Builds New to GX's - World's slowest build thread! (1 Viewer)

[Mister Mister]

Hi everyone! I'm Ryan, I build dampers for a living and just bought my first (and hopefully last!) GX470 the other day. First of all, thanks to all of you on the site or else I would have never known what to look for and would have ended up with an oooooook one instead of a GREAT one. SO. On to the truck! After searching for probably 8 months on every used car website, FB marketplace, CL etc, I was losing faith that I'd ever find exactly what I wanted. Living in Chicago (and seeing some for sale around here / Ohio etc ......... yikes ........) I knew it had to be from the south if at all possible.

Well it all came together and I flew to Dallas to pick up a silver '05 non-nav sport package with 134k that the price was right on.

THE GOOD: Unicorns! Also its SO clean underneath I can't stop talking about it (above is after the last 3 hrs of the drive in rain). No leaks to speak of so far, everything is present and accounted for. Was a lease its whole life apparently so had a reasonable amount of service history too. Plus did I mention the non-nav sport package?? The black trim is the BEST imo.

THE BAD: Being from Texas, the sun was starting to beat up the paint on the roof / all surfaces facing straight up. Plus, as a lease, the interior could use some love and there are some scuffs and scratches on the paint and a weird dent in the passenger a-pillar. Also at 134k, none of the BIG service items were done (timing belt, diff oil changes etc), so I'm currently amassing parts to give it a thorough service. But it made it all 1000 miles back to Chicago without too much drama. The power steering breather was starting to let go (figured out how to rebuild also from all of you here!), changed the o-rings at work yesterday and it's all good so far. In case anyone ever needs to know, the o-rings seemed to be ORV005 (I had some heavy duty viton ones here for some older shim dampers that worked perfectly). I also need to reset the KDSS, got just a little bit of that leeeaaaaaaan goin on at the moment.....

So far I love it. I plan on keeping it for quite a while, so right now is maintenance, then slowly I'll turn it into a mild adventure-mobile. New touch screen stereo, lift, wheels/tires, sliders, tents, tables, YOU NAME IT. Also it will be nice to be able to tow my 240sx around whenever I need to. But I don't have tons of money to throw a ton of stuff at it all in one go, so slowly but surely *see thread title lol* I'll get some cool stuff done here and there. Looking forward hanging out with you guys and girls here!

 

[ADVFamilyHauler]

Welcome! Congrats, nice find!

 

[lgrt]

Congrats on finding a really nice GX470!

 

[MaverickFiveO]

Welcome to the club!

If you are experienced offroad, just ignore this whole post. Otherwise:

As another "slow builder" (read: I have a 1.5 year old), here's some unsolicited, but hopefully helpful advice.

I came from a racing classics and doing *entirely legal things* with my BMW, GTI, and Miata on roads. I had never had a truck before. If you're an inexperienced off roader like me and don't already know what you want/need for the trips you want, I vote start with tires, but don't touch the lift and wheels yet. I immediately wanted to lift mine, but I think that's the wrong way to start if your suspension is still good.

The tires will help a ton and you will be surprised at how far this truck will go with a stock suspension. If you're building it out as an "adventure mobile", the big part is that the stock AHC is great as you add the tent, tables, drawers and any other stuff you want to add. Go tires first, then the camping comforts (maybe armor depending on usage), then the suspension. I'm going to experiment and build mine out until I'm relatively happy, and THEN pick a new suspension once I have a good idea of my weight requirements. I am really glad I didn't change out the suspension, and I still explore in the Utah mountains and deserts a couple times a month on a stock suspension without hitting too much trouble. Just my 0.02, others may disagree.

 

[Mister Mister]

Thanks everyone! Glad to be here, this forum has been super helpful so far.

@MaverickFiveO Thanks I super appreciate the advice! This is my first truck (not including the '63 C10 I sold to buy this....) so I'm definitely down for advice. But yes tires will be first on my list after maintenance. The fronts are almost new but the rears are cracked / getting worn out, so I'll do those first and worry about a really nice set of tires later. And since the air suspension is still working great, I'm not even going to think about lifts or anything until I absolutely need to lol. It's going to do some highway miles first so no need to go super nuts on it right out of the gate....

Part of the reason I was also excited to find a sport (not to mention a regular GX in general) was how capable they are offroad without touching anything, so I will 100% be following your plan of small things first and just enjoy it as is. I'd rather have a tent / fridge / table / sliders / touchscreen stereo etc first and just enjoy it as is. Any other advice is super welcome since I'm coming from the world of endurance racing, drifting, hot rods and have never been into offroading. Thanks man!

 

[MaverickFiveO]

Thanks everyone! Glad to be here, this forum has been super helpful so far.

@MaverickFiveO Thanks I super appreciate the advice! This is my first truck (not including the '63 C10 I sold to buy this....) so I'm definitely down for advice. But yes tires will be first on my list after maintenance. The fronts are almost new but the rears are cracked / getting worn out, so I'll do those first and worry about a really nice set of tires later. And since the air suspension is still working great, I'm not even going to think about lifts or anything until I absolutely need to lol. It's going to do some highway miles first so no need to go super nuts on it right out of the gate....

