New to me LX470 (2 Viewers)

[krispykritter]

And I installed a mishimoto aluminum radiator finally. Fit was pretty good - I did add some foam in a few extra places that weren't provided by Mishimoto (along the sides of the fan shroud) but overall I'm pretty happy with the install. Also got a new fan clutch while I was in there - much more of a pain than I expected. The hub on the fan clutch was rust welded onto the pulley and took me a good hour to work it off!

And now the passenger front cv axle seal on the diff is leaking fluid, so that's on my list of work to get done soon. Also most of the way through installing a Dobinson's diff drop that another 100 owner sold me after I stalked him to the local Lowes. Hopefully that helps my absolutely insane CV angles at full droop:

Near future projects:

• Upgrade alternator wiring and install high output alternator (current alternator doesn't charge well at temps below ~10 degrees)
• Passenger front diff output seal replacement
• Wheel spacers to prevent rear wheels rubbing when stuffed and front wheels rubbing when drooped and turned
• I have some heat sink pieces I want to route a semi-circle into and clamp onto some of the fuel lines to (hopefully) help decrease fuel boil issues when it's 110 degrees out in the desert while moving slowly (White Rim Trail, for example). I already added an extra heat shield extension to the cat heat shield.

The LX is up to 179k miles. Another 20k til it gets a new timing belt and related goodies. I'm averaging 14mpg here in Colorado with 90% of the driving into and out of the mountains on backroads.

 

[krispykritter]

Finally got around to working on a new trunk storage system. The drawer will be made this weekend, but here's where it's at now:

I also added a couple usb-powered AC infinity fans and a temp sensor/controller to run a fan on the jackery and another on the whole fridge enclosure if the temp in there gets too high.

 

[krispykritter]

Got all the stuff needed to do an electric fan swap. Will be using a Harris Controls fan controller with a Derale dual fan and a radiator hose adapter with a temp sensor.

Also, bought a house, so we're in the process of moving. No matter how ready the house is to move into...there's always a million things to do.

Was taking a load of stuff to the new house during my lunch break when I came across these guys:

Low-range AWD + kinetic rope + two pulls and he was out.

 

[krispykritter]

Realized I forgot to post these photos here. Went camping at Lake McConaughey (probably spelled that wrong) and came across a LOT of people with no clue how to drive/tow on sand:

 

[Edwardsrealtor]

Got all the stuff needed to do an electric fan swap. Will be using a Harris Controls fan controller with a Derale dual fan and a radiator hose adapter with a temp sensor.

Have you gotten around to installing the fan setup? Very curious

 

[krispykritter]

Have you gotten around to installing the fan setup? Very curious

I'm afraid not. It's on the list... I'll probably get to it in the next month or so, but buying a new house and moving in has cost a lot of time. Also, kids back in school have brought every damn virus in the country home so I've spent more time on DayQuil than off of it lately.

It'll definitely be done before spring though, hopefully before Christmas.

 

[2020 Rocks]

Realized I forgot to post these photos here. Went camping at Lake McConaughey (probably spelled that wrong) and came across a LOT of people with no clue how to drive/tow on sand:

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Nifty trick for sand like that is to water down the sand around the sunk tire and the path the tire it will take once freed. Compacts the sand long enough to get some traction.

 

[krispykritter]

Nifty trick for sand like that is to water down the sand around the sunk tire and the path the tire it will take once freed. Compacts the sand long enough to get some traction.

Never thought of that tbh. I'll have to try it next time. I usually have traction boards but forgot them for this trip.

 

[D21FJ60]

after I stalked him to the local Lowes

fortune favors the bold

 

[krispykritter]

Continuing the theme of not getting around to the electric fan conversion, I added 1" wheel spacers from BORA this weekend. Some quick notes (I couldn't find this definitively elsewhere, so I'll add it here and maybe it'll help someone else one day:

• If you want to stick with 1 inch wheel spacers on a 100, make sure you are using wheels that are NOT completely flat on the backside. I'll attach a photo that shoes this, but 1 inch spacers allow the original studs to stick out passed the face of the spacer. With my OEM wheels, this is fine because the mounting surface of the wheel isn't complete flat.
• I'm on some halfway worn out 275/70R18s (~33.2 when new) on stock wheels. This produces the slightest amount of rubbing on the mudflap plastic that goes over the pinchweld. I doubt it would rub the pinchweld at all without the mudflap there. I'm planning on going to a 285/75R18 with my next set of wheels...so I'm going to need to clearance that area A LOT.
• The extra wheel spacing for me is ideal. The tread doesn't stick out from under the fenders at all, which is what I was going for. Another quarter inch probably would've been fine but I wanted wheel spacers around an inch to help avoid rub when turning on 35's.
• Frankly, I couldn't feel any difference at all at any speed I drove at (up to about 75 mph) which is perfect. Wheel spacers can do funny things to vehicle handling with regards to scrub radius but I felt nothing out of the ordinary with these spacers. They also have the effect of changing your motion ratio, which will slightly soften your apparent spring rate. Not sure I noticed a difference there either, but I'm on AHC + non-AHC t-bars and LX450 rear springs.

