When I announced project late model restoration, I mentioned the badly worn front suspension as one of the main things that needed attention. Truth be told, the state of the suspension was really the catalyst for starting this project.

While performing other repairs I had noticed that the rubber bushings that anchor the lower a-arms were badly deteriorated. I was beginning to question the safety of the vehicle, so I put a plan in place to get the suspension back into shape.

The parts list for the suspension rehab consisted of four new KYB-GR2 struts, all of the accessories for assembling the struts including a set of Eibach “Pro-Kit” lowering springs, complete lower control arms with bushings, and of course wheels and tires.

Four Struts, Assembled Six Times

All four of the struts on the car were also badly worn. The previous owner had said that he replaced the struts only a few months prior to us buying the car. We’ve owned the car for about six years now, and I have no idea how, but the struts were completely done for.

Since I had bought all four new struts, and all of the ancillary parts for them, I had planned to assemble each of the struts before disassembling the suspension on the car. This would allow me to simply remove and replace the struts as complete assemblies, minimizing down time.

Only, it didn’t exactly turn out that way… I assembled (what I thought was) the front struts with the new springs. Only, the springs didn’t seem to match up with the lower spring perch quite the way I would have expected. After assembling two struts this way, I finally reviewed my part numbers and service manual. Turns out I had just assembled the rear struts…. with the front springs. DOH!

After disassembling the rear struts, and reassembling them with the correct parts the spring rested in the perch much more tightly. Almost like it was designed to work that way *forehead smack*

Then I got to work assembling the front struts, or so I thought. It turns out that the replacement front struts for the 1992 ES300 requires that you reuse the spring perch from the original strut.

So much for assembling the new parts without dismantling the car!

After some more confusion over parts compatibility, and some more fumbling, I got the front struts assembled, and all four struts installed in the car.

As I mentioned earlier, I chose to replace the stock springs with the Eibach “Pro-Kit” springs. These are advertised to offer a bit of a dropped stance, in the amount of one inch. This was right in the goldilocks zone for me since the car was going to continue to be used as a daily driver, so I didn’t want it “slammed” but I did want a slightly more aggressive stance.

My exact results were 1.75″ in the front, and .5″ in the back as measured from the center of the hub to the top of the wheel well. This worked out especially well since the stock stance of the ES300 tends to place the front end higher than the rear. These springs both lowered the overall height, but also managed to level out the stock stance. Score!

(Lower Control) Arm Wrestling

You may be wondering why I bought the entire lower control arm, rather than just buying the bushings. The reason is pretty simple.

I’m lazy…

No really, that’s pretty much it. I didn’t want to have to wrestle with a vice, or hacksaw, or have to take the stock control arm to a suspension shop to have them press out the old bushings and press new ones in.

By buying the whole control arm with the bushings installed, it would be a simple remove and replace operation. Unfortunately, I was, again, sadly mistaken.

The torque specs for the bolts that fasten the control arms to the frame are in the > 200ft/lbs range. Worse than that, I somehow got completely turned around and was turning the bolts in the TIGHTEN direction when I was first trying to remove them. YARG!

After some significant effort and more than a little brute force from some pry bars and hammers, I had the control arms removed. Now time to put the new ones back in, easy, right?

Wrong!

Since the new control arms had nice new bushings, it was very difficult to manipulate them to get the holes lined up with the bolts. With more help from pry bars, hammers, and cursing the new control arms found their way home.

I had mentioned that the bushings were badly worn right? I’m not sure that they were doing anything at all to resist deflection, and I’m fairly certain that irreparable damage to both the car, and my person were eminent!

Fly new kicks

The final part of the equation was set of nice shiny new wheels and tires. The wheels are replicas of an OEM wheel for the Lexus GS300/400. They’re 18×8 with a +45mm offset, and they needed to be installed with a 1/8″ spacer in the rear so that they didn’t make contact with the rear strut.

These are in my opinion the largest wheel you’re going to ever want to see on this car, but I think they look great. Since they came from another Lexus, the look is very subtle and it almost seems like they could have been a factory option for this car. Just the way I like it!

The tires are Kumho Ecsta SPT Ultra High Performance Summer tires sized at 225/40ZR18. Even though I drive the car year round, the summer tires are perfectly suited to the southern california weather. They have phenomenal amounts of traction in both wet and dry environments, and I’m very very happy with them.

Driving Impressions

It’s hard to make an apples to apples comparison between the new suspension system and “stock”, since I can never say that I truly experienced the stock suspension performing to it’s full potential.

With that said, this combination of suspension components provides very good ride quality. No, it’s not completely velvety smooth, but it is very comfortable for even long drives and it has the added benefit of changing directions quickly. Cornering and braking are both dramatically improved with very little perceived body roll.