Part of the reason I was also excited to find a sport (not to mention a regular GX in general) was how capable they are offroad without touching anything, so I will 100% be following your plan of small things first and just enjoy it as is. I'd rather have a tent / fridge / table / sliders / touchscreen stereo etc first and just enjoy it as is. Any other advice is super welcome since I'm coming from the world of endurance racing, drifting, hot rods and have never been into offroading. Thanks man!

Part of my approach is because I discovered how wrong I was in my perception of driving offroad. After years of trying to go fast on roads, offroad driving seemed really SLOW. At least here in Utah where everything is so rocky. One of my favorite camping spots requires, realistically, an hour to go about 8 miles. Another is about an hour for 20 miles of washboard switchbacks. That realization changed my priorities. I originally thought I'd go after suspension and armor and Raptor-ize my GX. But now, if I'm going to climb for 2 hours at 12 mph to get where I'm going, I want a nice bed and good food and drink when I arrive. Enjoy making your GX yours!

 

[ADVFamilyHauler]

Part of my approach is because I discovered how wrong I was in my perception of driving offroad. After years of trying to go fast on roads, offroad driving seemed really SLOW. At least here in Utah where everything is so rocky. One of my favorite camping spots requires, realistically, an hour to go about 8 miles. Another is about an hour for 20 miles of washboard switchbacks. That realization changed my priorities. I originally thought I'd go after suspension and armor and Raptor-ize my GX. But now, if I'm going to climb for 2 hours at 12 mph to get where I'm going, I want a nice bed and good food and drink when I arrive. Enjoy making your GX yours!

Imagine how fast you could get to your campsite with Long travel and 35’s! Get to that drink so much faster! But yes great advice, tires and armor first and get to know your GX. It will go places in stock form that will amaze you.

 

[Mister Mister]

You mean I don't need to jump straight to this??? (however much I secretly want to lmao)

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm really looking forward to little projects here and there! Just gotta make it through all this maintenance first hahaha....

 

[Mister Mister]

137k

Quick update, mostly so I can keep track of what I've done and when hahaha.... Ended up getting just the 2 rear tires replaced for now (fronts were almost brand new) since we will be doing a lot of highway driving in the next year/two and I'd rather not murder a really nice set of tires for no reason.... While it was up on the lift I had him raise it all the way so I could look underneath, and I'm starting to feel guilty about subjecting this to Chicago winters.....

I also can't recommend the Lexus owners website enough to get the past service records (thanks to you peeps). Found out that while the timing belt definitely hadn't been done, it's recently had the air bags, air pump, drive shafts and CV boots replaced which is super nice. I'm also pretty sure that the reason I got it so cheap is the dealership misdiagnosed the faulty power steering pressure sensor as needing an entire steering rack, because that's the last service bulletin that comes up before it was listed for sale hahaha. Nice to know $0.03 worth of o-rings was all that was wrong!

Also knocked out ALL of my maintenance over the last few weekends. Front and rear pads, front / center / rear diff fluid changes, timing belt, water pump, idler pulley, spark plugs, radiator and hoses and ended up doing the alternator since the battery light came on 2 days after doing the timing belt (because of course it did). TB / WP wasn't that bad of a job at all, just time consuming. Only thing that came up was the upper A/C bolt you need to pull out was stripped and took an hour to get out on its own.

Also got some inner fender liners from RadRubber since the factory ones had disintegrated in the Texas heat. Put them on at work on Friday and while it was sitting on a perfectly level floor (race shop) I decided to see what my KDSS valves were looking like to see if I could level out the 3/4" of lean I had towards the drivers side..... Another reason I'm super glad I got this from Texas, looks brand new!

So to level it out I read some misc forum posts and watched that Aussie dudes video of driving up on wood blahblahblah. Did it a few times with no change. Since it's just basic hydraulics, I figured (sort of like corner balancing a car) I'd just go straight to the corner I needed to be higher (drivers front). I re-cracked the bleeders, lifted it an inch or two, shook it around (similar to bouncing a car when you're doing corner weights), closed the valves and dropped it back down. Ended up doing that twice and it's dead nuts even across the front now which is pretty exciting.

Unfortunately this is all I've been able to do, a wedding and Chicago rent prices are taking all my money at the moment. But it's nice to know that it *should* be good for the foreseeable future. Other than the gas mileage that we all laugh about, I absolutely love the GX so far. Glad I converted.

Spring time projects are looking like the power rear vent windows (soooooooo glad I found that thread on here, I was like "Who opens these by hand like a peasant???") and a new touchscreen stereo to replace the factory one. And whatever else I dream up / find a thread for on here that makes me go "Oh..... I really need to do that too...."

TL-DR - Fixed some stuff, serviced some stuff, you all are full of great ideas, this truck rules