Hey guys, long, long, long, loooooooooooooooooooong time lurker. Grew up in an old diesel Land Cruiser my Dad used to drive us up and down the Alaskan highway every other weekend. I was about ten seconds away from buying a newer GLK450 and I just couldn't do it. So, logically, I did the next best thing and bought a 1997 LX450 with 400,000 kms on it. 
Picked her up on Vancouver Island. She was ruining fine, some power steering whine and a few minor things, but the body was clean and the engine seemed absolutely decent. Test drove it for a good thirty mins... no issues.
Drove her back to mainland BC and up to the Okanagan Valley. Parked her for a week while I ordered a huge list of basic maintenance parts. The next time I went and fired her up she started a little rough but seemed alright until I put her in drive and started trying to get her to move. Almost immediately she lost power and started to idle incredibly low, like, barely keeping herself alive with absolutely no power... put her into neutral and tried to slowly get her to rev back up.... nothing, just bogging almost completely to the point of turning off.... finally she managed to fix herself and revved up and I managed to ease her back into her parking spot.
Same thing the next day... so, I decided to start doing the basic maintenance I had planned to anyways for a vehicle of its age and kms and hoped maybe something would fix the issue. To date I've done:
-All new oem spark plugs
-New NGK spark plug wires (oem were like $400 through my local shop)
-New distributor and distributor cap
-New o2 exhaust sensors
-New fuel pressure regulator
-New fuel filter
-New air filter
-New rear CAT (was included with the sale)
So far, no luck, I can get her driving properly for about half a block before she starts to sputter and nearly kill herself. I plan to check fuel pressure next. The previous owner (great guy by the way, been texting him and he feels awful it has issues, I don't suspect any foul play) he had the fuel pump replaced not too long ago, so I haven't checked that... I'm going to check fuel pressure and if that's alright, I was going to pull all the injectors for a servicing next.
Anyways, sorry for the novel. I just wanted to see if any of the gurus on here might have any suggestions or if anyone has had a similar issue and might possibly be able to pass along some info.
Thanks everyone.
Looking forward to getting her driving properly.
Tram
PS - Checked compression... Front to Back 180, 175, 165, 175, 185, 185
Picked her up on Vancouver Island. She was ruining fine, some power steering whine and a few minor things, but the body was clean and the engine seemed absolutely decent. Test drove it for a good thirty mins... no issues.
Drove her back to mainland BC and up to the Okanagan Valley. Parked her for a week while I ordered a huge list of basic maintenance parts. The next time I went and fired her up she started a little rough but seemed alright until I put her in drive and started trying to get her to move. Almost immediately she lost power and started to idle incredibly low, like, barely keeping herself alive with absolutely no power... put her into neutral and tried to slowly get her to rev back up.... nothing, just bogging almost completely to the point of turning off.... finally she managed to fix herself and revved up and I managed to ease her back into her parking spot.
Same thing the next day... so, I decided to start doing the basic maintenance I had planned to anyways for a vehicle of its age and kms and hoped maybe something would fix the issue. To date I've done:
-All new oem spark plugs
-New NGK spark plug wires (oem were like $400 through my local shop)
-New distributor and distributor cap
-New o2 exhaust sensors
-New fuel pressure regulator
-New fuel filter
-New air filter
-New rear CAT (was included with the sale)
So far, no luck, I can get her driving properly for about half a block before she starts to sputter and nearly kill herself. I plan to check fuel pressure next. The previous owner (great guy by the way, been texting him and he feels awful it has issues, I don't suspect any foul play) he had the fuel pump replaced not too long ago, so I haven't checked that... I'm going to check fuel pressure and if that's alright, I was going to pull all the injectors for a servicing next.
Anyways, sorry for the novel. I just wanted to see if any of the gurus on here might have any suggestions or if anyone has had a similar issue and might possibly be able to pass along some info.
Thanks everyone.
Tram
PS - Checked compression... Front to Back 180, 175, 165, 175, 185, 185