If you wanted to have the best of both worlds, I would use the same suspension components, but stick with a smaller wheel and tire combo like a 16″ or 17″. That said I’m perfectly happy with the results!

So there I was, minding my own business, driving the Lexus from point A to point B. When I arrived at my destination, I turned off the ignition, and as it had done thousands of times before the power antenna began reeling back into the rear fender, but then it happened… I heard a horrible CLUNK, then a persistent grinding sound that simply wouldn’t go away.

I tried turning the ignition back on, hoping that the antenna might have only slipped on one tooth and cycling it would get everything back on track, but it was not to be. With the antenna stuck just a little past half way erected, I removed the trunk interior panel that covers the power antenna motor, and disconnected the power.

On another, completely different occasion I was pulling out into traffic on a fairly busy four lane street. The maneuver I was attempting was a left hand turn which requires crossing the two lanes which I can see fairly well, entering the oncoming traffic in the furthest two lanes, which are obscured by a neatly manicured and lanscaped island.

As you might imagine, this is usually a bit of a hail mary manuever and you want to do it as quickly as possible so that you have the chance to react if you happen to be pulling into traffic which you couldn’t see. I pulled across the first two lanes, reving to the redline in first gear, and quickly looking over my shoulder to check for traffic as I merge and briskly pull the shifter down into second gear. Only, this time was… different… I engaged second gear, but the shifter traveled WELL past the point it should have then felt limp and.. well.. broken!

After a minor panic attack, and some experimenting with shifting in and out of various gears, I discovered that the odd numbered gears (1,3,5) still engaged normally. But, the even gears (2,4,Reverse) had this same “limp” feeling, though I was still able to engage them.

I drove the car for many, MANY months with both of these problems but I’ve recently remedied both of them as part of my “Late Model Restoration” project. Here’s how.

Power Antenna

This one was easy, replacing the power antenna mast is both inexpensive and easy. I bought a replacement mast on eBay for under $20, and replaced it in about an hour. It would have taken less time if I had paid closer attention to the directions and installed the outside decorative nut in the right order. Ohh well!

The result, however, is well worth the effort. The shifter feels perfect now. Very positive tactile feedback, I know when I’ve engaged a gear. It’s easily “better than new” with the solid bushings and the factory fresh cable. While replacing the cable may not have been expensive (it’s a > $200 part) and not immediately necessary it’s worth the peace of mind knowing that it’s new and I’ve got at least another 18 years before I have to worry about it again.

Stay tuned for more of the Late Model Restoration, the suspension is next, and here’s a little teaser!

A common affliction to older cars is that the headlights begin to become dull, or yellow over time. This had happened to our 1992 Lexus ES300 pictured above. To be fair, the passenger headlight is a little cloudier since I had done a little bit of wet sanding before I took the photo, more on that later though.

I am going to describe the process I used to restore the yellowed and oxidized headlights, but with that comes the disclaimer. This process is not advised, I can not be held responsible if you void your warranty, destroy your headlights, starve your dog, or burn down your house. Your mileage may vary..

There are lots of “all-in-one” headlight restoration kits which have different materials and chemicals in them, and they all will work to varying degrees. However, I wanted to take the DIY approach. There are many other how to’s and lots of opinions about how this is done, I chose to wet sand to remove the oxidation then spray a few coats of clear and wet sand and polish again til nice and shiny. Here’s how I did it.

First, I wet sanded the lens with a 1500 grit paper. I used a spray bottle filled with water and maybe a quarter of an ounce of dish soap, and made sure to keep the lens nice and wet while sanding. Sand just enough to get rid of the yellowing, and get a uniform surface.

The next step was to spray on three coats of Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel from an aerosol can. I followed the instructions of doing two light coats, then one medium wet coat, each coat separated by 10 minutes.

Then, I put two sheets of 2000 grit paper in a water and dish soap solution to soak overnight. After letting the paper soak and the paint dry over night, I used the same wet sanding process on the clear coat with the 2000 grit paper. I sanded until almost all of the orange peel was gone, but left it a teensy bit wavy so I had some material to remove in the last step.

In the last step I used some Meguiars Ultimate Compound for buffing. This buffed away the last of the orange peel and left a nice smooth shiny surface.

That’s all there is to it, and here’s the results!

I’ve written a fair bit about my 1967 Cadillac but I haven’t said much about my daily driver. Every day, I drive a 1992 Lexus ES300 to work and back. The car actually belongs to my wife, but since she’s usually home with the kids the van stays with her. The Lexus is actually quite rare since it has a manual transmission. They only put 5 speed manuals in the Lexus ES300 for a few years, and only a very small fraction of the production numbers were offered this way.

