Life pro tip* Rent two sets of spring compressors and use all 4 compressors on each spring. That way, if one slips, you still have 3 others that are holding.
Quick tip, in case no one mentioned this in the comments. Don't mark cam bolts (or anything spherical) using two markings that are 180° off from one another, because now you've introduced to possible positions. Rather, do just one - or if you must do two or more, make them impossible to be ambiguous. (in the case of two, any combo other than 180 degs)
Lower control arms, forward castor rod and cam adjuster mount, lower shock mount bolt and any other rubber bush mount except the upper control arms (no access) MUST be tensioned at loaded resting ride height, otherwise the rubber will be pre-loaded in the WRONG rotation. One needs a four post car hoist to do this correctly. Ball joint is supposed to move like that, if doesn't, or it clicks it's broken, yours is fine for now.
I preloaded one wheel at a time with a bottle jack, torqued all necessary fittings and had no issues, measured equal distance from guard lip to wheel centre on all 4 wheels.
The front most bolt of the strut bar is most often rusted in place and is a nightmare to get out. You can also put the front bolt in strut bar when reassembling and then take a large adjustable or other wrench on the flat of the strut bar then twist the strut bar to get the bolts go into the lower control arm.
I really enjoyed this video! Great editing and quality. I plan on doing this to my 2000 ls400 in the next few weeks can’t wait to see the video of the rear aswell as that’s a plan of mine aswell!
Hello JJ, I will be VERY INTERESTED in your appraisal of the KYB shock ab. I went down the aftermarket KYB shock road about 12 years ago.....I will tell you the full story later....I feel sure our stories will intersect fully!!!! Cheers from Sunny Australia
@@WarpedsmacI don’t, if you have anything to pass along that’d be awesome! I’ve been using LS400 service PDFs as reference for orientation and torques. I’m using KYB struts and mounts along with genuine boots/bump stops. We’ll see how long the KYB parts last then replace with genuine
Happy to Alex. A post from the Lexus LS400 club described the following procedure to make the KYB shock ab. perform correctly. Many users of KYB have had hard riding after installation caused by "ram lock-up" where the moving ram rod binds against the valve body because it is not aligned during installation. The solution KYB offers in their responses on the club forum: Do not jack up the car. Do this to both at the front shock abs. at once. 1. Loosen the three nuts on the top bearing plate, check that the entire assembly can move (this may be difficult) DO NOT REMOVE THE NUTS. 2. Loosen the middle nut on the shock ab. ram make sure it cannot come right off; unscrew only one or two turns so that the ram is clearly loose. DO NOT REMOVE THE NUT. 3. Get two people and provide as much weight as poss. to bounce the car to get maximum travel of the ram into and out of the valve body of the shock ab. Bounce about 10 times. Allow the car to resettle. 4. Re-tighten all nuts to spec. torque. 5. Test drive. It has been my experience with KYB that the rubber eyelet bushing at the bottom will distort badly within about 3 months...it may be a good maintenance point to check the shape of these bushings. Cheers from sunny Australia!!!@@AlexDavidson12
Just bought my Celsior in December. Dude test driving it is hitting pot holes and man holes at 100km/hr... I swear my upper ball joint is worn too much now.... any ways. Great car. Great video.
27:12 Just got done with doing the spring compression… I agree that’s the worst part of the job along with having to cut out the seized sway bar link nuts. I installed OEM struts instead of kyb excel G and it was frustrating because I had to keep recompressing the springs to twist and properly align the shock tower mounts in order to correctly fit in with the rest of the suspension.
Really easy to get a small amount of rust in the hole where the wheel speed sensor goes. It gets into the teeth of the reluctor and the wheel speed sensor can’t count accurately because of it. This will cause vsc.
I’m about to replace the tie rods (inner and outer), sway bar links, lower ball joints, and lower control arms on my LS400 and your video helps a lot. I wish I’m this calm as you when fixing car haha. Nice Celsior, though.
Don't worry JJ you did it right; the mount does not hold nor flex the rubber, rubber bush is purely for vibration isolation, many upper control arms of other cars have no rubber at all.@@JJinMotion
I'm about 75% done ordering parts for doing this on both ends. Except I went with having Megan rear arms instead of OEM since I found a good deal and I'm already on BC's vice factory air.
Word of caution- your jack stand is in the wrong place. It should be further in and under the reinforced area of the underbody. Someone did the same thing on mine and it bent the body seem which created rust.
Just did this and i have no clue how to get rid of the abs,vsc off, etc. warning lights. i disconnected the battery, drained capacitors, but the warning lights eventually came back on.
@@JJinMotion I ordered front struts from Amayama for my 2002 LS430. Fast shipping and three times cheaper than buying the same parts from dealership in Canada where I live. Thanks again.
