So this weekend, me and my father opened up the front end of the engine to get an idea of what parts are requiring replacement. Timing belt, bearings, tensioner have been ordered and are due arrival shortly.
It was throwing engine code 13 and 56, 13 being for an inconsistency in the cam sensor signals, while 56 was unheard of. The car came with a viscous drive fan (oil driven) which was replaced by electric fans by the previous owner, but he didn't by-pass the oil system which led the ECU to believe the engine had no fan thus not letting it rev above 2500 rpm in Park of Neutral, this is causing code 56. No oil in the system led to the oil pump for the fan running dry which caused a very bad grinding sound. Initially we thought the pulley bearings were shot, which they were, but it turns out the fan oil pump was causing the grinding noise.
The car has had the timing belt replaced, with a non genuine one, but the mechanic messed up the alignment of both the cams. We loosened the tensioner, slid out the belt from one pulley, aligned both the cams and tightened the belt up. This hopefully gets rid of Code 13.
Before Alignment:
After Alignment:
The distributor rotors were cracked, so these will be ordered along with the covers.
and we generally cleaned things up a bit:
Parts this car currently needs are the driveshaft couplers. they have cracked and cause vibration above 110 Km/h. The wheels are balanced and tires have been recently replaced. The steering rack D bushes need to replaced, where-ever the road banks, the car turns in that direction with the steering being centered. It is extremely excessive, on the motorway a slight bank caused the car to shift a whole lane in seconds. We changed the steering damper with a damper for the W140 S320 which was 5 times less expensive (to my surprise) than the Toyota one and was a direct fit. We hoped this would cure the swerving, but it did not.
I'am looking for shocks for this car, the front end sits high while the rear sits low. They are giving opposite feedback on different occasions, on a bump the whole car moves which feels like the shocks do not compress, where-as on short speed humps, the front end bounces like the shocks are very soft and the rear compresses a little harder than it normally should. If the road undulates, the front end will bounce up and then take time to come down, the rear moves in accordance to the tires. This is very nerve-racking.
More updates are due soon.
