My 05 LX470 build thread (2 Viewers)

[roadsalt]

Purpose and overview, to keep a log of my journey with this new to me 05 Lexus LX470.

I picked it up sight unseen from another forum member with around 235k miles.

Initial impressions: Wow cool truck. Roomy and beefy. Just what I expected. Engine roared like a straight piped F350 when I started it up. Handling was gooey and it rocked like a boat. I soon learned what it mean that it was stuck in “low” - PO apparently had been driving it that way for a while. Yikes. He disclosed that the AHC was leaking and replacing the suspension is part of the plan. No worries.

Few chips in the hood paint, no worries there. Little bit of bubbling rust at the rear passenger side tailgate window. That’s not good. Maybe a new tailgate upper in my future. Or for now I could grind it, bondo, and paint it. Might be able to buy a few years.

Addressing the suspension: PO said a full suspension reservoir would hold 2-3 weeks. Ok. I filled the suspension reservoir up with the seller provided fresh can… and it poured out of a rusted line like a waterfall. What a glorious 6-7 hours of functional AHC time that was! Truck drove great! By the next morning it was low again and there was a very sad puddle of $65 fluid. Can said it for sure causes cancer. Sorry local wildlife.

Trucks been sitting in my driveway since.

Addressing the exhaust: I managed to get it on a lift at a local muffler shop during that 6-7 hour window. The muffler was unexpectedly split in half. Trash. Looks like it was a s*** aftermarket one anyway. For $220 they hacked it out and welded a new one in.

While it was up there I saw the rear crossmember had a bit more than surface rust. I’ve made an appointment with Garden State Undercoating to wirewheel it to see what I’m dealing with. May get started on it myself if I get time. Hopefully it isn’t rotted, I’ll find out.

Also got a glimpse of the rotted AHC lines. No way I’ll be able to save that system. Planning to order a dobsinsons 2” lift tomorrow when they go on sale.

Photos attached for your pleasure.

 

[cambo16]

I dig the wheels. It's so hard to find a reasonably priced set of those.

 

[roadsalt]

I dig the wheels. It's so hard to find a reasonably priced set of those.

Thanks. PO powder coated them to match the body. Looks great.

 

[roadsalt]

Sanded down rusty sliders and bed lined them black

 

[excessive]

Congrats on the new truck! I would get that rust addressed ASAP. if you do nothing else, at least get fluidfilm on there to stop the rust from getting worse.
as for the AHC, just delete it, install an aftermarket suspension ( or OEM Landcruiser suspension) and move on. I don't miss my AHC whatsoever. Now i dont have to worry about it braking, and after removing all the components my truck is now 200 lbs. lighter.

did you add any texture to the slider paint? I threw some sand in my slider paint so they arent slippery when wet. just curious what other people do

 

[roadsalt]

Congrats on the new truck! I would get that rust addressed ASAP. if you do nothing else, at least get fluidfilm on there to stop the rust from getting worse.
as for the AHC, just delete it, install an aftermarket suspension ( or OEM Landcruiser suspension) and move on. I don't miss my AHC whatsoever. Now i dont have to worry about it braking, and after removing all the components my truck is now 200 lbs. lighter.

did you add any texture to the slider paint? I threw some sand in my slider paint so they arent slippery when wet. just curious what other people do

Thank you- yes I have a few cans of fluid film handy. Will apply tomorrow.

Going to order the dobs and have it deleted. Don’t think I can take this system apart myself.

Used bedliner on the slides. It’s usually kind of textured by default.

 

[roadsalt]

Ordered 1.5-2” dobsinsons lift kit on 15% off today for early Black Friday sale. Should see it in about a week.

 

[roadsalt]

Left bullet bandolier on my dissent bumper died. Thankfully PO gave me an extra bunch. Wired it in, back in business.

Also sanded down & refinished light bar. It was turning gray and the washers were rusting. Replaced metal washers with nylon

And yesterday I sanded down and refinished my headlamps. They were god awful yellow and foggy. Used the solutions from the sylvania kit & 400, 1000, 2000 grits on an orbital. Much better.

 

[roadsalt]

Visited my truck yesterday. I opted for the slower mechanic who had dealt with AHC before. He got all the components in & found that the rear brakes and rotors were completely worthless. Replaced those too.

He did a bit of descaling and concluded that the frame is in fine shape. There is one small area at the rear cross member that is nasty, but it’s structurally sound, thankfully.

This is turning out to be quite the pricey visit. I get my bill today. Wish me luck.

 

[roadsalt]

Lift kit is in. Now to clean house. Mechanic is going to clean up the frame rust and take care of the tailgate little bit of rust. He is going to do a small weld at the cross member behind the rear axel. Feels like a money pit about now, but I should have a decent car out of the deal.

