now the OCD side of me is having fits. I replaced the AM/FM antenna and it broke a week later. So I electric taped it up till I can get a fixed metal whip style installed.
    1. So why is my OCD side going nuts. Well F##K all three of my antennas are now pointing in 3 different directions. Sigh guess I will live with it for a while.
First off the Massive Metal ditch bracket with antenna bracket. NOTE: could not use the flange gasket had to use the o-ring for the NMO. Also note the 2/70 (foreground) is straight up and down and the AM/FM antenna has a rearward rake.

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Second the Trail Tailor driver side hatch mount. NOTE: I don't think I will be able to get pod light installed on there with the CB antenna without an extension plate. Also should note that the passenger side mount has been sold out forever. It is ok. I mount my antennas on the driver side, easier to avoid clipping trees with. NOTE: the forward rake of the CB/10m antenna.

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Lastly, for now at least.

I installed some cheap Chinese Amazon VIP Curtains on the back doors. They are shades for the little ones. Yes, the long rails are mounted to the top. I did it on purpose. The curtains werer going to be about 2" inches short either way.
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I found this set on AliExpress that are going to give a bit more coverage. As well as they say they were designed for the 100. The set is suppose to cover all three sets of windows, Front, rear and cargo area. Might be a decent option for the car campers on here. I just didn't want to bite the bullet.

The VIP cargo floor cover should arrive soon from China. I think I may have ordered 2 black sets by accident, have to wait to see. My flea bay order for the VIP liners for the first 2 row should also arrive soon.
 
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Finally, the flea bay luxury(lol) floor mats for 1st and 2nd rows came in. Took over a month, but pretty happy with the $80 purchase, shipping was another $30. The seller was responsive, and even offered to refund or reship when they were over due by a week. In the end I was thrilled, gives me more coverage then I had hoped for considering even after work everything that touches me gets greasy, black and filthy. Yes, I do clean. Just need to do a bit more tucking, since I installed it in the dark lastnight.

EBay listing if you are interested.

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Unfortunately, they don't sell the trunk mat, the one from aliexpress, well the cutouts were all wrong and nothing fit, so still on the hunt for a cheap set of full coverage trunk mats.

Got to install the DesertDoesIt Front Seat Jackers. Which are awesome, I always found Toyota seat bottoms short and cut off blood flow after an hour or two, these help alleviate it a bit. Side benefit, it looks like I might be able to squeeze my Yaesu FTM 400XDR body underneath the front driver seat, it would be tight, real tight fit.

Side note: found a pair of my brother's Viaair Air compressors for his old airbag setup. He said take them, might need a rebuild. I guess they are both going on the truck, just need to figure out how to mount the compressors and air tanks.
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great looking truck, im in southern MD, always nice to see another local 100. Check out our local TLCA chapter Capital Land Cruiser Club , we have a lot of 100 series guys
 
great looking truck, im in southern MD, always nice to see another local 100. Check out our local TLCA chapter Capital Land Cruiser Club , we have a lot of 100 series guys
I have joined the Facebook group a bit ago. Just not hugely active much less in groups that I usually join, little ones take up all the spare time.

She looks pretty from afar, but eh get close and you can see the makeup caked on. I have soooooo much work to do on her.

It is actually pretty shocking how many LC100 and LX470 I see on 495 at 6 in the morning. It has to be at least 2-4.
 
I have joined the Facebook group a bit ago. Just not hugely active much less in groups that I usually join, little ones take up all the spare time.

She looks pretty from afar, but eh get close and you can see the makeup caked on. I have soooooo much work to do on her.

It is actually pretty shocking how many LC100 and LX470 I see on 495 at 6 in the morning. It has to be at least 2-4.
I hear that with the little ones, and i,ve been noticing more as well
 

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