Builds The Guzzler - 2009 LX570

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Finished up the roof rack project today.
Smittybilt Defender 35605. It’s 3.5 ft by 6 feet by 4” tall.. The stock rails are about 43 1/2”apart, so this rack fits between the stock rails with about 3/4” on each side. I am using TLC rails, not the shorter Lx rails.

The ‘5’ series is bolt together, it came in three sections. The ‘4’ series is welded , it comes in one big rack. 35604 is the identical welded part. The rack is heavily powder coated steel and weighs around 55 lb. Two sections could be assembled for a 3.5 x 4 ft smaller rack too.
I got the bolt together as it was much easier to mock up fit and mark the brackets, also I can put it on and take it off in sections, so it was one person friendly. I also consider the bolt together points as possible mounting points for future stuff. The rack sections are pin aligned and use 2 8mm bolts at each joint.
The welded part should be pretty much identical in foot placement so can also be easily installed now that the bracket recipe is known. There are four light tabs in the front and two light tabs on the back of the rack

My plan was to use the stock rails and adapt 4x6 3/16” L brackets for the pads. The brackets (8) were $20 from Amazon, and are painted or lightly coated.

As pictured above, the brackets have a hole drilled near the L to screw onto the rail bolt (which is a 3/8” stainless carriage bolt). Another existing hole was enlarged and an 8mm rivit nut placed to attach the rack foot to.

Three feet on each side mount directly to the rail and rack pad. The rear foot required a 3/8” by 1.5” aluminum bar about 6.5” long to reach back to the rack pad.

The gps xm antenna goes inside the rack back crossbar, and is below the level of the rack inside bottom plane.

To get the rack to match the slope of the roof, I used additional spacing washer from back to front (3/8” bar, 1 9/16” stainless washer, 0 washer, 2 washer). The 9/16” washers are larger than the head of the rivnut and provide a large clamping surface. All the feet got one washer for this purpose.

The middle two brackets are at 13 1/4” and 30 3/8” from the back end of the rail.

All the details aside mounting the rack is straightforward. Put the brackets in place loosely. Put on the center section. Tighten the rack bolts, tighten the rail bolts.

Clamp on the rear section. Put on the join bolts. Put on the rack bolts. Tighten the tail bolts. Same for front section.

To remove only the 8 8mm rack bolts have to come out, the the whole rack can be lifted off. Or the sections could be taken apart and the the rack removed.

No opinion on noise yet, haven’t driven with it on the freeway. Around town it’s silent.

I have no complaints on the quality. I paid $320 shipped from 4wd parts, and it eventually arrived on a liftgate truck on a pallet.

With brackets and bolts it’s about $375.

I used a hacksaw, drilll press, rivnut tool and some paint. It took a while to build the brackets to match.

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Inspired by @tbisaacs hid install, I ordered a kit off Amazon from innovited. Got the 35w 4300 canbus and also the non canbus. The non canbus worked fine, returning the canbus one <edit decided to install and keep the canbus. Had to get extended dust caps to make either kit work. I suspect the regular kit would be fine, the dust caps was likely the issue >. It’s about the same light as the led, so I guess should have gone with 55w.

While the kit was in transit, my eye of megatron hikari right side led failed. So I cruised for a few days on the left side and fog lights. What are the odds!

Install would be simpler if there wasn’t a charcoal canister in behind the right headlight. Who put that here?

Step one
Move the charcoal canister (my truck only))
Take off the dust cover and verify the new bulb works
Drill a 1” hole in the dust cover and insert the bulb the wrong way. Take it out and insert it the right way.
Fit the bulb and power/inside plug and cap
Test it again.
Find a place to mount the ballast. I used an existing hole near the drl resistor.
Test it again.
Put the charcoal canister back in place

I’ll put up a side by side shortly, I have the led still on the left side.

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And after about 20 seconds, I’m getting an afs error.
Shoot.
 
Here’s the side by side
The led has more width to the left side
The hid is pretty weak to the right side, but makes a bright spot in front of the car.
I think I’d like the 5000 color more.

The hid has more punch up the road, which is definitely an improvement over the led. Very noticeable.

I have to pull the charcoal canister to troubleshoot the afs issue. For another night. . .

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I’ll look into that.
Rack was not howling today at 65, must have been a side or quartering wind on Tuesday.
Karman vortex street?
 
Messed around more with the hid install. I put in the canbus ballast and tried to release tension on the wires. I got it to boot with no error a couple starts in a row. I assume it was the wire tension, not the canbus ballast.
Went ahead and put in the left/driver side. Took out the battery and put the ballast in the cross frame directly above the low beam access.
Broke a stud on my winch power solenoid while messing about. Doh!
The afs error came back, not sure what side is triggering it, both side seem to move fine when afs does it thing about 20 second after start.
I’m going to go look for extended light caps.

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Moved the Rototrax mount bolts over to the new rack. By happenstance the spacing is exactly right between the two middle mounts on the rack. Very easy install.

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200 tlc lengrh crossbars for sale.
Also a 40” led light bar custom mounted to crossbar using wildyoats bracket


Sold!
 