 

[roadsalt]

AHC delete all done. Unplugged the lower two plugs from my AHC ecu (I don’t have Shaq hands apparently) and I swapped out the AHC controls for the handy little pocket. The low AHC dash error is gone and the little pocket thing fits my phone. Getting there.

Phoenix head unit comes Wednesday.

 

[roadsalt]

Whelp looks like the tires I got from the PO are trash. Filled it Thursday and it was low today - 18psi.

Pulled the trigger on NITTO terra g2s on clearance. LT285/75R17 - $279 a piece

 

[roadsalt]

Meanwhile, I’ve got got some bad squealing at very slow speed, and my emergency brake doesn’t work. Could be connected?

 

[roadsalt]

Forgot to mention, I tackled my lift kit adjustments this morning, mostly.

Rear measured 23 from cap to fender
Front measured 20.5 from cap to fender

After speaking to Dobinsons, I realized that:
A) my rear will sag about an inch after a thousand miles
B) I had to bring up my front via adjusting my torsion bars 6-10 turns.
C) I should only have about a half inch difference from front to back

So I got a 30mm 6 point socket & got cranking on my torsion bars. My son helped me keep count of the turns. Jesus that was a tough one. Got 6 turns deep on each side and called it a day.

So now my rear is measuring 23, or a higher somehow and my front is measuring 22 after driving it around the block a bit.

My difference is only about an inch now. Once the rear springs settle, it'll be right as rain. Pic of how it stands now. Pic of how it stood is up the thread a bit.

 

[roadsalt]

Misc loose threads in no particular order

1-Drivers side headlight took in some water during this rain storm.

2-still haven’t fluid filmed. Must do before first snow

3-thinking of getting the yoko g015 and canceling the terra g2

4-phoenix head unit comes today. Let’s see if it buzzes like everyone else’s.

5-exterior door panel clips are rusted away, got some heavy duty tape and stuck it back on. Ugh. IH8RUST

6-picked up a pioneer roof rack but holding off on buying the fit kit, rhino rack stuff is pricey

7-small chips in the paint throughout car. Too cold out to address

8-wish the dissent bumper was “fuller” looking. From a certain angle the front end looks like it’s been in a wreck. Oem bumper doesn’t look to bad either.

9-got a ML refoam kit. I’ll work on that on the next lazy Sunday that it’s not raining. Speakers cackle once in a while

10-low speed squealing is embarrassing in parking lots. Going to try and figure that out asap

 

[T4R2TLC]

Meanwhile, I’ve got got some bad squealing at very slow speed, and my emergency brake doesn’t work. Could be connected?

Could be, only way to find out is to pull apart the e brake. In the northeast bellcranks and the small e brake cable that connects bellcrank to shoe do not last long... When you pull the rotor, look to see if the inside lip of the rotor is rubbing on the backing plate at all. Both sides of mine rubbed slightly due to corrosion on both the rotor and backing plate which caused a low speed squeak/grind and a high speed whir when driving next to a jersey barrier. A hammer and drift makes easy work of massaging the backing plate out of the way. Also grease slide pins and such while you have rear brakes apart—decent odds that the brakes rather than the e brake are causing the noise.

Misc loose threads in no particular order

1-Drivers side headlight took in some water during this rain storm.

2-still haven’t fluid filmed. Must do before first snow

3-thinking of getting the yoko g015 and canceling the terra g2

1-While investigating, consider adjusting headlight aim. You just lifted it and reduced rake (assuming the settling is correct and you end up with zero rake) which will likely blind oncoming traffic.

2-I like to use WD40 in some of the areas with no splash exposure but that require lots of thin creeping (inside lower doors, inside my rock sliders, etc). But yeah FF is good for the undercarriage to prevent further rust

3-no personal experience with the Yokohamas, have friends running the G2s and no complaints. My vote is for Falken Wildpeaks, best snow and offroad performance I have found for a tire with similar weight and tread to the above. Check with a Jeep shop or Craigslist for new takeoffs from a Jeep that comes with 285/75r17 C-Range Wildpeaks, that's how I got 5 new tires to mount on my Rock Warriors for $600-700.

Love seeing you post in this thread—I too am in the northeast and have a lot of the same projects going on. Fun to see that not everyone on forums is driving a $30k truck from out west where every bolt is finger tight lol I know those torsion bar adjusters are a bear in the rust belt!

 

[roadsalt]

Could be, only way to find out is to pull apart the e brake. In the northeast bellcranks and the small e brake cable that connects bellcrank to shoe do not last long... When you pull the rotor, look to see if the inside lip of the rotor is rubbing on the backing plate at all. Both sides of mine rubbed slightly due to corrosion on both the rotor and backing plate which caused a low speed squeak/grind and a high speed whir when driving next to a jersey barrier. A hammer and drift makes easy work of massaging the backing plate out of the way. Also grease slide pins and such while you have rear brakes apart—decent odds that the brakes rather than the e brake are causing the noise.