This car has been relatively trouble free, in the nearly five years we’ve owned it I’ve had to replace some leaky valve cover gaskets, install a pair of rebuilt cylinder heads due to leaking valve stem seals, replaced a clutch, water pump, battery and power steering pump. For it’s age that’s pretty good.

However the tires (which we bought when we bought the car) are getting to be just about bald, not to mention that they’re starting to crack due to age. Worse than that, the suspension bushings have been subjected to oils and other agents which have caused them to break down. There are also a number of other little issues which need to be addressed just to dress the car up a bit and make it more usable (and safe) as a daily driver.

So, thus begins project “late model restoration”. I’m going to address all of the serious mechanical issues, as well as make a few improvements so I can take pride in the car. That last part is key, because I keep entertaining the idea of selling the car, but if I’m being honest we can’t afford to replace the car right now, and there isn’t really anything wrong with it that can’t be easily remedied!

The first step was to wash the poor thing for the first time in many months, and repair the broken power antenna. Stay tuned here to watch the progress. You can consider the image above the “before” picture.

I have had a great interest in cars for much of my life, it has been a means of freedom to me. I am a little prejudice when it comes to brands when it comes to vehicles, and you can tell what I prefer by looking at the makes of the cars I have owned in my short life. I have had a ’91 Honda civic, ’92 Lexus, and ’06 Honda odyssey.

My mother’s history of cars haven’t been all that grand. She had an Ford escort when I was little and due to not changing a belt the engine was destroyed, sadly from then on my entire family got a bitter taste in their mouth from that experience. Then my mom had a four door VW rabbit, while my father drove a GTI. Mom’s car was named Tweetie as it was yellow and just a sweet little car, while my father’s was named Thumper as it was a fast car and when he shifted there was a bit of thumping as he shifted hard and fast.

The next car was a Sunbird and it was a tired, tired car. My mom bought it from my father’s girlfriend at a steal but honestly the mistress of the hour should have paid her to take it off her hands. I remember the roof was only foam and would shed every time we got into it, and a pen was the shifter. My mom needed a car, only for a short while as my mother finally left my father and relocated to be closer to her family.

The next family car was a Toyota Corona and I would spend my days sitting in the car pretending to drive, pretend shifting in the driver’s seat. I just imagined driving for a long time and merely stopping to have an adventure where ever the road led me. Then my mom got an old Honda Accord, and we were all so proud of her. It was a fantastic car that lasted for 7/8 years, turned out she got the one year of Accord that wasn’t that great and when it died, it died. They didn’t release that car in Japan which meant replacement engines were incredibly expensive.

By that time I was figuring out what my next car would be as my ’91 civic hatch back simply didn’t feel all that adult. I sold it to my mother for a steal and bought myself my 92 Lexus. The civic took care of my mom for six months then began to putter and act up then we helped her shop for her current car, a Nissan Sentra. The husband fixed the civic which was renamed Put-Put as it became my little sister’s. Put put was just traded in for a Accord coupe as my sister was craving more horse power and something with a/c.

That is my current car history, nothing compared to my husbands, but three cars fit me and I love to do the long haul with cars. I also get emotionally attached so there is no reason to replace or trade cars all that often for me. I think one of the reasons my husband loves me is because we can talk about cars and have a debate as he is open to almost any and all makes and models, while I tend to lean toward the Japanese cars as they have been fantastic to both myself and my family. Hey, if it isn’t Japanese or German, my family has little to no interest. Terrible but true.

This Labor Day weekend I finally put the finishing touches on my wife’s Lexus ES300. You see, about 5 weeks earlier I had started the seemingly simple task of removing the cylinder heads, and replacing them with a rebuilt pair I had practically stolen from a seller on eBay.

The goal of course, was to fix the valve stem seal leak(s) and what I thought was a valve cover leak “once and for all”. Suffice to say there were some complications and unanticipated distractions during the several weekends it took to get it done.

The result? I’ve replaced the two broken motor mounts I found, got the pretty new heads installed, replaced the timing belt, installed new spark plugs, and replaced the master and slave cylinders for the hydraulic clutch. The car is running much better, and no longer billows a big blue cloud of smoke when being started up.

However, the passenger side axle still has a broken CV boot which I have a replacement for, but may not get to for another couple weekends and…. The oil leak I had assumed was the valve cover gaskets turns out to have been something else. At the moment I’m suspecting the oil pan gasket, I’m hoping to fully diagnose it and possibly tackle the replacement next weekend. I’m going to take this weekend to relax!