FRESH LEGS
GUIDO’S CHEAP & CHEERFUL SOARER/LEXUS LOSES ITS AIR SUSPENDERS
WE’VE HAD a few kays roll by since we last did an update on Captain Cheap & Cheerful, a ka my $ 3250 Soarer. It’s a 1991 UZZ31vari ant, which means it has all the whist les and bells, including touch screen, satnav (for Tokyo …), adjustable air bag suspension and a TV. It’s t he only car of four I have on club plates that I’ve actually used for a surprising number of cruises, which says something about how easy it is to live wit h.
These things were a popular grey import back in the late nineties and this example, like a lot of t hem, was rebadged as a Lexus SC400 because the dealer involved reckoned t hey could get a bit more for it with the prestige brandon board. I’m a little tempted to return t he Soarer badging, as I much prefer the distinctive Griffin logo.
Despite having 350,000 km on theo do, the 4.0 lt 32 valve V 8 is pretty well perfect, running sweetly and using only a miniscule amount of oil. It did however have the starter motor give up the ghost, and that was a pig of a job to replace as it’s hidden at the back of the vee in the powerplant, under all the induction plumbing.
The transmission has been getting a bit gradual to pickup drive at the start of the day, but a recent service seems to have cheered it up. It’s still slow, but it works fine. The big relief was t hat Mick at Glenlyon gave it a clean bill of health. You can get used replacements pretty cheap( around $600), but I could do without the grief at the moment.
Next job under the bonnet will be the cam timing belt. I’m unsure when it was last done, however I’m told the top end on the pre-V V T-I engines is designed as an -interference set-up, which hopefully means there shouldn’t be valves trying to hammer through pistons if the belt does suddenly let go.
Looking through the online resources at Soarer Central( which are very good ), it’s