1-While investigating, consider adjusting headlight aim. You just lifted it and reduced rake (assuming the settling is correct and you end up with zero rake) which will likely blind oncoming traffic.

2-I like to use WD40 in some of the areas with no splash exposure but that require lots of thin creeping (inside lower doors, inside my rock sliders, etc). But yeah FF is good for the undercarriage to prevent further rust

3-no personal experience with the Yokohamas, have friends running the G2s and no complaints. My vote is for Falken Wildpeaks, best snow and offroad performance I have found for a tire with similar weight and tread to the above. Check with a Jeep shop or Craigslist for new takeoffs from a Jeep that comes with 285/75r17 C-Range Wildpeaks, that's how I got 5 new tires to mount on my Rock Warriors for $600-700.

Love seeing you post in this thread—I too am in the northeast and have a lot of the same projects going on. Fun to see that not everyone on forums is driving a $30k truck from out west where every bolt is finger tight lol I know those torsion bar adjusters are a bear in the rust belt!

I'm going to take some time and digest your response. TY!

For now I'm too frustrated to think. I spent 5 hours putting the Phoenix tesla style head unit in... and at the finish line, working and all, as I was putting it into the nav cavity, the thing lost power. Holy hell I'm frustrated.

 

[roadsalt]

That was a royal pain in the ass! It blew a 10-amp fuse marked RADIO by the passenger seat fuse box. Got it all buttoned up. The sound needs some fine tuning, and I have no clue how to wire the new backup cam in. But for another day.

Thanking @TLC2K5 for calming me down & reminding me to go back to basics.

 

[TLC2K5]

View attachment 3505720
That was a royal pain in the ass! It blew a 10-amp fuse marked RADIO by the passenger seat fuse box. Got it all buttoned up. The sound needs some fine tuning, and I have no clue how to wire the new backup cam in. But for another day.

Thanking @TLC2K5 for calming me down & reminding me to go back to basics.

Thanks!
Camera is relatively easy to fix.
Under the passenger seat where you have navi and amplifier, one of the connectors has a wire with signal from the OEM backup camera. It’s a shielded wire. Sorry, do not remember exact pin, but it was an article on the Phoenix support with exact pin. You will need to run shielded wire from that pin to the unit’s reverse camera input.
Worst case - ask Phoenix support, they know that trick.
I would suggest to remove the passenger sit, much easier. Also, you’ll be rewarded - I found a couple of bucks of coins and a lot of dirt under the sit

 

[roadsalt]

Could be, only way to find out is to pull apart the e brake. In the northeast bellcranks and the small e brake cable that connects bellcrank to shoe do not last long... When you pull the rotor, look to see if the inside lip of the rotor is rubbing on the backing plate at all. Both sides of mine rubbed slightly due to corrosion on both the rotor and backing plate which caused a low speed squeak/grind and a high speed whir when driving next to a jersey barrier. A hammer and drift makes easy work of massaging the backing plate out of the way. Also grease slide pins and such while you have rear brakes apart—decent odds that the brakes rather than the e brake are causing the noise.

Brakes and rotors were just replaced back there..... I'm still squeeling pretty bad. I reckon its the ebrake, and at this point I'm thinking of just disabling it altogether somehow.

1-While investigating, consider adjusting headlight aim. You just lifted it and reduced rake (assuming the settling is correct and you end up with zero rake) which will likely blind oncoming traffic.

I kept a good inch of rake, should be close to stock rake or better

2-I like to use WD40 in some of the areas with no splash exposure but that require lots of thin creeping (inside lower doors, inside my rock sliders, etc). But yeah FF is good for the undercarriage to prevent further rust

Really WD40 ? I've never used it to treat my cars.

3-no personal experience with the Yokohamas, have friends running the G2s and no complaints. My vote is for Falken Wildpeaks, best snow and offroad performance I have found for a tire with similar weight and tread to the above. Check with a Jeep shop or Craigslist for new takeoffs from a Jeep that comes with 285/75r17 C-Range Wildpeaks, that's how I got 5 new tires to mount on my Rock Warriors for $600-700.

I'll do that! Every cent counts while baselining this damn thing

Love seeing you post in this thread—I too am in the northeast and have a lot of the same projects going on. Fun to see that not everyone on forums is driving a $30k truck from out west where every bolt is finger tight lol I know those torsion bar adjusters are a bear in the rust belt!

Thank you for the encouragement. Damn road salt!