Many problems for proud new ower. 1992 SC400

[gsx750r93]

Mini intro first so If ya wanna skip to the techinal stuff then jump to the next post please.

So last week I picked up my first SC after a long search. At the time I though it was a steal but now am to believe that it was just a good deal. I picked it up for 1500 and now have about 300 invested into it.

It has 218,xxx miles on it and would not turn over when I bought it. I was originally hoping that it was the theft system but did have the starter being out thought in my head the whole time. Well it ended up being the starter.

The hardest part of the replacement was dealing with all the old brittle plugs and connectors along with removing the coolant bridge. The starter literally came off in about 5 min luckily considering it was replaced in 2006. A trip to the junk yard and it is back together. While at the junkyard I also bought another AC control unit to replace the black screen one.

Finally came the start up with some jimmy riggin, but I'll get to that later. Fires right up but O no... Engine knock like crazy. Let her idle for a while with the thought that maybe sense it hadn't ran in a while it needed to get oil through the engine. Luckily it went away and it purred and drove like a kitten.

 

[gsx750r93]

Problems:
1)Starter/Fixed
2)Starter/ignition not turning engine/Fixed kinda... When we were first tinkering with the car I was trying to jump to the starter via the starter relay and didn't realize the relay cover was taken off and placed back on side ways. Thus making me send power down the negative wire for the theft deterant system in the ECU. I checked everywhere I could think of for a blown fuse or fried wire and nothing. So basically I pulled the theft deterent wire and pin out from the bottom of the starter relay and installed a new pin along with a ground. Works fine now and don't have to worry about the alarm over over riding the starter as long as know one steals it.lol will fix eventually i believe
3)One head light is full of water but no biggy and will get it taken care of when I start driving it.
4) The radio is completely out of its mind. The car has the cd changer in the back, and a phone in middle console. When I press cd it says "ERR". I replaced the Cd changer with another came with the car and no "ERR" and doesn't even recognize it.
There is a tape stuck in the deck and when I try and eject it it just make a noise like, "rhghrhrhr".
Most of the time the FM if you crank it up all the way you can hear it slightly. Rarely it sounds normal and slowly fades to quite.
The Am works fine.
The phone makes noises when first starting the car and still works through the speakers.
I have looked at the sub and there are no rips along with the other rears.
I have unplugged the orange connector under the rear seat and nothing still.
Well when I pulled the AC head unit to replace I noticed that there was a lot of brown wires being spliced and what not. Couple blues, and a couple pinks which have 12v's.When I use my meter it is telling me that most of the browns are grounds but Im not sure if thats what the really are. None of this was spliced but instead used some old weird metal squeeze tabs. The tape surrounding all this was very old and sticky so I believe at one point it was working. I didnt like how any of it looked so know all the spliced brown wires have been taken apart to start from scratch. Weather it worked before or not it did not seem right to me.
According to this http://www.lextreme.com/misc2.htm there shouldn't be as many brown wires that I have in there coming from my stereo and AC temp control button.

In the trunk I noticed the antenna is unplugged and when plugged back in it just makes a whining noise. There is a amp relay right by it, a metal box under it with a weird plug, and another metal box under the cd changer.

My thoughts are it could be many things and don't want to replace anything If I have to.

Another question do the the 92 SC's have different sunroofs and headliners in the newer ones. Mine is completely different and looks to be like an after market sunroof. I think my sc was originally a hardtop.

 

[gsx750r93]

Sorry for the long post guys but that my only issue with the car and cant wait to get them straightened out. Heres is a pic of it at least

 

[spf_lexus]

Thats a clean SC my friend. With the older Lexus models, the junkyards are your best friend for replacing anything. If the car hasent seen a tune up in a while, basic plugs/wires/distributors make a huge difference. Did the car sit for a while before you picked it up? Old gas could cause the knock also.

 

[gsx750r93]

Yea It hadn't been ran for about 7 months and was on empty so im sure it had some nasty fuel sitting at the bottom. I doubt it was the gas though because it sounded much woorse and was coming from one side of the engine. My buddy that worked for a dsm performance shop said that whenever they build motors they will prime the oil pump before start up other wise it will knock like crazy. Im not to worried about it know though seeing as how it went away and has not came back. So far I have changed the plugs and bought a fuel filter for it. I would possibly like to clean the tank out if its easy before I install the filter and at the same time do all the fluids except the coolant because it looks like it was recently changed.

 

[a.Lpha]

Gotta love when people sell a car with a broken starter, gets you just the greatest deal!

Clean looking car my friend. Get a picture of the sun roof, but I imagine that if it has all the OEM controls in the proper place, odds are it's not after-market.

Adding a doubleDIN stereo to these car's really easy, and the OEM Nakimichi system is poor at best by today's standards. for your audio problem, go the route of ebaying something like a Pioneer3100DVD buy a radio harness and you're good to go, asuming your speakers all still work, but that's not nearly as difficult a problem to test if you've got a multi-meter.

 

[ovaxitd]

can you please clarify how you bypassed the theft deterant with the earth? did you cut the wire out and just earth that pin for the starter relay? the it would start with the key ?? sorry for the old thread....

 

[JBrady]

Clean looking SC. How is the interior? Pics? $1500+ some basics seems like cheap Lexus transportation in style.