Another Improv . . . But This Was Not To Be

[Amskeptic]

I tried. I tried. I read a "how to" on the Lexus Forums (why do they get millions of views? ) about how to make the door locks work on my LS 400. My front ones have always been weak and sometimes refused to unlock the doors.

So I took off the California Walnut window switch consoles, the Memory Seat Position Board, the lights, the bells, the whistles that make up the Leather Door Panels and tossed them onto the back seat.

Then I wasted hours of my life removing the wire harness retention brackets, the silencer clips the molded vapor barriers, the Nakamichi 2-way + passive radiator speakers and the harnesses up to the tweeters, and the 9-wire connectors to the door latch assemblies, and the four pull-rods that emanate from the door latch assembly both hidden behind the window guide rail and nestled next to a NASCAR-worthy tube frame door impact barrier.

The removal of the latches was effected by unscrewing three punky little phillips screws, but getting that four-pull-rod-porcupine out of there was an insanely diabolical process. It landed, like all of my Lexus projects, on my desk . . . in a horrifying array of small pieces and springs and dropped little rubber bumpers and electro-switch revolving circuit board platters. One of the springs hit my lamp foil hard enough to dent it with an imprint:



Then the Lexus Mystique fell apart. The door lock actuator motor is none-the-different from a little RC car. In fact, $5.99 at Radio Shack. I did not have a ride to Radio Shack. I did not want one, the How To article in the Lexus forum promised that cleaning the carbon off the brushes and end cap would " increase the resistance through the motor so the load-limiting resistor would not get triggered prematurely". Yeah, OK, I am your idiot I am obeying your commands. See how clean it is? See that little brush to the right of the copper circle? You don't see the left one, cuz I broke it:



Fortunately, I had a high-quality Volkswagen Bosch Generator Brush. "Can I borrow some of you?" "Sure!"



I used a razor of course:



HOURS LATER MY GOD DON'T I HAVE A LIFE?? the new brush has been whittled down to the size of a gnat's contact lens, with the properly sized groove to just snap into the spring-loaded holder:



What used to be a paper clip is now the Brush Spring Retention Device to allow me to reassemble the now-carbon-less motor:



By 10:30PM, I even got the door latch assembly back together:



The door remained wedged shut all night against the Law Firm:



Today, I reassembled and tested. No dice.
Tried the exact same repair on the right door assembly without breakin nuthin neither. No dice there.
I listened the resident guru on the million-member Lexus Forum and it didn't help a damn thing.
Pah. Forum gurus . . . . .
ColinLookingForNewMotors

[airkooledchris]

Too bad, especially with such a terrific effort to document along the way. Still better than throwing new parts at it when this *could* have worked.....

I like the early bay die cast model with working(?) slider!

[glasseye]

Another fascinating trip into the World O' Colin.

I gotta question, though, regarding the propped-closed door and the Law Firm. The adjacency of those two components is critical, given the need to have the stick wind up propped precisely against a clapboard junction at one end and the recess in the Lexus' door on the other.

Did you park the Lexus in accordance with the length of the stick? Or did you cut the stick to fit the parking job?

I see that your rear wheel is up on the sidewalk - an inconceivable error in normal circumstances. That leads me to conclude that did the former. ie, you parked very carefully. Perhaps several times.

[Jivermo]

The bus begs me to work on it. The Lexus spits on my shoes.

[hambone]

silk purse/pig's ear

[Amskeptic]

Did you park the Lexus in accordance with the length of the stick? Or did you cut the stick to fit the parking job?

Laid the stick on the ground Pre-Park, saw where the door needed to be ... (to be continued below)

I see that your rear wheel is up on the sidewalk - an inconceivable error in normal circumstances. That leads me to conclude that did the former. ie, you parked very carefully. Perhaps several times.

(continued from above) ... and pulled the car up where the stick lined up with the door handle. The sidewalk is flush with the driveway til the bend where it elevates, so the tires never took a hit.

Isn't it interesting how the beginnings of knowledge somehow begets a contempt? This has happened to me more than once.

