My ass is whipped! Bought my wife a nice Lexus RX330 a while back and really like this car. The car developed a rattle under the hood a couple of weeks ago so I used a Red Neck Stethoscope (2 foot piece of pipe to my ear) and found the noise was in the front of the engine. Dual over head cams on a transverse mounted engine with this sound could be a cam bearing or ???? I tell her just drive it (locally) and tell me if it gets worse. it did lol! She pulls in last week said the car is making loud noises and smells wierd. I go check and see water dripping under the car and figure water pump. Turns out I was right, no problem I have been around cars my whole life and have built several engines from hat to pan. The car is out of warranty with over 110,000 miles so I check prices and looks like almost $1,500 to repair! HELL NO I say and go buy a new water pump for $80 =). Im a happy camper, done lots of water pumps... WRONG! Damn it took me about 12 hours!!! Jack the car up, remove right front wheel and remove engine covers (to make your car look space age lol its still a V-6 internal combustion engine under that plastic!) remove power steering pump and AC belts. Remove power steering pump. Remove alternator brackets to get to the upper motor mount. Remove upper motor mount and support engine on jack. Remove harmonic balencer. Remove upper motor mount. Remove timing belt covers upper and lower (Uhhh Ohhhh!) remove timing belt!!! The water pump is driven off the engine timing belt!!! Remove front cam drives from engine requires taking off both valve covers to expose each cam so you can put a wrench in the center of the cam to hold it while loosening the bolt. Now dont screw up because while the timing belt is off the valves can and will hit the pistons and destroy the heads =). To get to the rear valve cover you have to remove the windshield wipers and then the valley pan underneath. Then the Throttle body for the fuel injection system must be removed and then you can get to the rear valve cover. Now you can remove the cam drive pulleys and remove the rear backing plate after removing the upper idler pulley and lower belt tension pulley and adjuster unit. Now its apart and I just say crap lol!!! Went back together faster than apart and the car purrs like a kitten. Ended up being $300 in parts so I saved a little over a grand. Feel a little proud and stupid at the same time...... I guess I am a Red Neck LOL and proud of it!
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 01:45:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015