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40” oem crossbar light brackets and light (optional)


sold
 
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Took the front end apart again to put the extended dust caps on the HID lights. No errors yet . . . but haven't driven it around. Sometimes it would throw the AFS error after a couple minutes, but usually in the first 20 seconds or so, so better than before, but not yet verified. I am hopeful.

Also fixed the 2/0 12v fused link to the 500A solenoid, and put in the new solenoid to replace the one I crossthreaded a terminal on. Winch is back in business.

Next up is getting the changing room on the rack, and then I have a short list of minor maintenance I hope to get in before the rain starts in earnest.
 
Extended dust caps are verified AFS compatible with the innovited hid bulbs on a gen 1 lx570. I used these - Toyota Highlander Lexus LX570 LED Headlight Bulb Dust Cover Seal Cap Waterproof OEM Design - https://www.lasfit.com/products/toyota-highlander-2018-led-headlight-bulb-dust-cover-seal-cap-waterproof-oem-design $20

And this generic canbus hid kit:
Innovited Premium AC Canbus Error Free HID Bundle - No Flicker with (1 Pair) Ballast and (1 Pair) Xenon Bulb - H11 H9 H8-4300K - Bright Daylight
https://a.co/d/cR6y3kI $70

I strongly suspect the cheaper slim ballast innovited hid kit ($40) would work, but I slightly preferred the canbus ballast. it looked a bit more sturdy and had slightly better specs on the label, not to mention canbus compatible.

The bulbs were identical between the two kits, only the ballast is different.
 
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On my morning run today I passed a Subaru Outback with a prinsu, rear carrier with tire and fuel on it, and ko2s. No phone on me to snap a pic.
 
Did my best f1 pit impression today and completed a (four) tire rotation. My spare was used and has a bit more wear still. May start rotating it in next rotation. I have some uneven wear on the inside of the front tires. The start of each tread lug is 'above' the rear of the lug before it. They're now in the back, so maybe they'll even out.

Put on the powerstop z36 rear brake pads I got a while ago. The front pair seem to be stopping good and dust a lot less than the semi-metallics. Changed the pad retainers on one side, what a pain to get the pad back on. Left the other pad retainers in place. Still had the slide bolt lube from last rear pad change four years ago, which was nice. I guess I haven't had the rear caliper off since the rear locker went in (shop did this). The bolts were really tight. Had to get the breaker bar and extension, way more than 65 ft lb spec.

Added the SDHQ ABS Guards on all four corners. Used the shorter provided bolts in all locations.

Put new 'black' spring rubbers on the front. Put the 'blue' spring rubbers on the back that were on the front.
The left (US Driver) rear spring has different spacing and the spring rubber is too short (vertically) by about 1". So that's too bad and that corner will not benefit. The right (US passenger) rear spring rubber fits (same size as the front) (B). Both rear springs are larger diameter than the front springs, so the rubber are too short to go a full rotation since they were already cut to fit the front. Not sure how much this matters, but the rear install is definitely suboptimal at the moment. Airbags probably still the best solution for the rear, particularly since the spring spacing is different left to right side.

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Did my best f1 pit impression today and completed a (four) tire rotation. My spare was used and has a bit more wear still. May start rotating it in next rotation. I have some uneven wear on the inside of the front tires. The start of each tread lug is 'above' the rear of the lug before it. They're now in the back, so maybe they'll even out.

Put on the powerstop z36 rear brake pads I got a while ago. The front pair seem to be stopping good and dust a lot less than the semi-metallics. Changed the pad retainers on one side, what a pain to get the pad back on. Left the other pad retainers in place. Still had the slide bolt lube from last rear pad change four years ago, which was nice. I guess I haven't had the rear caliper off since the rear locker went in (shop did this). The bolts were really tight. Had to get the breaker bar and extension, way more than 65 ft lb spec.

Added the SDHQ ABS Guards on all four corners. Used the shorter provided bolts in all locations.

Put new 'black' spring rubbers on the front. Put the 'blue' spring rubbers on the back that were on the front.
The left (US Driver) rear spring has different spacing and the spring rubber is too short (vertically) by about 1". So that's too bad and that corner will not benefit. The right (US passenger) rear spring rubber fits (same size as the front) (B). Both rear springs are larger diameter than the front springs, so the rubber are too short to go a full rotation since they were already cut to fit the front. Not sure how much this matters, but the rear install is definitely suboptimal at the moment. Airbags probably still the best solution for the rear, particularly since the spring spacing is different left to right side.

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had to break mine too, from factory and even after my own 65lb torque.
 
The start of each tread lug is 'above' the rear of the lug before it. They're now in the back, so maybe they'll even out.

very interesting given my recent thread… got pics?
 
very interesting given my recent thread… got pics?
No. It was noticeable both by sight and feel. Not sure how ‘high’ the difference was, should’ve put a tread gauge on them, will do that next time I’m thinking about it, if I can find the darn thing.

It’s been a bit since I got an alignment, will probably start there.
 
No. It was noticeable both by sight and feel. Not sure how ‘high’ the difference was, should’ve put a tread gauge on them, will do that next time I’m thinking about it, if I can find the darn thing.

It’s been a bit since I got an alignment, will probably start there.

K. I’ve got good updates on my end as well. Will post soon.
 

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