Before:

After:

Wheel stud poke:

'Pockets' in OEM wheels:

Slightest bit of rub on mud flap plastic:

I promise I'll get to the electric fans soon. Ish.

 

[krispykritter]

New tires, finally. I was going to go with 35s but with the even more insane tire carrier bumper costs, making it nearly impossible for me to carry a 35" spare, I just went with a second set of 33's. Duratracs this time around, as I'm spending a lot of time offroad these days.

Then, took a trip to visit some family in Montana right after christmas. The drive home through wyoming was quite long: snowed all day, then added freezing rain.

Even the little nubs on my tires got ice on them.

 

[krispykritter]

Yesterday, my family and I headed up Yankee Hill to the west of Denver. The snow was pretty deep if you wandered outside the tire paths of those who had come before. I ended up winching myself through a couple spots.

 

[krispykritter]

A friend of mine finally got his Bronco ready for some play time, so I decided to take him up yankee his as a good first snow run.

Unfortunately, it was super slick and icey. I got stopped multiple times at one point, and when I was trying to back down to a spot with more grip, the front end slid around and I ended up backing into the bank:

Of course, it wouldn't drive out of that spot, so I had to hook the winch up to pull myself out. Unfortunately, mashed the back corner of the bumper pretty good.

I don't mind the bumper damage necessarily but I'll need to apply some extra zip-tie-age to hold that piece together until I work up the courage to spend the cash required for a rear bumper.

After this spot, I threw tire chains on the front end and had no more issues with the iciness.


Here we are at the very top:

And then, on the way back down the far side, within sight of the road out, my buddy got slightly off the line and got stuck where I couldn't get back to him to give him a tow. We managed to shovel enough snow out of the way to get him out.

Had a good ole time, met some new folks on the trail, got to use our kinetic recovery ropes multiple times, and got home before dinner. A great day!

 

[krispykritter]

Alright, alright, I'm finally tackling the electric fans job.

Also, gathered all the parts that I have so far:

• HPC dual fan controller 102005 with 1/8 npt sensor
• Derale 16837 fans+shroud
• 40mm in-line hose temp sensor adapter for 1/8 npt thread
• A couple wire leads from Toyota to add to the AC pressure sensor in the driver's front tire well

So far, I haven't accomplished a ton beyond planning. The first thing I noticed is that this fan shroud isn't QUITE as tall as the stock shroud, but the width is very close to right.

My plan so far is to attach one pair of angle brackets (4 came with the shroud) to the bottom to sit in the holders for the original shroud. They were quite loose, so I bent them and added some rubber edge stripping to cushion the bottom.

Second, while the shroud is MOST of the width of the radiator, it's short by about 1/8 of an inch on each side. So I used the second set of angle brackets on the sides to extend the width ever so slightly. I just realized I put the bolts in the wrong way on one side - off to fix that.

That just leaves figuring out how to make the height work. I'm either going to buy a sheet of aluminum, bend it to 90 degrees, and attach it to the top of the shroud, or if I'm lucky (unlikely), a standard 3x3 piece of angle aluminum will work without any extra work on my part. Also, I need extra washers to hold the fan pulley on without the fan clutch, so first trip to the hardware store is about to happen.

Much more to follow - I've still got to work out how to mount the coolant reservoir, but that's long after I've got the fans mounted satisfactorily and got the temp sensor sorted out.

 

[krispykritter]

More work completed.