@@khmercoolalien Heck yeah!! It's wild how much cheaper some of there parts are. Was everything available? Amayama had all of the front suspenion parts for me, but only a few of the rear for the LS400 / Celsior
Wow, that must've cost a quart of million dollars. Can you tell me where you ordered them because I'm finding teh lexus site is no longer making a lot of parts.
I got all the front suspension components from Amayama.com, as well as a few parts from the rear there. The rest of the rear was sourced from my dealer, lexuspartsnow.com, and Partsouq.com. It's certainly not cheap, but amayama is way better than any other source in terms of cost
No, I think that’s going to be diff bushings and hopefully some of the rear knuckle bushings. I’ll get it sorted out eventually and definitely post a video about it
Oh no. Never use an impact wrench on a spring compressor. The shock of the impact will cause fatigue of the tool and if it fails under pressure it is deadly.
@@JJinMotion at 1:33 in the video top left hand of the video with all of your parts on the cardboard is a single bushing. Is that for the front? What is it called?
Life pro tip* Rent two sets of spring compressors and use all 4 compressors on each spring. That way, if one slips, you still have 3 others that are holding.
Quick tip, in case no one mentioned this in the comments. Don't mark cam bolts (or anything spherical) using two markings that are 180° off from one another, because now you've introduced to possible positions. Rather, do just one - or if you must do two or more, make them impossible to be ambiguous. (in the case of two, any combo other than 180 degs)
Lower control arms, forward castor rod and cam adjuster mount, lower shock mount bolt and any other rubber bush mount except the upper control arms (no access) MUST be tensioned at loaded resting ride height, otherwise the rubber will be pre-loaded in the WRONG rotation. One needs a four post car hoist to do this correctly. Ball joint is supposed to move like that, if doesn't, or it clicks it's broken, yours is fine for now.
I preloaded one wheel at a time with a bottle jack, torqued all necessary fittings and had no issues, measured equal distance from guard lip to wheel centre on all 4 wheels.
@letsbefrank6269 Perfect. Cheers from LS400 owner Australia
The front most bolt of the strut bar is most often rusted in place and is a nightmare to get out. You can also put the front bolt in strut bar when reassembling and then take a large adjustable or other wrench on the flat of the strut bar then twist the strut bar to get the bolts go into the lower control arm.
I really enjoyed this video! Great editing and quality. I plan on doing this to my 2000 ls400 in the next few weeks can’t wait to see the video of the rear aswell as that’s a plan of mine aswell!
Awesome! Thank you! Rear coming soon, ran into a problem that meant I had to order more parts
Literally just bought a ‘98 Celsior, thankful to find your channel. Cheers
Heck yeah! Glad to have you here
I did this on my celsior before I lowered it. The best thing you can do for a car this age
O.E.M. "Oh-E-M" is the acronym for Original Equipment Manufacturer.
Finally about to do the same to my 93 LS400
Hello JJ, I will be VERY INTERESTED in your appraisal of the KYB shock ab. I went down the aftermarket KYB shock road about 12 years ago.....I will tell you the full story later....I feel sure our stories will intersect fully!!!! Cheers from Sunny Australia
Will be sure to report back!
I’m putting KYB shocks on my ‘99 LS tomorrow. I’ll try to report back as well… Replacing some Unity all in ones, so I expect to be happy either way
Very good, do you know the installation info KYB has issued for the Excel G in LS400s?@@AlexDavidson12
@@WarpedsmacI don’t, if you have anything to pass along that’d be awesome! I’ve been using LS400 service PDFs as reference for orientation and torques. I’m using KYB struts and mounts along with genuine boots/bump stops. We’ll see how long the KYB parts last then replace with genuine
Happy to Alex. A post from the Lexus LS400 club described the following procedure to make the KYB shock ab. perform correctly. Many users of KYB have had hard riding after installation caused by "ram lock-up" where the moving ram rod binds against the valve body because it is not aligned during installation. The solution KYB offers in their responses on the club forum:
Do not jack up the car. Do this to both at the front shock abs. at once.
1. Loosen the three nuts on the top bearing plate, check that the entire assembly can move (this may be difficult) DO NOT REMOVE THE NUTS.
2. Loosen the middle nut on the shock ab. ram make sure it cannot come right off; unscrew only one or two turns so that the ram is clearly loose. DO NOT REMOVE THE NUT.
3. Get two people and provide as much weight as poss. to bounce the car to get maximum travel of the ram into and out of the valve body of the shock ab. Bounce about 10 times. Allow the car to resettle.
4. Re-tighten all nuts to spec. torque.
5. Test drive.
It has been my experience with KYB that the rubber eyelet bushing at the bottom will distort badly within about 3 months...it may be a good maintenance point to check the shape of these bushings. Cheers from sunny Australia!!!@@AlexDavidson12
Looking forward to doing mine! I'll be installing BC racing coilovers but I want everything else OE/M.
Just bought my Celsior in December. Dude test driving it is hitting pot holes and man holes at 100km/hr... I swear my upper ball joint is worn too much now.... any ways. Great car. Great video.
