Alright guys, this is the first update you've waiting for. It's been a busy month (Thanksgiving, Christmas, that pesky thing called work) and I've finally made some time to get into the GX.
About a week ago I got the SRS system repaired. I was able to find an airbag specialist to do the work of replacing the 2 side curtain airbags, 3 seat belts, a couple modules and resetting the SRS system to program in the new airbags & sensors to get the system to play nicely and work together. Prior to this I had discussions with the my close friends in the automotive industry about risks, costs, etc. of taking on this project. This is what they suggested.
PERSON 1 is the president of a group that owns about 18 Lexus/Toyota/Ford/Honda dealers. Being an industry guy, he said the price Lexus quoted was fair because they must fix the car to warranty-able standards. Lexus requires replacing every airbag, module, sensor, computer AND WIRING all at once. He told me he could help me with parts costs but labor costs he couldn't discount. His estimate would still be $20k+
PERSON 2 is a co-worker of mine and former automotive engineer for Toyota. A car enthusiast by nature, he actually had something similar happen to him (airbag deployment with no accident) while at a racetrack with his BMW M3. Unfortunately he never got it fixed, instead cut out the side airbag, replaced the steering wheel with an aftermarket one and sent it. Not quite the standard I wanted to rebuild this by. His estimate was $0 - "just send it."
PERSON 3 is in the auto body collision industry and was the most helpful. Says they are able to just replace the airbags and systems that deployed and reset it all to work together. Even more, he told me most places don't do this work in house and instead farm it out to airbag specialists. For liability reasons he wouldn't tell me who he used, but through some internet sleuthing I was able to find a couple airbag specialists to do the work.
So after a week of texting back and forth with the airbag specialist, I paid a deposit, he ordered parts and then we started the waiting game. Airbags & seatbelts contain explosives and can't exactly be put on airplanes and flown in overnight like Amazon. After all the parts came in, we scheduled our appointment, and I drove the vehicle down to south San Diego. Really far south, like I could see Mexico from his spot, but I was not yet in Mexico. Over the phone he had quoted 3-4 hours to do the work, but when he saw the car in person and saw the drawers in the back, he said "this may slow me down."
He was SUPER professional. He looked like he spent more time at the country club and gym than working on airbags. Before starting the work he hooked up the GX to a scan tool to verify what systems were working, what had faults, etc. He then pointed out every pending code the vehicle had (i.e. TPMS sensors) and then some less than important ones- but said everything appears to be communicating properly. So then I left him. I stayed in San Diego finding places to do work and take calls and he kept me updated with status every few hours. At 3 hours in he texted "I'm not quite at the halfway point but I have additional help coming so this should go faster." It didn't. Anyways, after waiting nearly 8 hours I got the update "It's done, everything is working great." I hustled back
to find him putting on the finishing touches.
One of the ways I saved money was through his suggestion of re-using the original headliner. As a $2500 part from Lexus and additional labor, he said if it's not actually broken he can re-use it and get a lot of the wrinkles out to make it look good. He said with enough time, heat cycles, and some extra spritzes he was confident no one would notice...for the possibility of saving $3000 I took that risk.
So here we are today. I have the GX, it has had 3 seatbelts replaced, and 2 airbags. The system starts up, does it's checks, and then fades into the background like every other car I've had with airbags. The headliner looks great- not perfect but only to me. My wife, kids, friends, etc...would never notice.
WHAT'S COMING NEXT
I've put maybe 300 miles on it total and am ready for the next set of modifications. @alefer5 did a great job making this a trail worthy rig. With my family I value more interior space (kids take up room) and am going to be looking at ways to improve that. Things I've noticed so far...
#1. The Dometic fridge is super nice but requires the rear seats to slide up to make it fit in the trunk. I love fridge and want to keep one back there but am going to look for something smaller, mabe 50-55 liters instead of the 75 beast that's back there. So if anyone is looking for a fridge or wants to trade their smaller one for a bigger one, let me know.
#2 The Drawer System - The drawer system is great but the hold downs interfere with sliding the seats back with how they are mounted in the seat rail tracks. I definitely want to keep this system and need to figure out a better way to hold the drawers down. I estimate without the full sized fridge and re-configuring the ways the drawers are held down I can get another 3" of legroom for the 2nd row. Huge!
BUT FIRST... I am taking this in
tomorrow to get tuned. With 33" tires and all the armor, it's a bit slow in my hilly area. I always wanted to do this with my FJ but never got around to it. I'm going with the Overland Torque Tune (OTT) as it seems to be the most popular. Don't tell my wife.
View attachment 4050433
Beyond that I will tackle the below list of maintenance, fixes, changes, etc. till I get this dialed in.
View attachment 4050436
This is a shorter than what I'm used to working with. I may add 4.56 gears to the list if I don't meet my objectives with the tune, and I'm open to suggestions from the community, especially from @r2m who apparently lives right by me.
I'll report back tomorrow after the tune with more photos.
exoticsalvage.com
. One of the best mods I've done to my rig, albeit the most expensive. At least in my case, MPG is about the same as it was before.