Here's the bend I put in the lower brackets:

Here's the gap above when the lower brackets are seated properly:

I ended up removing the side brackets as they held the shroud too far from the radiator. I then fabbed up a shroud extension using 2.5 x 2.5 aluminum angle, and bent two new shroud mounts out of 2.5" wide by 1/8? aluminum:

Then the shroud went back into the truck for the final fitment and attachment:

Next step was mounting the fan controller relay box. Built another bracket and used an excess hole on the inside of the driver's front fender:

 

[krispykritter]

Then, routing the wires and all that into reasonable positions:

I also need a temporary coolant expansion tank. I could find no real way to make the stock one work, so I ordered a stainless chinesium one off Amazon which should be here tomorrow - the tube style that you see on restomod muscle cars. For today, a gatorade bottle will work so I can set the fan on temperature:

You can see the in-line temp sensor and adapter in this photo as well:

Some minor work still needed: the power wire doesn't quite reach any sort of power, so I've gotta extend it a bit. I'll have to add the AC override at some point, but since it's winter, that part can wait a bit longer. In another half hour, I should be warming this up to finish this setup!

 

[krispykritter]

I got it all working with the Gatorade bottle reservoir. I extended the main power wire to the battery, then connected the couple ancillary wires that feed the fan module itself.

One slightly annoying thing here is that a good temp reading is required to set the fan on temp... Unfortunately, techstream's coolant temp appears to jump in 2 degree intervals. I also tried torque pro, but every time I have, the coolant temp gets to 185 degrees and doesn't move again until the fans come on.

It's likely at least partly thanks to me sitting and idling the vehicle rather than driving it (and temps have been mostly in the 40s when I'm doing this). When I have some more free time, I'll probably adjust the fan controller to get the coolant a smidge warmer before kicking on the fans - I haven't seen any documentation on what the proper operating temperature is and that can vary wildly - on my 240sx the fans came on at 193 and 203 degrees, and on our racecar, we're regularly seeing temps in the upper 220-230s while on track. As of right now, they come on in low mode somewhere just above 185 degrees and temps drop rapidly down to about 175 where the fans kick off again.

Also, I got the new expansion tank and installed it nearly dead center on the fan shroud. I fabbed up yet another bracket and riveted it into the shroud and bolted the tank to that.

I may revisit this tank solution again one day, but it works good for now.

 

[krispykritter]

Fudgecicle.

Practically since I bought this LX, there's been a light clicking noise that I believed was coming from the driver's front wheel. I've taken apart the front brakes a few times, and replaced the wheel bearings, CV axles, and flanges, but the click has persisted. It isn't always audible - in fact, it usually has not been audible, but it's never completely gone away.

Well, Saturday morning, as I driving out to some trails with a couple friends, there was a bit of a pop and and the clicking noise got MUCH louder. Worryingly so. I stopped to check the wheel and axle, but nothing felt hot or unhappy. We continued and spent the day off road without issue, followed by a 2 hour drive home, accompanied the whole time by a rather obnoxious click.

I made a (poor) assumption and went ahead and ordered new wheel bearings and a new CV axle before looking into the problem any further.

Today, I jacked up the front driver's side wheel (where I thought the noise was coming from) and spun the wheel. While there is a pronounced tight spot, the noise doesn't appear to be coming from the CV axle or the driver's wheel at all.

So, I dropped the driver's front wheel back onto the ground, and jacked up the passenger front wheel. Same symptoms and result - pronounced tight spot with associated clunk.

I checked the rotations and I only get 2 wheel rotations before I get to the tight spot, which seems to indicate it's not the front diff, right? I would think if there was damage to the ring gear, I'd get ~4 rotations between tight spots.

I had a buddy spin that front wheel while I slide around under the truck listening for the noises, and I feel the clunk most obviously in the transfer case. I haven't drained the fluid to check if there's any metal or anything mixed in with fluid yet. Fortunately (maybe) the LX goes into a shop tomorrow to get an eLocker installed, so I'll ask them to see if they can take a look and make a diagnosis on my suddenly expensive sounding noise =(

 

[krispykritter]

Front diff...

So...apparently I'm in the market for a 4.1 front diff =(

 

[krispykritter]

By some minor miracle, I broke my front diff last saturday. I ordered a new one from Toyota Tuesday. It arrived this morning in Colorado Springs, so I took the chance to drive my M3 down and grabbed it, then spent the afternoon removing and disassembling the busted diff.

I can say that I got super duper lucky....for a guy with a broken front diff, anyway.

The tooth broke off while I was going roughly 65 mph down the highway. Had that launched into the meshing gears, the results would've been instantly catastrophic...simple mass probably wouldn't have locked the front axle but it damn sure would've blown apart the pinion and ring gear and sent shrapnel everywhere internally, and possibly externally.

As it was, it broke off and somehow wedged in between the ring gear teeth and carrier. There were two sticky spots when spinning the wheels by hand, two rotations apart. One was the missing tooth, and the other was the tooth itself where it was wedged 180 degrees away from where it broke off. A minor miracle.

New diff going in tomorrow.