When I was three years old, I remember vividly the magic of automotive motion. I understood nothing of it. I could see the engine compartment of our Lincoln from the vantage point of where I sat astride the center arm rest at every gas stop where the "gas attendant" (1) checked the oil, as we traversed the entire country in February 1963. It had a lot of complicatedity stuff and hoses and wires and stuff in there. I was amazed that each "gas attendant" somehow knew where the dipstick was. I remember growing fond of that engine because it just kept doing its thing, towing our 23-window bus the whole way without complaint. The sounds and sensations of a new hushed 430 CID engine shifting through that automatic transmission onto highways and over passes with the just a little whine of the power steering pump was a budding automotive audiophile's delight. So were the magical red lights in the dashboard, the rotary knob with the red needle passing through letters I could not yet read in the climate control "module", the door lamps and underdash lamps that made the carpet glow, the chrome in the car at night was utterly fetching as it reflected off the curved windshield and the light thrown by the instrument cluster. It was all magical. Those interior designers found their mark in me.

I was not allowed to play with a damn thing in that car, but I sure wanted to. I knew there was a power trunk release knob, a door locks knob, a power antenna switch, power window switches, all chromed to brilliance, and the smell of cigarette smoke, new Lincoln leather, and the air-conditioner outlets, the ignition switch was in a "continental location" over on the left side of the steering wheel. It all *worked* and I did not know how. The "magic" mightily impressed me.

Now I can take a '62 Lincoln dash apart and re-string the rubber band that drives the needle across the AC Max/Min/Air/Floor/Vent/Low/High HT panel, and I have installed the bulb in the housing that provides that indirect lighting on the satiny stainless steel dial and how painfully do I now know exactly how the stupid trunk release vacuum circuit works . . . and now I only remember the "magic" as I struggle to keep it working.

This Lexus does not have the earliest open-psyche-new-to-life-penchant-for-dumb-awe associations that came with the Lincoln. It was adult trepidation that greeted my first understanding that I would have to go in past the Japan's Finest Luxury Car 1992 Interior Ambience and struggle with the plastic clips and connectors and tiny gauge wires and god-knows-what-problems spelled out in the 2,000 page two volume workshop manual. This past weekend broke the trepidation and it broke the surface magic of parts that did things beyond my knowledge. I have handled the dumb little motors, tested the cheesy little switches, reassembled the bits of foam tape and stupid little applications of putty and the dumb little screws eating into the plastic, and it was all complicatedly plasticatedishness, and when I buttoned up the car, I was irritated with my new understanding of this car.

So much for awareness.
Colin

1. "gas attendant" . . . a person hired to pump gasoline in your car, check your oil, and wash your windshield, available for tire pressure checks - phased out of existence circa 1980

[glasseye]

(continued from above) ... and pulled the car up where the stick lined up with the door handle. The sidewalk is flush with the driveway til the bend where it elevates, so the tires never took a hit.

Isn't it interesting how the beginnings of knowledge somehow begets a contempt? This has happened to me more than once.

I wasn't so much concerned with tire damage as I was with aesthetics. I hate, loathe and despise those who can't or won't align their vehicles with the little white lines in parking stalls. My intention was to definitively exclude you from that group.

As for knowledge and contempt, I agree. On first owning a Mercedes Benz, ("Frito", a Sprinter van) I luxuriated in feelings of "Now, finally, I own a properly-engineered vehicle, designed by the best engineers in the business and manufactured from only the best of materials."

Wrong. Now, five years later, knowledge has increase, along with contempt. It's a global product, designed and built to a budget by bean-counters, not quality-focused engineers.

Point in fact: Changing the charge air filter in Frito necessitates removal of the windshield washer reservoir and some of its associated plumbing. Including the pump. This process takes half an hour and requires several tools. A new filter (quite large, admittedly) is $30

Changing the charge air filter in my wife's Hyundai Tucson necessitates the release of two spring clips, requires no tools and takes about one minute. The filter (also quite large) costs $7

Fortunately, both vehicles are delightful to drive.