Dang, sorry to hear that! Front suspension was a lot easier to do than the rear
27:12
Just got done with doing the spring compression… I agree that’s the worst part of the job along with having to cut out the seized sway bar link nuts. I installed OEM struts instead of kyb excel G and it was frustrating because I had to keep recompressing the springs to twist and properly align the shock tower mounts in order to correctly fit in with the rest of the suspension.
Really easy to get a small amount of rust in the hole where the wheel speed sensor goes. It gets into the teeth of the reluctor and the wheel speed sensor can’t count accurately because of it. This will cause vsc.
I’m about to replace the tie rods (inner and outer), sway bar links, lower ball joints, and lower control arms on my LS400 and your video helps a lot. I wish I’m this calm as you when fixing car haha. Nice Celsior, though.
Awesome!! Best of luck with that and glad it was helpful
For the second corner, looks like you torqued the upper control arm while the arm was hanging really low
Pretty sure I fixed it properly, but now you got me freaked out lol. I'll triple check it
Don't worry JJ you did it right; the mount does not hold nor flex the rubber, rubber bush is purely for vibration isolation, many upper control arms of other cars have no rubber at all.@@JJinMotion
"I'll put a link in the description" of the Hydraulic ball joint tool...?
I'm about 75% done ordering parts for doing this on both ends. Except I went with having Megan rear arms instead of OEM since I found a good deal and I'm already on BC's vice factory air.
Word of caution- your jack stand is in the wrong place. It should be further in and under the reinforced area of the underbody. Someone did the same thing on mine and it bent the body seem which created rust.
Good to know!
love your videos bro you help inspire me to keep going..thank you. I have a 05 lexus gs300 but plan on guying an ls soon
Hell yeah dude!! Glad to hear it
Find myself enjoying your content young man. Good show lad.
Just did this and i have no clue how to get rid of the abs,vsc off, etc. warning lights. i disconnected the battery, drained capacitors, but the warning lights eventually came back on.
Remove brake sensor and blow compressed air into the hole while rotating wheel to clean out any debris, wipe clean your sensor before reinstalling.
Thank you for this! I’m doing a the same thing on my 98 LS
Awesome! Good luck
Just subbed! i feel like our cars are in a similar state, so I'm looking forward to seeing more vids as I'm a new DIYer. Thanks for the content!
Awesome! Thank you
Great video. Planning to replace some parts of the front suspension of my 2002 LS430. Which supplier in Japan did you order the parts from?
I used amayama.com along with a mix of Partsouq.com and my dealer to get the unavailable parts
@@JJinMotion Many thanks.
@@JJinMotion I ordered front struts from Amayama for my 2002 LS430. Fast shipping and three times cheaper than buying the same parts from dealership in Canada where I live. Thanks again.
@@khmercoolalien Heck yeah!! It's wild how much cheaper some of there parts are. Was everything available? Amayama had all of the front suspenion parts for me, but only a few of the rear for the LS400 / Celsior
have you made a video on the inner and outer tie rods??
I didn’t replace those, no
Wow, that must've cost a quart of million dollars. Can you tell me where you ordered them because I'm finding teh lexus site is no longer making a lot of parts.
I got all the front suspension components from Amayama.com, as well as a few parts from the rear there. The rest of the rear was sourced from my dealer, lexuspartsnow.com, and Partsouq.com. It's certainly not cheap, but amayama is way better than any other source in terms of cost
Amazing video
What did you torque the upper control arm too?
did doing the rest fix the jerking or clunking? my 97 ls400 is doing the same thing and you’re the only i’ve come across with the same issue
No, I think that’s going to be diff bushings and hopefully some of the rear knuckle bushings. I’ll get it sorted out eventually and definitely post a video about it
My car is at 260k miles with the same suspension from 26 years ago , clunks alot specially from the front
How much those parts cost to you?where are you buy those parts?
I made a video on those questions: th-cam.com/video/IVeluux8Kh0/w-d-xo.html
Where are you finding all of these OEM parts? 🙏
Just published a video on this exact question! th-cam.com/video/Vdw-o3TREvo/w-d-xo.html
Oh no. Never use an impact wrench on a spring compressor. The shock of the impact will cause fatigue of the tool and if it fails under pressure it is deadly.
where did you order the parts ?
Amayama
nice
I watched the video just to see u skip through the part I was stuck on 😢
Bummer! What are you stuck on?
skrrt
Still not buyin it mate
@jjinmotion Did you use the single bushing you had purchased??. What is it called?
Which one are you referring to? The only individual bushings I have are for the rear
@@JJinMotion at 1:33 in the video top left hand of the video with all of your parts on the cardboard is a single bushing. Is that for the front? What is it called?
@@jacksinsel8798oh that’s the sway bar bushing, yes I did install it - you can see that later in the video
I have a 00 Imperial Jade Mica LS 400. I am re doing front suspension as well. Suspension needs a refresh